When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, it claimed to be removing the judiciary from the abortion debate. In reality, it simply gave the courts a macabre new task: deciding how far states can push a patient toward death before allowing her to undergo an emergency abortion.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit offered its own answer, declaring that Texas may prohibit hospitals from providing “stabilizing treatment” to pregnant patients by performing an abortion—withholding the procedure until their condition deteriorates to the point of grievous injury or near-certain death.
The ruling proves what we already know: Roe’s demise has transformed the judiciary into a kind of death panel that holds the power to elevate the potential life of a fetus over the actual life of a patient.
That’s fair. I feel like at this point God himself could literally say “I’m making all that shit happen because you’re being massive dicks! Cut it out!” And they’d flat out ignore it. If I were God, I’d straight up smite anyone who said “If what I’m doing is wrong, then may God smite me where I stand!” And my response would be, “Bet.”