Garrett Epps dives into the amicus briefs so we don't have to and pulls out what Republicans are really after.
Anyone who rides horses recognizes the moment when, at the end of a ride, a tired horse spots the barn. A skilled rider does not let the animal break into a trot. But the horse’s impulse is understandable. C’mon, cowboy, the mount is pleading, let’s get this over with!
Barn fever is sweeping the anti-abortion movement in 2021. The Supreme Court is now their conquered province; red-state legislators have been enthusiastic about constructing laws that can cash in on former President Donald Trump’s promise that his justices will “automatically” overturn Roe v. Wade. And as of last week, his justices show every sign of doing the job they were hired to do.
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What this means, readers, is that a state legislature—if it is feeling chivalrous—may (but does not have to) punish women who have abortions somewhat less harshly than doctors who perform them. And a court could also (but does not have to) decide not to punish a woman who undergoes an abortion necessary to save her life—or perhaps knock a few months off her sentence.
Here is the grinning skull behind a lot of the highfalutin moral talk about abortion. Much anti-abortion argumentation embodies the unspoken premise of the passage above: Under the Constitution, a fetus is a person from the moment of conception. The woman who carries that fetus is, well, never a person at all.
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