- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion
- [email protected]
Minors can receive contraception confidentially under Title X in the state with the highest repeat teen birth rate
Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, has sued the Biden administration over a longstanding federal program that provides teenagers access to contraception without parental consent, the state’s latest attack against the federal government’s reproductive healthcare policies.
“This suit is likely a preview of where the Texas GOP – and national Republicans – stand on attacking contraception access,” says Mary Ziegler, a professor at University of California, Davis, School of Law and reproductive health expert. “While Republicans say they don’t want to take aim at contraception, this is another sign that this is actually where we’re headed.”
Title X, created in 1970, offers comprehensive family planning and preventive health care services for low-income and uninsured residents. Texas is among a handful of states that require parental consent before a teenager can get birth control – but Title X-funded contraception was the exception. Under the program, minors can receive contraception confidentially.
Texas has the highest repeat teen birth rate and one of strictest abortion bans in the US.
Unfortunately, it’s a very necessary power, because our legal system is absurd. As a child, I asked to see the book that has all the laws I have to follow - it doesn’t exist, because we learn the laws through rumor. We don’t even know how many laws there are, we just kinda forget ones we stop enforcing and pass new ones
The supreme Court of a century ago was pretty different - both common sense and the law change over time. For example, Citizens United was a shit ruling, debatably an actual existential threat to humanity, or where we became the worst timeline. That should not be written in stone forever - a system like that is begging to collapse
Or for a more historical example, sodomy laws or martial rape come to mind
Now I may be wrong, but the rulings on sodomy or marital rape weren’t rulings that overturned past supreme Court rulings. And a future supreme Court shouldn’t be able to overturn citizens united. Congress would need to pass a law to overturn citizens united.
It’s like roe v wade. I’m pretty sure the roe ruling wasn’t specifically about abortion, it was about the people’s right to get an abortion because they have a right to privacy versus the government’s interest.
How can one supreme Court roster determine roe was a violation of the 14th amendment and another roster rule it wasn’t? That just incentives a political supreme Court. Roe shouldn’t have been overturned, Congress should have had the burden of modifying the 14th amendment so that roe could be struck down.
I bet the justices are communicating with interested parties to let them know which rulings they now have the majority to overturn. Like a “hey bud, you should challenge the Chevron ruling now that we have a majority, and when it gets here, we’ll get rid of that one too”
That doesn’t fix the problem though - the legal system is extremely messy. It changes over time and rulings can be flat wrong, or the decision can be undercut by a legal argument coming at it from another direction
For example, citizens United changed campaign finance laws by reclassifying it under the first amendment. That decision means that any law limiting the ability for corporations to campaign for a candidate violates the first amendment, and could be struck down as unconstitutional. It was a bad decision, but congress doesn’t have the authority to override it (by design)
The supreme Court shouldn’t be writing things in stone - that’s congress’s job. The court is responsible for handling conflicts between laws, and the law changes over time. Their decisions are also contextual - they’re based on the legal arguments presented in each case, so instead of repealing Roe they could’ve instead ruled that the state can forbid doctors from performing abortion without contradicting the previous decision
The fact that they’re overstepping and using this role to legislate is an entirely different issue - they have way too much individual power and almost no oversight. Their decisions need to be challenged more, not less