It was a blatant, partisan and corrupt Supreme Court term. From abortion cases still lingering to the dark future of marriage equality and gender confirmation for minors, here's a quick recap of what this term should have brought to a close.
Pregnancy abortion case still unresolved
Chief Justice John Roberts and his conservative colleagues gave Republicans a temporary treat of both. FDA v. Hippocratic Medical Alliance and Idaho vs. United States Excluded from schedule.
After the overthrow Roe vs. Wade Two years ago, the Republican Party suffered election defeat after election defeat thanks to abortion-motivated voters. Roberts and his fellow conservatives have taken a political hot potato away from Donald Trump just months ahead of a presidential election in which abortion is already a major issue. But the procedural rulings in both cases mean that the real issues before the court — access to mifepristone, the ability to mail abortion pills under the Comstock Act, and the fate of emergency abortion care in a state hostile to abortion — remain unresolved. . Alive in federal court.
This gives Republicans time to send a message about the disaster. roeThe twist comes as we prepare to continue the carnage after this election season. It also allows conservatives on the court to send the message that despite the disintegration: roeThey're not that extreme about abortion after all. Because look at these two victories for abortion rights!
As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted in her opinion, it doesn't matter. Idaho vs. USAThe three dissenting justices gently supported the “personhood” of the fetus and the ability of states to override federal law in the EMTALA case.
The gradual spread of corruption scandals
This semester's report exposes how conservative judges and their wives engaged in various forms of bipartisanship and financial conflicts of interest.
Between Harlan Crow acting as a financial supporter for Justice Clarence Thomas' family and Mary-Ann Alito secretly auditioning for the show. The Real Housewives of PotomacThe court is an embarrassment. The fact that Roberts and his fellow conservatives feel out of Congress' reach is a warning sign about the state of our democracy and the authoritarianism that is knocking at our doorstep.
Warning shot for same-sex marriage equality
While we're dealing with the alarm bells, the court has issued a major ruling on marriage equality. State Department vs. MunozImmigration case heralds rollback (or complete reversal) of marriage rights Overgeppel vs. Hodges.
Support for marriage equality among conservatives continues to decline as their exaggerated moral fears about “wokeness” increase. This leads to a proliferation of drag bans and book bans designed to do little more than sell gender conformity, as Lisa Needham recently wrote: Rewire News Group.
It also underscores the conservative rewriting of parental rights through a campaign to judicially redefine the family in a way that promotes and honors predominantly white, religiously orthodox patriarchal family norms, as seen in legal attacks on teen access to contraception under Title X and support for gender-affirming treatment bans.
Next semester is coming
As the court rules next, it will become increasingly clear how deep the conservative hypocrisy surrounding parental rights and gender affirmation protections for minors runs. United States vs. Scremeti next semester. Skrmeti The case involves three transgender teenagers, their parents, a doctor who provides gender-affirming treatment, and the Biden administration challenging the constitutionality of bans on gender-affirming treatment in Tennessee and Kentucky.
The court refused to address the issue of parental rights. SkrmettiInstead, it focuses attention on the sole issue of whether these bans violate the Equal Protection Clause as unlawful sex discrimination. But the current conservative parental rights framing will be omnipresent in these debates, both to spread breadcrumbs for conservatives and to continue to virtue-signal to conservative donors who fund this anti-woke campaign.
abalone roe It was, in effect, the beginning of a whole new power grab by the conservative legal movement. And if this term is any indication, it's just the beginning of a new wave of collaborative, authoritarian rule between Republicans and the Supreme Court.