The GOP Is Running Its Anti-Abortion Playbook Against Voting Rights — and It’s Working
If you want to understand the terrible position that voting rights advocates find themselves in today, consider the position that supporters of reproductive rights faced not so long ago.
In 1992, Roe v. Wade survived a near-death experience — yet it also emerged severely weakened by the Supreme Court’s decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Casey stripped the right to an abortion of its status as a “fundamental” right, and embraced a new framework for abortion cases that was proposed to the Court by the Reagan administration.
Then, in 2007’s Gonzales v. Carhart, the Court went even further. Carhart held that lawmakers have “wide discretion to pass legislation in areas where there is medical and scientific uncertainty.” It was practically an invitation for anti-abortion groups to develop sham studies and to produce biased experts that would create “uncertainty” about whether certain abortion restrictions were medically justified.
More: The GOP is running its anti-abortion playbook against voting rights — and it’s working