WJI's daily reads for Dec. 11-12, 2021

San Fransisco Chronicle: California going after some gun dealers using Texas abortion law strategy.

Politico: U.S. Supreme Court justices respect precedent when it supports conservatives.

More profoundly, (Justice Neil) Gorsuch’s opinion is notable for what risks it perceives to the court’s legitimacy and the rule of law. Its silence about Texas’ manifest intention to make an end-run around the constitutional right to an abortion speaks volumes: Disregard for federal law is fine, for some. Instead, Gorsuch harped on at length about the perils of “disregard[ing] the traditional limits on the jurisdiction of federal courts.”

​NBC: Feds bust mondern-day slavery ring in new immigration enforcement effort.

At least two workers died under the working conditions, another was repeatedly raped, while others were kidnapped and threatened with death, according to the allegations in the indictment. Workers were also forced to work at gunpoint, the court documents say, earning 20 cents for each bucket of onions they dug up with their hands. Some were sold to farms in other states.

The Washington Post: How contraception could be banned if Roe v. Wade falls.

But here’s the more important question: Will women still have access to birth control in a post-Roe world? The limits described above will likely expand and some states will try to ban contraceptive access entirely.

There are two reasons for this. First, constitutional protections for abortion and birth control are linked. In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court invalidated a law prohibiting birth control, arguing that the prohibition violated a fundamental “right to privacy.” This right to privacy is the foundation for Roe v. Wade....

Further, in recent decisions, the court let religious groups argue that some forms of contraception are “abortifacients.” For instance, in the Hobby Lobby case, the company objected that four FDA-approved contraceptives prevented implantation of a fertilized egg — and that that counted as an abortion. More specifically, the company claimed that the owners’ “religious beliefs forbid them from participating in, providing access to, paying for, training others to engage in, or otherwise supporting abortion-causing drugs and devices.”

Endgadget: Twitter asks judge to throw out lawsuit over ban.

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