Trump: A Clear and Present Threat to Roe v. Wade

Donald Trump has said that he will defund Planned Parenthood, and in an interview with Fox News declared that the best way to overturn Roe v. Wade "is by electing me president."

Some disaffected liberals who may be considering voting for Trump as a form of protest due to their unhappiness with the way the Democratic primaries have worked out (and we all know who I'm talking about) might comfort themselves by saying, "Yeah, but what are the chances he could actually get Roe v. Wade overturned?"

Those chances are actually pretty good, as it turns out.

Consider the case of Oklahoma. That state just passed a bill that calls for three years imprisonment for ANY doctor who performs ANY abortion. This new law is clearly unconstitutional, and runs in direct contradiction to Roe v. Wade. But here's the thing--the Republican lawmakers who passed the bill KNOW it is unconstitutional. They KNOW that every lower court will strike it down, and that they will be forced to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. And this is precisely what they want.

With the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate refusing to even consider President Obama's moderate pick to replace deceased Justice Antonin Scalia--which itself is unprecedented and arguably unconstitutional (and not at all comparable to filibusters of the past, often cited by Republicans to obfuscate the unprecedented nature of their actions)--the anti-choice forces are hoping that Scalia's seat will have  been filled with a hardline, anti-choice conservative by the time the case makes its way to the SCOTUS. Both Democratic nominees still in the race have strong pro-choice backgrounds, so the only chance the anti-choice forces have of fulfilling their wish is the victory of the man who has said outright, for the whole nation to hear, that he is the best chance the anti-choice Right has of getting Roe. v. Wade overturned.

So for that segment of the liberal-minded electorate who may be thinking of showing their dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party by casting a protest vote for the Orange Chameleon, and who haven't yet been dissuaded by his ecstatic use of racist, sexist and Islamophobic rhetoric, or his dangerous appeals to jingoistic nationalism (surely you haven't been fooled into thinking that the man who refuses to rule out the use of nuclear weapons, has called for nuclear proliferation, has promised to revive the use of torture and suggested the murder of  the families of terrorists is really a dove?), or even his frightening encouragement of political violence that is reminiscent of the rise to power of so many dangerous demagogues of the past, then surely if you have a mother, sister, daughter, or any woman in your life who you care about, and who you trust to make decisions about her own body and health, you will not vote for a man who has promised to take the right to make those decision away and instead to place them in the hands of a bunch of old men who think it's their right alone to make life-changing decisions for the women of this country.

*UPDATE*
Oklahoma's Republican governor, perhaps in a fit of reason, vetoed the bill in question. Make no mistake, however; this is not the end of this issue. The anti-choice forces will merely move the battle to another state, and then another, until they find a governor who is willing to go along with them.