Oklahoma's new abortion law doesn't even pretend to adhere to Roe, setting up a showdown

In the game of up-the-ante that Republican-controlled states are playing in their zeal to eradicate abortion rights, Oklahoma took the lead this week. Its new law doesn’t bother with heartbeat standards or clever enforcement mechanisms but just says it outright: Any doctor who performs any abortion at any time (other than to save a woman’s life) could face 10 years in prison. This is the oppression that awaits women throughout red-state America should the U.S. Supreme Court dismantle Roe v. Wade.

That landmark 1973 case established the right of women to determine for themselves whether to carry pregnancies to term. As with most rights, this one isn’t absolute. The balance struck by the court allows a woman to end a pregnancy until the fetus could viably live outside the womb — generally, about 24 weeks. After that, states can prohibit the procedure. But the anti-abortion movement has never accepted that compromise, fighting for decades to deny women’s rights to control their own bodies at virtually any point during pregnancy.

Texas’ radical new anti-abortion law circumvents Roe by leaving it to bounty-hunting strangers to enforce the state’s draconian limits via profitable lawsuits. That way, the state itself can’t be said to be enforcing it in contravention of Supreme Court rulings. Astoundingly, the Supreme Court has, so far, let this cynical maneuver stand.