Alito’s World

I should have mentioned this before, but if you’re at all interested in the issue I can’t recommend watching “The Last Abortion Clinic” strongly enough. (You can watch it free online by clicking the link.) It’s particularly valuable for those who think that giving the states virtually unlimited leeway to pass regulations while nominally maintaining Roe is no big deal. The documentary focuses on Mississippi–the state that provides the ultimate laboratory for the fiscal and cultural policies of the modern Republican Party–and the story is chilling and infuriating. The on-the-ground reporting identifies several important elements of Mississippi’s regulatory regime, which has driven all but one clinic out of business:

• As is particularly evident in a desperately poor state, many of the common regulations have a vastly disproportionate effect on poor women. This is particularly true of the 24-hour waiting periods, which in addition to having no useful purpose (unless you think that women are irrational and generally treat the decision to terminate a pregnancy casually), but make impose a severe burden on poor women (especially in rural communities), who often can’t afford to make two trips or pay for a hotel room.
• More importantly, however, the Casey regulations–while objectionable in varying degrees–are somewhat limited in their effects, because they don’t prevent abortion clinics from operating. Far worse are regulations like Mississippi’s, which impose various regulations on abortion clinics, which treat the abortion procedure differently than surgeries that are far more dangerous. If the Supreme Court gives the green light to such regulations, it would be virtually impossible for women who don’t have the connections to get grey market abortions in hospitals to obtain one.
• Another interesting part of the documentary is the way Mississippi spends money that could be used to provide a useful service and instead funds “pregnancy crisis” centers. These centers provide no pre- or post- natal care, no contraception, and no rational sex education–just a few goods and mountains of pro-life propaganda. The vicious cycle of poverty among women in the Delta that this exacerbates is heartbreaking.

The documentary provides stark evidence that the legal standard we know Alito will apply from his Casey dissent–a minimalist reading of the “undue burden” standard, combined with a burden of proof that would not only make creative regulations more difficult to challenge in court but would have the perverse effect of making their grossly disproportionate effects on poor women a point in favor of their constitutionality–will essentially return many states to the pre-Roe status quo, where safe, legal abortions were unavailable for most poor women. Whether he would overturn Roe formally or not is almost beside the point, and no supporter of reproductive rights should even consider supporting his confirmation.

…good to see at least some Dems aren’t rolling over.

…more from Abortion Clinic Days.