An op-ed by Charles Blow of the New York Times on Friday argues that recent
legislation in Nebraska and Oklahama and the increasing shift in public opinion away from choice is cause for concern, and an impetus for Obama to elect a fierce pro-choice judge to the Supreme Court.
Blow is right, but shifting public opinion does not invalidate the legal basis for a woman's right to choose in the United States.
I am not saying this legislation and these shifts in public opinion are not disturbing. They certainly are, and it’s pretty clear that
the bills which passed in Oklahoma last week are attempts to make what little access women have to abortion in Oklahoma as untenable as possible.
Yet I am confident that despite shifts in public opinion and passage of unspeakably cruel anti-choice bills in state legislatures around the country, courts will acknowledge that the constitutional right to privacy has not changed. After a
lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights , the Attorney General for
Oklahoma has agreed to allow a temporary restraining order against the laws, so they are prevented from being enacted, for now . The Constitution still protects women’s rights to make their own health care decisions, and hard as they try, bills like
those passed in Oklahoma are not constitutional.