MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance engaged in the expected fearmongering following the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade, suggesting that gay rights may be next.
Calling the historic ruling “a very dark day in America,” Vance fretted over “what might come next,” highlighting same-sex marriage as one possibility.
“In this country, we’re so used to the courts as the guarantor of our civil rights,” she said. “When states prohibited Black people from voting in the South, activists went to the court to make sure all people were treated equally in our system of government.”
“This is monumental because it’s the first time we’ve seen the court take away a right,” Vance opined. “And the way they do it, the context in which they do it, saying that there is historically no right grounded in the Constitution and its text or in its precedent or in our history that guarantees women rights to equality, that bodes poorly for other rights that have been the subject of the culture wars in this country.”
“The culture wars that led to this newly conservative 6-3 — really a super majority, if you count the chief justice in that majority — on perhaps some issues,” she continued, her take on the ruling being little more than a political spin on reality.
Vance would then move to stir up the base even further than they already are.
“What we don’t know is what might come next. Could, for instance, the case that makes it possible for gay people to live in civil and marital unions, could that be the next case that falls?” she said. “Could there be other sorts of rights that are vulnerable? It’s a very dark day in America.”
In noting that some states will end up banning abortions — today’s ruling is the ultimate in “democracy” in that it returns the issue of abortions back to the states — MSNBC anchor Jose Diaz Balart asked Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor and legal correspondent for Slate, how quickly will this happen?
These 13 states will ban abortion completely within 30 days now that Roe v Wade has been overturned. #LifeWins
1. Texas
2. Louisiana
3. Oklahoma
4. Arkansas
5. Missouri
6. Mississippi
7. Tennessee
8. Kentucky
9. North Dakota
10. South Dakota
11. Wyoming
12. Idaho
13. Utah— Amy Kremer (@AmyKremer) June 24, 2022
“In the states that have trigger laws, it can be immediate,” Lithwick said. “In the states that have ghost laws on the books, which is to say pre-Roe bans that now are lawful, they’re no longer unconstitutional, it will be very, very quick.”
“We have a bunch of states that have eight-week bans and very, very — even more constrictive bans than the ban at issue here. And those will go into effect,” she added. “And so I think you’re going to see that some of the really draconian efforts, even before Dobbs came down, to do away with the viability line, to sort of assume it had already happened, all that, I think, is going to kick in really, really quickly, and I think that we’re only going to begin to start to figure out the nuts and bolts state by state.”
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Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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