ARI MELBER: When we look at abortion rulings in the federal courts and the Supreme Court, we often see a real caution. Roe v. Wade remains controversial politically, but it's been the law of the land for a long time. This decision in having more time with it is really robust with Justice Kennedy, who I mentioned is a Republican appointee, in laying down the law that you cannot just go out and say to women, “Well, here's a bunch of technicalities that close a bunch of clinics.” And so let me read from the opinion. It says, look, “In the face of no threat to women's health” -- the idea that as we've been reporting, they rejected the rationale for the law -- again, reading from the opinion, quote, “Texas seeks to force women to travel long distances to get abortions in crammed to capacity super-facilities. Patients seeking these services less likely to get the kind of individualized attention, serious conversation, and emotional support that doctors at less taxed facilities may have offered.” And it basically makes the argument that this is all unfair to women, even though, as we've mentioned, the Texas argument, the pro-life argument, was this was all about clinics and safety. And so then, to the question you were posing a little earlier, where does this go in 2016 and the politics of this?
This is a real roadblock to these pro-life efforts, and it's a reminder that again, the pro-life team got a bad ruling today because they pushed so far through Texas. So in the intersection between politics and law, it really raises the question for folks who may want to push this far, was this in their interest? Because now they've put a new precedent on the book, I think arguably now looking at it the strongest pro-choice precedent since Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in a generation, in 25 years, precisely because they pushed so far in a conservative state like Texas. So I would expect some regrouping here, yes. The politicians in both parties are going to have a strong initial reaction. But the larger question in the politics of the pro-life movement is, was this a good idea? I don't think if they knew they were going to get this 5-3 decision, wiping out the law and saying it's impossible in every other state, that they would have done this to begin with.
