Governor Doug Ducey must be delighted with the abortion and gun-rights cases the Supreme Court will decide in June 2022, five months before the midterms.
However, there is sure to be a backlash the governor doesn’t recognize.
Ducey signed a bill banning abortion if the fetus has a genetic defect such as Down Syndrome. The law makes it a Class 6 felony to “perform an abortion solely because of a genetic abnormality.”
Paradigm Shift Craved by Conservatives
“The US Supreme Court is offering hints of the kind of paradigm shift conservatives have long craved by adding major abortion and gun-rights cases to its docket,” US Law Week’s Greg Stohr writes.
The Mississippi plaintiffs in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization argue that the states’ interests override “a prohibition of abortion or substantial obstacle to a woman’s effective right to elect the procedure before 23-24 weeks,” until the fetus is viable—or able to live outside the womb — wrote Justice Harry Blackmun, Roe’s author.
Carrying a Handgun in Public
As for guns, the Justices have agreed to hear the case New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Corlett.
The gun case challenges a New York law that requires people who want a license to carry a gun outside their homes to show “proper cause.”
Two men were denied licenses and the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, an NRA affiliate, sued New York.
“Proper cause” is a particular, special need for self-protection. The US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in Manhattan upheld the state law.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the Constitution protects gun owners who choose to bear arms at home but does not protect them from carrying guns elsewhere.
This decision could give anyone the right to carry a concealed handgun.
“Although the Court doesn’t say which justices vote to hear a case, by all appearances, the two newest members—Barrett and Justice Brett Kavanaugh—are making the difference,” Stohr writes.
He adds that Kavanaugh also joined an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas that described gun-carrying restrictions as imposing an “onerous burden on a fundamental right.”
Abortion Always Immoral, Barrett Says
As for abortion, Will Bunch, columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, writes:
“Over the last decade, the Supreme Court had refused to hear similar cases, but that was before the recent turnover at SCOTUS — including the arrival of Kavanaugh and the 2020 confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who in a 1998 law-review article, had referred to abortion as “always immoral.”
Barrett said in a 2016 campus talk she didn’t expect Roe v. Wade would go away, but she did see an opening for increased restrictions — like the law subsequently passed in Mississippi.”
A Political Earthquake
“But could the sudden, rapid tremors around abortion rights be the warning of a political earthquake?” Bunch asks.
“For those watching through the prism of realpolitik, the abortion battle has always looked like a weird game of ‘chicken’ where the drag racers swerve to safety at the last moment — safety being a place where the threats to Roe v. Wade might be overturned. But they were more helpful in raising money and energizing voters than working for actual change.
But with the possibility of the Court’s most impactful abortion ruling in a half-century coming next spring, political experts say any Court bombshells could dramatically alter the 2022 midterms.
“How? Historically, voter turnout for the midterms falls sharply from presidential-year levels, which gives an edge to the side with the most energy and enthusiasm.
“And usually that energy is the rage felt by the party out of the White House, which in the past translates to an average gain of 30 seats in the US House.
“The conventional wisdom ahead of 2022 had been that — even with an end to the pandemic and economic gains — President Biden could lose his congressional majorities, both because of that history and because the Census added House seats in conservative states.
“A major conservative Court ruling on abortion could blow up the conventional wisdom. Suddenly, the angriest US voters next year could be the demographic with the highest level of support for abortion rights — urban and college-educated women.
“The same voting bloc that was most angered by Trump’s 2016 election, that flooded the streets in January 2017 for the Women’s March, and that knocked on millions of doors in 2018, led to Democrats retaking control of the House.
MAGA/QAnon Crazies in Arizona
An advantage for Arizonans is that Ducey’s abortion law could energize resistance to the MAGA/QAnon crazies in the state legislature.
In 2020, the same electorate who voted for Joe Biden and Mark Kelly voted for the coup-plotters on the down-ballot.
As for guns, Arizona is an open-carry state, where individuals who are 18 years old can buy a gun.
There’s no regard among the crazies for Gaby Giffords’ brain injury suffered after an assassination attempt in 2011.
However, cities across the country have enacted gun carry restrictions that have cut homicides in half.
As gun purchases spike to record levels and mass shootings are commonplace, expect gun-control advocates, including Republicans who voted for Biden, to turn out at the polls.
Democrats are counting on polling that shows that Americans support Roe v. Wade and tougher gun laws, especially in urban areas and nearby suburbs, where Republicans voted for Biden.
24 States Would Ban Abortion Completely
“The consequences of a Roe reversal would be devastating,” Nancy Northup, president, and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights said on NPR.
“It would mean that about 24 states would have laws banning abortion completely,” says the center’s litigation director, Julie Rikelman.
That includes 11 states — among them Mississippi — that “currently have trigger bans on the books which would instantaneously ban abortion if Roe were overturned,” Totenberg writes.
Bans on pre-viability abortion bans have been struck down in a dozen states since 2019, including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Tennessee.
Roberts Could Abandon Role as Swing Vote
Chief Justice John Roberts has voted with the liberals since Anthony Kennedy’s retirement in 2018. Roberts has spared the Dreamers, gay and transexual employment rights, abortion rights, and limiting church attendance during the pandemic. However, he might change tack now that he can no longer provide the 5th liberal vote.
He could side with the five conservatives—Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett—awarding them supermajorities in both the gun and abortion challenges.
If Roberts were to vote with the majority, he could write opinions more to his liking than if he were in dissent.
However, the decisions would come at a tremendous cost.
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch says the Handmaids Tale could become a reality for young women across the country.
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