Kansas voted overwhelmingly yesterday to retain the state constitution’s protection of abortion rights. The pro-choice side views this as a big victory, and in a sense, of course, they’re right. The Washington Post carries the story: In the biggest news of a high-stakes primary night,
I agree with everything in this post, and would expand on it. Before it was overruled, Roe and Casey cast the right to abortion through viability in stone. It couldn't be modified, let alone repealed, without the concurrence of both houses of Congress and three quarters of the states, an impossible task. If a state, particularly a red state, finds a state constitutional right to abortion, that finding can certainly be set aside or modified by amendment procedures much less stringent that the federal Constitution. To paraphrase William Buckley, while a state court decision finding a right to abortion may stand athwart a legislative road to abortion restrictions yelling "Stop," it doesn't permanently close the road.
Amending the U.S. Constitution is even harder than I indicated in my earlier comment. It takes the concurrence of two thirds of both houses of Congress plus three fourths of the states, not just a simple majority in both houses.
I agree with everything in this post, and would expand on it. Before it was overruled, Roe and Casey cast the right to abortion through viability in stone. It couldn't be modified, let alone repealed, without the concurrence of both houses of Congress and three quarters of the states, an impossible task. If a state, particularly a red state, finds a state constitutional right to abortion, that finding can certainly be set aside or modified by amendment procedures much less stringent that the federal Constitution. To paraphrase William Buckley, while a state court decision finding a right to abortion may stand athwart a legislative road to abortion restrictions yelling "Stop," it doesn't permanently close the road.
Jim Dueholm
Totally agree
Amending the U.S. Constitution is even harder than I indicated in my earlier comment. It takes the concurrence of two thirds of both houses of Congress plus three fourths of the states, not just a simple majority in both houses.
Jim Dueholm