Eight states in America only have one abortion clinic
are by and large taking a kicking in the culture wars, they continue to hold ground on one front: abortion. Americans increasingly accept the right of gays to adopt children and marry. But they have not moved in a similar direction on women’s right to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Abortion is as controversial as it was 46 years ago when the Supreme Court ruled it a constitutional right in.
More significant fresh evidence of Americans’ antipathy to abortion comes in the form of legislation. In the first three months of 2019, 12 states introduced bills that ban abortion from the moment a fetal heartbeat is detectable. That happens around the sixth week of pregnancy, two weeks after a missed menstrual period, when many women do not yet know they are pregnant. In other words, the bills come close to being total abortion bans.
Pro-lifers are nonetheless persisting with this campaign in the hope of getting the Supreme Court to weigh in on the issue. Excited by the court’s new conservative majority, champions of heartbeat bills hope the justices may use one to overturn—as Donald Trump promised them during his presidential campaign. As that suggests, Republican politicians are aware that merely dangling that prospect is a big vote-winner.
In reality, heartbeat bills are unlikely to achieve their promised goal. Mr Trump’s new justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, are conservative Christians who hate abortion. But neither appears ready to overturn the 46-year precedent thatrepresents. And Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative who has himself expressed scepticism aboutIt is more likely that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority will undermineby upholding stringent anti-abortion regulations.
The court is expected to rule soon on one such law passed in Louisiana. It requires abortion doctors to have “admitting privileges”, or the right to admit patients to a nearby hospital which many hospitals do not allow and which, elsewhere, has led to the widespread closure of clinics. In 2016 the Supreme Court struck down an almost identical law in Texas, saying it imposed an undue burden.
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