Unconstitutional !!!

While high above the earth’s atmosphere from Planet Waves’ TOH (Terran Observatory Hovercraft) it was my pleasure to witness as two state courts overturned restrictive anti-abortion laws in Texas and Oklahoma in quick succession.

On Monday, Oct. 28, federal Judge Lee Yeakel ruled that SB 5 was unconstitutional. SB5 was the highly controversial law that would close most of the health facilities statewide that provide abortions and other health care services for poor women and their families. The law was to go into effect 2014.

In Yeakel’s ruling on the case Planned Parenthood V. Abbott, he found the law “violated the rights of abortion doctors to do what they think is best for their patients and would unreasonably restrict a woman’s access to abortion clinics.” Gregory Abbott, the “Abbott” who lost in the case against Planned Parenthood, is Texas’ Attorney General who is running for governor against Texas state senator Wendy Davis.

Davis, as you recall, staged a successful 13-hour filibuster against SB 5, preventing it from being brought to the floor for vote before midnight of June 25, the last day of the legislature’s special assembly. Its failure to be passed forced Texas Gov. Rick Perry to call yet another special session of the legislature to vote on it, ensured of its passage by the legislature’s Republican majority.

Abbott is expected to file an emergency appeal of Yeakel’s ruling before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Since Abbott will be running against Davis, be assured that as this law climbs up the ladders of the judicial system, probably all the way up to the US Supreme Court, the uber-theme of the 2014 Texas gubernatorial campaign will undoubtedly be: jobs, the economy, immigration and of course, your vagina.

On Tuesday, Oct. 29, in response to a query by the US Supreme Court, Oklahoma’s State Supreme Court found that state’s 2011 anti-abortion law prevented doctors from performing their practice as physicians in prescribing RU-486 (the “Morning After Pill”) to patients that required it, therefore making the law unconstitutional. This ruling re-affirmed the state district court’s 2012 strike-down of Oklahoma’s law, also as unconstitutional on the same grounds.

While 150,000 feet above in the stratosphere it’s remarkable to observe, as Chris Hedges says below, that indeed things are being done to fight against forces straining to contain and control us from without. There are challenges against the oppressive laws and tactics by conservative states, and these challenges are gaining traction in the very courts and legislatures these oppressors hope to use to adjudicate against the laws of the land, attacking your civil and personal liberties and individuality. Support these challengers in every way you know how.

From this hovercraft far above, though it may seem at times erratic and under-reported on the ground, it looks as though the energy has INCREASED, not decreased, in the fight to take some old and outworn ideas back to the storage attic where they belong. It would have been great to be a fly on the wall of the Governor’s mansion in Austin as Rick Perry got the news from the Attorney General that the state court ruled against him. But sources say he was in deep confab with his Cthulian overlords, trying to strategize his next move.

I have so wanted to write that last sentence someday, somewhere here, for the longest time. Today it was right.

Carpe diem, Samhainlings!!!!