Attorney General Merrick Garland has yet to make an impression. Or rather, to make a good one. Perhaps slow and steady is his watchword when it comes to bringing justice to insurrection plotters in and out of government. But he has at least pledged to defend women’s constitutional rights from Texas lawmakers who would deny them.
Sort of (Washington Post):
The Justice Department is exploring “all options” to challenge Texas’s restrictive abortion law, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday, as he vowed to provide support to abortion clinics that are “under attack” in the state and to protect those seeking and providing reproductive health services.
The move by the nation’s top law enforcement official comes just days after the Supreme Court refused to block a Texas abortion statute that bans the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy with no exceptions for rape or incest. The court’s action stands as the most serious threat to Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling establishing a right to abortion, in nearly 50 years.
President Biden, who has sharply criticized the high court’s decision, had asked the Justice Department to explore ways to contest the Texas law. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has pledged to call a vote later this month on legislation that would enshrine the right to an abortion into federal law.
Pelosi can make the gesture, sure, but any such bill she passes in the House will go nowhere in the Senate, with or without the filibuster. As for Garland’s “all options,” get back to us when you decide to exercise a few. As for providing support for clinics “under attack,” Garland seems to mean physical attack:
“We will not tolerate violence against those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services, physical obstruction or property damage in violation of the Face Act,” said Garland, referring to the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a 1994 law that prohibits threats to and obstruction of a person seeking reproductive health services or of providers.
Garland said the Justice Department has reached out to U.S. attorneys’ offices and FBI field offices in Texas and across the country to “discuss our enforcement authorities.”
“The department will provide support from federal law enforcement when an abortion clinic or reproductive health center is under attack,” Garland said.
Bu the attack under discussion is political and coming from the Texas Fun House, not from abortion clinic pipe-bombers. For his part, President Biden suggested that the DOJ is looking at options for stopping enforcement of the new Texas abortion law.
“I was told that there are possibilities within the existing law to have the Justice Department look and see whether there are things that can be done that can limit the independent action of individuals in enforcing . . . a state law,” Biden said.
Oh, but forced-birth advocates are terribul offended by even the hint of gummint interference in their interference in women’s constitutionally protected health decisions.
John Seago, legislative director for Texas Right to Life, said, “They are trying to come coerce Texas to follow their interests.”
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), himself under investigation for possible obstruction of justice in a sex trafficking case, complained, “The DOJ is out of control. This is totalitarian stuff.”
What the right prefers is authoritarian stuff. Get back to us when the DOJ in its slow-and-steady way actually does something.