Come on, judge

Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a district court judge appointed by Bill Clinton, has ordered briefing on the question of whether, despite the Dobbs decision, there might be a constitutional right to abortion, perhaps conferred by the 13th Amendment. This inquiry is unnecessary to resolve the immediate questions in the case, which is about an alleged conspiracy to block access to an abortion facility. It also ignores the plain text of Dobbs, which states that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.” As my colleague Ed Whelan put it, “This silly order by Judge Kollar-Kotelly is a frolic and detour.”

Lawyers recognize that, judicially, this is going nowhere. But as the legal counterpart to abortion supporters’ rhetoric about “forced birth,” this argument is illuminating. Its efforts to justify abortion reveal a bitter worldview that spitefully rebels against the nature of human existence itself.

[I wrote about this case last week. The argument is absurd legally as well as morally, but it’s the “legally” that counts here. I linked and excerpted Jonathan Turley’s robust rebuttal to Kollar-Kotelly’s suggestion, but be sure to read that in its entirety too. — Ed]