Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the Supreme Court’s four liberal justices to strike down a Louisiana law that would have severely restricted access to abortion.
The Washington Post reports:
The Supreme Court on Monday provided a victory for abortion rights activists, striking down a restrictive Louisiana law that would have left the state with only one abortion clinic.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the court’s liberals in the 5 to 4 decision. It was a blow to conservatives who had hoped for a dramatic change in the court’s abortion jurisprudence in the first case heard by a court reinforced by President Trump’s two conservative appointees.
Instead, Roberts said the Louisiana law could not stand given the court’s 2016 decision to to overturn a similar Texas law in 2016. “The legal doctrine of stare decisis requires us, absent special circumstances, to treat like cases alike,” Roberts wrote in concurring with the decision. “The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana’s law cannot stand under our precedents.”
Roberts ‘s vote was all the more striking because he dissented in the Texas case. He said he continues “believe that the [Texas] case was wrongly decided.” But he said the question was whether to “adhere to it in the present case.”
It was perhaps the most dramatic example of Roberts’s new role as the pivotal member of the court, and indicated that while he supports restrictions on abortion, he is unready at this point to overhaul the court’s jurisprudence supporting the right of a woman to choose the procedure.
A side note: in states where protestors have refused to wear face masks, some have chanted, “My body, my choice!”
Ironic. Do the anti-maskers support abortion rights?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank goodness for Chief Justice Roberts, a Bush appointee, that believes in the rule of law and not personal or political bias.
It’s good news for now, but the opponents are winning the game, as their vile shenanigans of using COVID policies to attack women who are in need of health care demonstrate. These 5-4 rulings do not give me long-term hope, especially since the appellate courts are being filled with young zealots who could care less about jurisprudence. They will keep the legacies of Thomas, Alito and Kavanaugh alive for decades to come.
OK, Greg guess I’m not keeping up. Pls indulge me by explaining this: “as their vile shenanigans of using COVID policies to attack women who are in need of health care demonstrate.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/arkansas-coronavirus-abortion_n_5eeba27ac5b6413b964e4caa
https://www.dispatch.com/news/20200410/federal-restraining-order-on-ohiorsquos-covid-19-abortion-ban-extended
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/17/837153529/after-texas-abortion-ban-clinics-in-neighboring-states-see-influx-of-patients
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2020/06/08/iowa-republicans-abortion-ban-proves-they-do-not-value-life/3172577001/
https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20200402/coronavirus-florida-pro-life-groups-pressure-desantis-to-close-abortion-clinics
https://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2020/apr/10/governor-bans-abortions-mississippi-claiming-need-/
https://www.ajc.com/news/state–regional-govt–politics/kemp-excludes-abortion-providers-from-legal-liability-protections/jSGdQfLhenP9lP5JeF2lyL/
And the Catholic Church is activating its minions to oppose use of fetal tissue to develop COVID vaccines.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/abortion-opponents-protest-covid-19-vaccines-use-fetal-cells
https://allongeorgia.com/georgia-state-politics/georgia-pro-life-group-wants-abortion-free-covid-vaccine/
https://www.newsweek.com/anti-abortion-groups-say-covid-19-vaccines-may-use-cells-human-fetuses-1509573
https://www.catholicregister.org/item/31622-will-a-covid-19-vaccine-be-linked-to-aborted-fetus
Lemme know if you need more info.
When a comment has many links, it automatically goes into moderation.
Response in moderation.
Today’s NYT has a great editorial on this: John Roberts is No Pro-Choice Hero
Anti-maskers only support the rights of their bodies. No one else deserves to have any control over their bodies unless their thoughts conform to the alt-right, tea party, anti-maskers that will always support Trump and vigilante justice.
To the Trumpsters, it is their way, slavery as a 2nd class citizen, or leave the country.
That is why Trump and his deplorable supporters want to be the lawmakers, the judges, the juries, and the executioners.
Voting Trump out in November is not going to change what those ignorant, racist, fascists think, and if Trump fails at starting the Civil War he has mentioned before, he will become their leader for the rest of his life tweeting (unless Twitter bans him from its site) and holding hate rallies and stirring his like-minded monsters into a tsunami of hate and destruction.
When Trump is gone, who will replace him as the Emperor of lies, racism, and hate?
Excellent response.
As to the beginning of your last sentence, I’m still wary that he will be gone. I was in the middle of experiencing the Duke Effect in Louisiana, when there was significant under-polling of his real voters, those who won’t admit what their true vote is and others just lying. There are many people who would never be public about their support of the Idiot, but will go through hell and high water to vote for him. That’s why polls showing a 50-38 percentage don’t encourage me. There are a lot of the 50% who will not show up and the missing 12% in that equation might well for him.
