Current Vice President Mike Pence is different from President Donald Trump because of the history that Pence has with actually using the nation’s legislative system to push conservative ideas. Pence’s most recent position before becoming the U.S. vice president was as governor of Indiana; before that, he served in Congress.
Pence made a name for himself while serving as Indiana governor for his conservative advocacy. One of the forms that advocacy took was a 2016 measure that he signed into law banning women in his state from having “selective abortions” that took into account some specific quality of the fetus, such as whether or not they had a genetic disability.
This past Thursday, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago formally ruled against that measure in a 3-0 vote and thereby upheld a permanent injunction against the law enacted by U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt last September.
The case against the state of Indiana over the law had been brought by Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky. Kenneth Falk, who serves as a lawyer for that organization, commented:
‘States have been attempting to restrict abortions in ways that are clearly unconstitutional. We’re obviously very happy.’
Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill’s office did not immediately return a request from Reuters for comment.
The Thursday ruling is not the only recent ruling in favor of women’s rights activists. On Wednesday, the day before ruling against the Indiana state government, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati struck down an Ohio measure signed into law by Gov. John Kasich that kept taxpayer funds from going to Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. Planned Parenthood clinics provide an array of other services besides abortions, but Republicans were willing to make their constituents give those services up for the sake of an ideological victory.
Indeed, it will remain forever ironic that the party that is so vehemently opposed to abortion is also, as a rule, so vehemently opposed to the expansion and strengthening of the nation’s welfare system. Many GOP leaders want children to be born but couldn’t care less about what happens next.
Mike Pence is certainly one of those leaders. He recently went so far as to assert that this generation will be the one to see abortion outlawed across the country like had been early last century.
He made those remarks while speaking at a luncheon hosted by the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List and Life Institute last month.
The anti-abortion law just overturned in a federal court is not the only bigoted law that Pence is known for signing while in office as Indiana’s governor. He also signed a measure into law allowing discrimination against LGBT people on religious grounds — because apparently to him, whether or not LGBT people should be afforded basic human respect is a matter best left up to the religious and not one of basic human decency.
The state’s legal code was eventually amended to protect LGBT people from discrimination. Thus, no matter how many angry pronouncements that the vice president issues, the country is continuing to march forward.
Featured Image via Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images
