One step at a time, one state at a time
by digby
For all you people out there who think there’s no way we can ever go backwards, just take a look at this:
Amendment 1 on the Tennessee ballot in November would strip the right to abortion from the state’s constitution, the first time that any constitution in the U.S. would be amended to remove an established right. It would also be the first time the word abortion is added to any constitution and singled out as the only medical procedure outside the zone of privacy.
This is the long game in action. It’s taken them almost 15 years to get over the constitutional hurdles to make this happen. They just kept working it and working it. They’re getting ready for that big Supreme Court case that kicks it back to the states:
It has taken a decade for anti-abortion activists and their supporters in the Tennessee legislature to clear all the hurdles to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot. The drive for an amendment began after the Tennessee Supreme Court in 2000 ruled that three out of four restrictions on abortion passed by the legislature and challenged by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU were medically unnecessary and posed an “undue burden” on women, rendering them unconstitutional. “A woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy is a vital part of the right to privacy guaranteed by the Tennessee Constitution,” the judges wrote in their opinion.
To get on the ballot, Amendment 1 had to pass both houses of the Tennessee legislature, the General Assembly and the state senate, not once but twice, the first time by majority vote and then by two-thirds, and in consecutive years. With Republicans a supermajority in the House and a majority in the Senate, victory was assured by 2011 with the vote scheduled for this November. It is the state’s marquee race, with both sides understanding Amendment 1 could be a model that could extend far beyond Tennessee should it pass.
It says, “Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion. The people retain the right through their elected state representatives and state senators to enact, amend, or repeal statutes regarding abortion, including, but not limited to, circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest or when necessary to save the life of the mother.”
“If Amendment 1 does pass, it will open the floodgate and they will be passing every imaginable restriction they can come up with,” says Jeff Teague with Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee.
The first sentence is straightforward, but the second sentence is craftily written to leave the impression that exemptions are either in place, or could easily be put in place. “The language on the ballot is deceptive and deliberately so,” says Herron. What Amendment 1 would do is allow lawmakers to write and pass laws restricting abortion without having to worry about their constitutionality on the state level. “If you watch the Tennessee state legislature closely, it’s pretty clear they’re all about banning abortion with no exceptions,” says Steven Hershkowitz, spokesman for the Vote No on 1 campaign. “If Amendment 1 is approved, they could pass personhood and they wouldn’t even have to amend the constitution.”
You think that once a right is acknowledged in the constitution that it can’t ever be taken away. And in many cases that’s probably true. But not when it comes to women. Allowing each individual women to control reproduction is a fundamental threat to the established order. They aren’t going to quit with this.
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