Abortion test-case waste of time, money In 1973, Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case, established abortion as a legal practice nationwide. Despite more than 30 years with this precedent firmly in place, anti-abortion activists continue to fight the ruling. In the latest chapter of this ongoing saga, Ohio lawmakers are mounting an effort to pass into law a bill that they hope will eventually emerge as a test case to challenge the high court's ruling on abortion. With the composition of the Supreme Court's justices no different that it has been for some time, Ohio Republicans are wasting valuable time and money to pursue a goal that has always lacked real moral justification anyway.
Bills proposed thus far would further limit access to abortion in increasingly more innovative ways, all while setting up an eventual challenge to the legality of the procedure itself. One bill introduced last week would prohibit health insurance plans for public employees from paying for abortions unless the woman's life is at stake. With the same exception, it would also prevent publicly owned hospitals and clinics from offering abortion services. Another, which is obviously intended solely as a challenge to Roe v. Wade, seeks to ban abortion altogether. Both versions of the legislation are wasting useful resources in an attempt to challenge what was a sound and objective ruling in the first place.
Even if restricting and criminalizing abortion were goals that the government should strive to achieve, these efforts are not an effective means of securing them. Ohio Right to Life has not pledged its support for the abortion ban. This significant lack of endorsement from an organization dedicated entirely to the abolition of abortion rights speaks volumes about the inadequacy and inopportuneness of the proposed legislation. If the legislation was practical in the slightest sense, it would likely be embraced by such a special interest group. The reality that the bills' backers are seemingly unwilling to acknowledge is that the current Supreme Court has regularly upheld Roe v. Wade and will continue to do so.
Meanwhile, their quixotic legislation is absorbing the limited resources of a state government with more pressing and important concerns to address. In the end, Republicans' attempts to limit the reproductive freedoms of women are proving harmful even amidst a judicial climate that leaves them infeasible. This is why, in the short-term as well as the long-term, such unneeded persecution should be abandoned.
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