#slaton

Last year, when Justice Ginsburg was still on the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court narrowly rejected a Louisiana anti-abortion law that was "almost word-for-word identical" to a Texas anti-abortion law that the Court had already held unconstitutional back in 2016. Good ol' justice Thomas--who firmly believes that the Constitution guarantees only the most minimal rights--issued a blistering dissent, in which he (as usual) indicated his strong desire to overrule every single past decision of the Supreme Court on abortion.

"[T]hose decisions created the right to abortion out of whole cloth, without a shred of support from the Constitution's text. Our abortion precedents are grievously wrong and should be overruled. ... The Constitution does not constrain the States ability to regulate or even prohibit abortion." (June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo (2020) 591 U.S. ___., 140 S.Ct. 2103)

A few weeks before the 2020 election, Justice Ginsburg passed away. Donald Trump promptly nominated, and the GOP-controlled Senate promptly confirmed, Amy Coney Barrett, a far-right religious conservative who (among other things) in 1998 published a law review article stating that "abortion ... is always immoral," and in 2006 added her signature to a two-page advertisement demanding that the Court overturn Roe v Wade and calling the 1973 landmark abortion rights decision "barbaric" and a "raw exercise of judicial power." Unsurprisingly, anti-abortion-rights groups widely praised Barrett's confirmation.

For decades, the SWC has been home to dozens—nay hundreds!—of architectural renderings of structures along the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway. Several are online for your viewing and/or researching pleasure, including this 1927 one of the historical Slaton, Texas, Round House.

A Texas lawmaker has filed a bill that would abolish and criminalize abortions, leaving women and physicians who perform the procedure to face criminal charges that could carry the death penalty.

The legislation, filed Tuesday by state Rep. Bryan Slaton, does not include exceptions for rape or incest. It does exempt ectopic pregnancies that seriously threaten the life of the woman “when a reasonable alternative to save the lives of both the mother and the unborn child is unavailable.”

“It is time for Texas to protect the natural right to life for the tiniest and most innocent Texans, and this bill does just that,” Slaton said. “It’s time Republicans make it clear that we actually think abortion is murder. … Unborn children are dying at a faster rate in Texas than COVID patients, but Texas isn’t taking the abortion crisis seriously.”

Similar measures have in the past been filed by state Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, who received death threats and was placed under the protection of the Texas Department of Public Safety after he introduced the bill in 2017. The legislation did not receive a hearing.