virginia’s attorney general wants to end the recent trend of democratic governors by securing the gubernatorial spot for himself. he’s been distancing himself from kaine’s policies, invokes god and prayer in his richmond times-dispatch columns, and thinks that philip morris is a good corporate citizen.

what a peach.

now he’s appealing the 4th u.s. circuit court of appeals ruling in richmond medical center v. herring that virginia’s abortion law is unconstitutional.¹

that’s just great.
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¹ virginia, that great commonwealth, couldn’t content itself with the right-wing label “partial birth abortion” and came up with the even more inflammatory - and nonsensical - term “partial birth infanticide.” the cliff notes version of the decision is that carhart II, the scotus decision upholding the federal pba ban, hinged on the doctor’s intent to perform a standard d&e vs. an intact d&e; the virginia statute makes no such distinction and therefore is distinguished from carhart II as imposing an undue burden on a woman’s right to obtain an abortion.

ginsburg’s scathing dissent in carhart ii is a must-read - not only does she go after the majority’s opinion, but flays - nay, dismembers - the congressional findings and recitations in the act itself. i think my favorite paragraph (and it’s hard to choose just one) is this:

Revealing in this regard, the Court invokes an antiabortion shibboleth for which it concededly has no reliable evidence: Women who have abortions come to regret their choices, and consequently suffer from “[s]evere depression and loss of esteem.” … Because of women’s fragile emotional state and because of the “bond of love the mother has for her child,” the Court worries, doctors may withhold information about the nature of the intact D&E procedure. … The solution the Court approves, then, is not to require doctors to inform women, accurately and adequately, of the different procedures and their attendant risks. Cf. Casey, 505 U. S., at 873 (plurality opinion) (“States are free to enact laws to provide a reasonable framework for a woman to make a decision that has such profound and lasting meaning.”). Instead, the Court deprives women of the right to make an autonomous choice, even at the expense of their safety.