The GOP's War on Obamacare Is Screwing Up Its War on Abortion
The Supreme Court was eager to revoke reproductive rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in part so that Republican governors and legislatures would be free to come up with ever-more-draconian methods to force pregnant people to give birth against their will. Red states have answered the call and passed laws that treat pregnant people as second-class citizens, depriving them not just of bodily autonomy but also access to life-saving medical care. To call it a “race to the bottom” undersells the depths to which theocratic state governments are willing to sink to in their zeal to control women and girls.
One such state is Wyoming, which recently passed the “Life is a Human Right Act,” one of the most extensive abortion bans in the country to date. (“Life” in this case doesn’t refer to the mother, of course, but the zygote inside of her leaching nutrients out of her body. And “a human right” refers only to that zygote’s time in the womb—the second it’s born, the fundamentalist Christians who claim to care so much about its humanity will suddenly find a reason not to provide it with a clean environment, a decent education, or even a school lunch.) The law, which was supposed to go into effect last weekend, bans abortions in almost all cases except for rape or incest (which, according to the Associated Press, have to be reported to the police to be deemed as valid) or to save the life of the mother. It calls for criminal penalties of up to five years in prison or a $20,000 fine for people who violate it. (Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon also signed a separate measure banning abortion pills in the state.)
But on Wednesday, the Wyoming ban was temporarily blocked by District Court Judge Melissa Owens. The reason? Conservatives in Wyoming pushed through a state constitutional amendment in 2012 that guarantees a right to “health care access.” The amendment reads: “Each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions.” It’s a clause Republicans added because they didn’t like… the Affordable Care Act. Indeed, law professor Quinn Yeargain reports that the ballot measure passed by Wyoming voters in 2012 to amend the Constitution was sold as necessary to prevent “undue governmental infringement” on health care decisions.
A similar story is playing out in Ohio. Voters there also strengthened state constitutional protections for health care access in response to the ACA, and a judge has temporarily blocked Ohio’s abortion ban because of the constitutional provision.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/wyoming-gop-abortion-ban-obamacare/
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