Sen. Kamala Harris, vying to become the nation's first woman president, has had enough. "Are we going to go back to the days of back-alley abortions? Women died before we had Roe v. Wade in place," she said during a town hall event on MSNBC. "On this issue, I'm kind of done." Done in the sense of "so over it," not in the sense of giving up. In fact, she's proposed a bold plan for securing abortion rights.
Modeled after the Voting Rights Act, her proposal would limit state-level abortion restrictions. Those states that have had abortion-related laws struck down in the last few decades would have to present their new abortion-related laws to the Department of Justice for preclearance, approval from the federal government before they could be implemented. The 1965 Voting Rights Act required states that had implemented voter suppression laws to do the same with any voting-related laws passed. It's a very clever and creative use of statutory precedent on Harris' part.
Laurie Rubiner, a former director of public policy for Planned Parenthood, told Vox that that aspect of it is significant. "What is different about this is that she’s really going on the offense," she said. "The onus would be on the states and the anti-choice legislators who are passing these laws." The onus absolutely has to be on those anti-choice legislators, who are costing their states' citizens millions of dollars defending their unconstitutional laws in the courts.
Look at Alabama, for instance. The state just paid out $1.7 million to the American Civil Liberties Union for the last abortion law it passed that failed in the courts. That was "enough money for 33 classroom teachers. Or 41 state troopers. Or 50 prison guards."
Stephanie Mencimer at Mother Jones reports that just in the past eight years, federal judges have ordered at least nine states to pay out more than $9 million to Planned Parenthood alone, money that's allowed the organization to take on more restrictive laws in more states.
Harris' proposal would thus have a great unintended consequence for residents of red states (beyond ensuring the right of the women in the state to make the decisions about what happens to their own bodies)—it would save taxpayers a lot of money. Smart stuff.
