Oklahoma, look, you are squandering ALL the good will the sexy new reboot of Oklahoma on Broadway gave you with this latest news. An Oklahoma judge has REFUSED to halt a ban on D&E abortions, the most common and safe second trimester abortion method. There is… NO MEDICAL REASON FOR THIS KIND OF BAN. And it NEVER gets enforced because it has been proven time and again to be unconstitutional. As the Center for Reproductive Rights reports “Every other court that has reviewed similar bans has blocked them from taking effect, including in Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky and Texas. Just last month, the Supreme Court let stand a lower court’s decision finding an identical ban in Alabama unconstitutional.”
OK so, what’s going on here?? Articles say this is a rogue move by a judge, but we consider it part of a particularly insidious trend. You see, we just have to KEEP ON rearguing cases that WE’VE ALREADY WON! You see, Whole Woman’s v. Hellerstedt ruled that TRAP laws like admitting privileges (which means that doctors at clinics had to have special privileges at hospitals) were unconstitutional. Yet states KEEP trying to pass admitting privilege laws being all like “Well see HERE we put a different comma, so this is a different law.” I mean, there’s a similar law in Louisiana that has potential to be reviewed by the Supreme Court. Y’all JUST DID THIS! WHY DO WE NEED TO FIGHT THIS AGAIN!?!
This is ALSO what they keep doing with these “6-weeks” total bans. They say they’re trying to redefine viability (you know, with no new information or anything), but they’re really just testing the fences. And this shit is scary cuz it means that even IF we win at the Supreme Court (which AGAIN we DID with Whole Woman’s), they’re just gonna ignore it.
Sometimes it feels like a zero sum game. And while your activism is crazy-important and incredible, this is a great reminder that we have to VOTE VOTE VOTE and make sure people VOTE VOTE VOTE like crazy in 2020. It’s the biggest way we can fight this!
