MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes warned Monday that overturning Roe v. Wade will lead to “South America style” abortion bans.
Politico obtained a purported majority opinion draft of the Supreme Court showing that the court is poised to overturn the 1973 landmark decision Roe v. Wade which legalizes abortions in all states up to the point of fetal viability—24-28 weeks gestation. Justice Samuel Alito, who is reportedly the author of the majority opinion, called Roe “egregiously wrong from the start.”
Maddow and MSNBC host Chris Hayes called the apparent decision “emotional” and warned of Republican lawmakers’ push for a nationwide abortion ban.
“It’s sort of a resting moment because the code of omertà around that institution is so strong and so powerful that the substance that is being leaked here and then the communicative signaling happening in the fact of the leak is almost sort of emotional at some deep level because of it signifies,” Hayes said.
“Republicans in Washington have been debating and planning on proposing a nationwide abortion ban, a six-week abortion ban which is effectively a complete ban on abortion in the United States,” Maddow added. “And if the ultimate ruling of the Court is going to look anything like this and we’re going into a midterm season where the Republicans are poised to take the House and the Senate, then President Biden is still President Biden and he”ll presumably veto such a measure.”
“But in the event that we had a Republican president in 2024, that’s where we’d be. We’d be at a South America style, nationwide abortion ban in America,” she continued.
Hayes pointed to “trigger laws” that would effectively and instantly ban abortion once Roe is overturned. Maddow then said abortions have become increasingly restrictive in states across the nation. (RELATED: ‘Texas Taliban’: Abortion Law Is As Bad As Literal Terrorists, According To Liberal Activists)
“Until very recently, there was a taboo on saying that a woman or even a child who was raped or who was the victim of incest, at least they wouldn’t be forced by the government to give birth against their will, to carry that pregnancy to term and give birth against their will. That increasingly, including girls that are pregnant as a result of rape or incest, those exceptions are disappearing one by one with each passing week every time a Republican legislature takes up this issue.”
Hayes pointed to Oklahoma where Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt passed legislation banning all abortions except in the case of preserving the health of the mother, and Texas where abortions are banned after six weeks of gestation. The host said the Court’s apparent decision is not unexpected, but to have a released draft is “shocking.”
“It is shocking,” Maddow replied. “As you said and as we started discussing here, it’s shocking both in substance and it’s also shocking in what it means about the Court and what it means about the stakes here that someone was willing to do this. It is just a remarkable thing.”
The Court’s decision has not been finalized and it still bears the possibility of changing, Politico reported. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett joined Alito in the majority opinion. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayer and Elena Kagan dissented.