I rarely comment on abortion on this blog.

There are plenty of people who write on it all the time.  It's the polarizing issue of our day, thus one that sells both clicks and subscriptions and it is an issue the Supreme Court created out of whole cloth with Roe.

Then Casey, which the court claimed was the answer to the divisiveness they instigated never mind stare decisis, which was supposed to be the end of it (so they said) of course was not.  Not even close.  Virtually every political campaign since has featured questions from both sides of the aisle's "voter information" people demanding answers to said questions.  When I was Treasurer for a Libertarian party candidate the League of Women Voters sent around their standard question list and, of course, that was prominently featured.

No matter how you answered it as a candidate (and no matter how honest you were) it was guaranteed to******off about half the voters.  I gave my counsel to the candidate as to the minefield he was being asked to navigate but of course the answer was his decision to issue and own, not mine.

That's by design; as I've often opined in a political context there is one easy way and a thousand hard ways to win an election.  The easy way is to engineer some issue that is guaranteed to split the electorate 50/50, or as close to it as you can achieve.  You then must win only one vote.

The closer you can get to that the better off you are (and the less money and effort it costs to win) which is why every political campaign in the last 50 years has prominently featured exactly this.

Now there's been a "leak" of an alleged USSC opinion on the case that I reported on in November.

Let's assume its real; it might well be.  It in fact may be one of several; it is not uncommon for Supreme Court Justices to "shop" opinions during their deliberative process.  Indeed, it is usually how the process works; those Justices who think they have a viewpoint that wins on substantive merits type it up and send it around to the other Justices, frequently after conference meetings where the salient points they intend to raise are debated between them.  To presume that this is the only opinion being so-floated, or that it is the one that will be settled on, is pure arrogance -- albeit very convenient arrogance.

It is, however, exactly the sort of opinion (and you ought to read it, as it is a withering criticism of the original Roe decision and even-worse skewering of Casey, complete with annotations and an entire section of the historical state of law on a state-by-state basis in the United States pre-Roe) that would send Democrats into an all-on meltdown -- which it did.

May I remind you that my body, my choice may have been the mantra of abortion rights for fifty years but suddenly didn't apply when it came to jabs, did it?  Indeed while "wrongthink" there might have impacted someone else abortion obviously always does extinguish a fetus; it is thus wildly incoherent to be a hard-core supporter or choice in only one of those two cases.  Intellectual honesty, in short, went straight into the bin in both circumstances.

Never mind that if the opinion is both real and the one that will eventually issue in fact it changes little, other than upsetting certain organizations and their profit centers.  Oh don't get me wrong; the "snapback" laws passed in several states, along with the state at issue in the case itself, will take effect and change the landscape in that state.  But today, as I noted back when this case was argued, we live in a very different world than we were experiencing in 1970 when Roe was first filed in Texas -- or in 1973 when it was handed down.  There are medications that induce abortion and cannot be blocked from personal acquisition and use nationally; no state can prevent you from traveling to another as interstate travel by one's person without interference is indeed a recognized civil right protected under the Constitution and said travel is both cheaper and easier today than ever before.  Pregnancy tests are a literal dollar at WalMart so there is no longer any excuse for a woman to not know she is pregnant; ignorance of one's pregnancy is now a matter of intentional failure to act rather than barred by cost, access to physicians or circumstance.  Between these two facts nobody can seriously argue that any woman who wants an abortion won't be able to obtain one; there will be plenty of states where abortion will remain both legal and available on request and while the hassle factor if you live where its banned will increase it will still be wildly less expensive and more available than it was following Roe in 1973 in real terms.

As the leaked opinion notes this is an issue that really ought to be decided in the legislature through elected representatives for whom one can vote (or not) on a forward basis -- and should have been left there in the first place.  Indeed there is arguably no federal jurisdiction here at all since medical boards and practices are a matter of state regulation in essentially all other respects.  Medical facilities are state-licensed entities as are basically all businesses, and it is states that issue medical credentials of all types.  To arrogate one specific medical item to the federal government is inconsistent with the separation of authority between federal and state governments, and while we have interfered with this in many places (e.g. opiates to name one) it is state regulation that makes something such as The Surgery Center of Oklahoma possible -- along with its much lower costs and wildly lower infection rates than you'll find in most local hospitals.

But the fact that said alleged opinion was "leaked" is extraordinary in and of itself.  To the best of my knowledge this has never happened before.  It is wild-eyed judicial interference, insanely improper and obviously occurred as a result of an action by someone inside the Court, probably someone clerking for one of the Justices, and then of course there's the question as to whether the Justice knew or even gave consent.  You can bet that there will be an immediate internal investigation and everyone responsible is likely to find themselves with a piano dropped on their head professionally; to believe that in the modern era you'll get away with something like this yet remain unidentified is also wild-eyed crazy.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who think this is all about "focusing" the left on something other than Biden's inflation and Ukraine, never mind the 900lb Gorilla in the room with respect to "public health" and the first year and change of Biden's administration in that regard, along with the results.  All of these are losers with the electorate and the Democrats know it.  Oh sure, there is certainly a "subscription list" for all of them, but not in the majority, never mind the southern border issues.

The argument that this is about taking those off the front page of the paper is specious.  This case was argued right around the turn of the year and the opinion was going to be issued within the next couple of months.  There was no benefit to leaking it now in the context of November assuming it really is the opinion that is being circulated for at least five votes.  Indeed its probably harmful to do it now on balance simply because it was going to come out closer to the election and Americans have a short attention span, often measured in the amount of time it takes to glance at a phone.

No, folks, this has little or nothing to do with the election, in my opinion.  Its too far away and, given that the opinion had to come out this summer anyway it was a foregone conclusion that right into the maw of election season this was going to be one of the focuses of debate, fundraising and, of course, much Reeeeeing on all sides.

That leaves actual interference with the operation of the Court as the likely motive.  Here there are no competing possibilities, and if indeed that was the motivation for this action it is grave indeed.  Such an act would go massively beyond the impact and intent of January 6th.  To attempt to corrupt one of the co-equal branches of the government is a serious matter, and now we shall get to see whether or not there really is any pretense of our Constitution, DOJ and other mechanisms to protect its integrity that remains or whether, in point of fact, the United States is a failed nation and the Constitution is, in fact, toilet paper.