As to the part about replacements, that well is bottomless. Indeed, I’d bet a lot of money the members of the Lincoln Project will be busy nurturing them and undermining a potential President Biden about an hour or so after the results are known.
In a horse race, even the long-shot wins sometimes. Today, the Odds Shark, an online betting site, has the odds at 56.52-percent for Biden to win, and 46.51-percent for Trump. Those odds can change daily.
https://www.oddsshark.com/politics/2020-usa-presidential-odds-futures
I’m with you, Lloyd. I’ll do what I can, but I’m still nervous. When I look at my immediate world here in NE Ohio, I’m not encouraged by what I see, but I know I can’t extrapolate it out to the rest of the country. A good friend of mine who is a teacher in the most regressive part of Florida (what a horror show that must be!) is also scared. We need every one of the people who came out to protest to vote. Every one of them.
The GOP Trumplicans can only close polling booths to make it harder to vote for Democrats in the 21 states where they control the governor’s mansions, and the state legislatures.
That leaves 29 states that the Trumplicans do not control totally.
Party Control of State Governments
Republican-controlled governments 21
Democratic-controlled governments 15
Democratic governor/Republican-controlled legislature 8
Republican governor/Democratic-controlled legislature 4
Democratic governor/Split legislature 1
Republican governor/Split legislature 1
Total 50
The “blue” states have a relatively high number of electoral votes, which appear to be solidly behind the Democratic Party, at least on the national level, and which a Republican presidential candidate appeared likely to have to write off. States behind this blue wall lay generally in the Northeastern United States, and the West Coast of the United States, and included some of the Great Lakes states. In each of the 6 presidential election cycles prior to 2016, the Democratic Party had won 18 of these states (as well as the District of Columbia), totaling 242 of the necessary 270 votes need to win. The “big three” Democratic stronghold states include California, New York, and Illinois.
In 2018, 14 states were sold blue, 8 leaned blue, 10 were competitive, 5 leaned Red, and 13 were sold red.
And, Trump is currently trailing Biden in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona.
“President Donald Trump is trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in six crucial swing states – all of which Trump won in 2016 – according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released Thursday.
The poll found Biden ahead of Trump 47%-36% in Michigan, 49%-38% in Wisconsin, 50%-40% in Pennsylvania, 47%-41% in Florida, 48%-41% in Arizona and 49%-40% in North Carolina.
Narrow wins in those six states were crucial to Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton four years ago. He won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by less than 1 percentage point each in 2016. He won Florida by about 1 point, and Arizona and North Carolina by about 4 points.
The 2020 election is still more than four months away, but Trump’s chances of winning the Electoral College would become slim or impossible if even half of those states break for Biden.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/06/25/new-york-times-battleground-states-trump-biden-race/3256189001/
To win, Trump must pull of the biggest con of his life. The Russians might not be enough this time.
“Extrapolating out to the rest of the country”
The Catholic University of America’s independent student newspaper, the Tower, reported 6-12-2020, about an adjunct assistant professor in the University’s Busch school which is named after its funder, Tim Busch. (NCR on-line provides a bio for the wealthy benefactor of Catholic organizations.)
The article describes tweets which are racially offensive, one targeting Pres. Obama. The allegation is that the tweets were written by Prof. John Tieso. The screen shot in the article shows a photo, the name John Tieso, and the self-identifier, MAGA. Mr. Tieso was asked about the charges and his reply is included in the article.
Board members of CUA have a close relationship with Charles Koch. One of the board members, Bishop Lori, is a focus of Fr. Peter Daly’s article in NCR on-line, “I’m Done with the Knights of Columbus”.
Fr. Daly states, “The (K of C) invited Pres. Trump to use the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Wash. D.C. as a prop for a photo op for his political campaign.”
From the CUA site- “A National Research University in the Heart of the Nation’s Capital in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition….founded by the charter of Pope Leo XIII to be the national university of the Catholic Church of America….”
I would like to hear some more discussion here about anti- mask/ soc-distancing/ large-group-gatherings folk. WTH & where the hell are they coming from? . Even tho I’m in a blue state [NJ] which was hit hard by covid & only barely out from under [just starting Phase 2], I see them now. Even tho most of our venues have “masks reqd.” They are smug folk, aged 40’s-50’s. Waltz around w/ no mask, or it’s not over nose, or dangling at chin, & they want to chat you up sans PPE. They either have a political axe to grind or they’re just stupid.
When the pandemic hit hard in NYC, I moved out to Long Island and didn’t go back to the city for three months. The peak was past. I was in the city last weekend and everyone I saw was masked, even outdoors.
I live in the SF East Bay Area in California, and two weeks ago I went to pick up an order from a restaurant I went to at least once or twice a week before the pandemic. A month into the virus (I didn’t go anywhere during March), I started to call in orders and drive the 12 miles one-way to pick them up.
Two weeks ago, I arrived to pick up another call-in-order and saw the owner and her employee maskless behind the counter preparing take-out until they saw me and slipped on their masks. We’ve talked before and they know how serious I am about this virus and wearing masks.
Recently, that city in the East Bay allowed restaurants to start serving people sitting at tables outside that were spaced six feet apart, and there were three customers without masks sitting at those tables.
When I left, one maskless customer was waiting outside the door for me to leave with my order before he went in to pick his order up. There was a sign outside the door that said only one customer at a time could be inside to pick up or place orders.
I will not return to eat at that independent restaurant again until this is over if the virus ever goes away. I read yesterday that a new mutation of COVID-19 was discovered that is way worse than the strain that started this pandemic and that China reported a new strain of the flu that is a potential pandemic maker all by itself.
I have eaten in a restaurant once since the ban on dining was lifted. Only outdoor seating. All the employees of the restaurant wore masks. The diners–at tables spaced six feet apart–did not wear masks because you can’t eat with a mask on.
Everyone I saw in NYC was wearing masks, even people walking in the open air, even people on bikes and motorcycles.
That’s two recent wise votes for Roberts, along with the court’s progressive.
“Roberts is doing exactly what he has done in the past. He is avoiding issuing controversial decisions during a presidential election year. And he is also sending a message to conservatives to put better cases before the Supreme Court if they want to push the country rightward. As conservative activists have stacked the federal courts in recent decades, they’ve come to expect judges and justices who will robotically approve their arguments, no matter how sloppy or repetitive they are. Roberts is signaling that he won’t tolerate that…
“But Roberts isn’t about to overturn a recent precedent when the Louisiana law brought before the court in June Medical is exactly the same as the Texas law that appeared in Whole Woman’s Health. He is telling abortion opponents that they need to bring a new case based on a different law and not just expect a post-Kennedy court to rule their way on the exact same case.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/supreme-court-john-roberts-conservatives_n_5efa6b95c5b6acab2845d260
There is another aspect to Roberts. He is very concerned w/ preserving the public trust in SCOTUS as a neutral, balancing 3rd branch of govt. So he will shy away from decisions that make SCOTUS out to be a rubber stamp for the executive branch. This concern may cause him to regularly lean away from WH-promoted hot-button political issues, regardless of his conservative philosophical bent.
I think Roberts wants to preserve public trust in the Supreme Court. He also knows that Trump is a sociopath and doesn’t want the Court to be perceived as his toy. He is thinking of his place in history.
A person can hope Roberts cares more than Barr does about his own reputation and the court’s.
The decisions in the Espinosa and Kristin Biel cases will shed light on Roberts’ tie to Charles Koch.
Sadly, irony and hypocrisy are lost causes on the Trump devout. Calling it out is still important for the rest of us, if for no other reason than to reveal the depth of what we must overcome.
Diane, thanks for that afterthought [“A side note: in states where protestors have refused to wear face masks, some have chanted, “My body, my choice!”
Ironic. Do the anti-maskers support abortion rights?”]
This highlights a primary division underlying the supposed solid, loyal face of core Trumpistas. Many of them are libertarians. Those folks are generally against fed govt intruding in any way into individual choices. Rand Paul e.g. is supposedly for a natl ban on abortion, yet his nuanced position is better described as, “unless the populace is clearly majority against abortion rights, the issue should be left up to locals.” Classic libertarian. Then you have the Evangelical Trumpistas, who buy into the libertarian position only when it suits their agenda [e.g., school choice], yet support fed mandate overriding local druthers – when it suits their [warped “Biblical”] agenda.
Libertarians will be “anti-mask-wearing” because their interest is in individual rights; they don’t believe in the public commons. That is their ideology. Evangelicals will be “anti-mask-wearing” only because DJT supports parts of their agenda, like “religious freedom” & “anti-abortion”– they’ll don masks as soon as they sense their lives are threatened.
Expand beyond the twists of evangelical “ideology” and expound on the political beliefs/loyalties of the world’s largest Catholic laity, Knights of Columbus, formerly headed by the director of Norquist’s anti-tax campaign and, currently steered by Trump supporter/ former legislative aide to Jesse Helms.