America's 21st century Dred Scott decision?

Born 45 years into the 20th century, I missed the 1857 Dred Scott decision (Dred Scott v. Stanford). It denied blacks, whether slave or free, the right to citizenship, leaving them incapable of suing for their freedom or anything else. It protected slave holders rights under the Fifth Amendment, declaring slaves to be their property. Lastly, it ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, ending the ability of the federal government to prevent the spread of slavery.

One hundred, sixty-eight years later the Supreme Court issued a middle of the night ‘shadow docket’ decision, allowing a Texas abortion ban to become effective, essentially ending voluntary abortion in the second biggest state of 29 million. A shadow docket allows just a single justice to refer a matter to the full court for prompt review without oral argument and virtually no public notice

In effect, Roe v. Wade which gave women the right to abortion in 1973 has been overturned in Texas. Florida has already signaled it too may use the Texas law to abolish abortion in the third biggest state.

The Texas law, now in force, criminalizes abortion after just 6 weeks and makes no exception for rape and incest. It skirts the federal enforcement issue by placing enforcement in the hands of anti-abortion citizens who have up to 4 years to sue anyone associated with a post 6 week abortion. That can include the doctor, the taxi driver who delivered the woman to the clinic, the person who furnished the fee. One doesn’t have to be against an abortion to file suit. It could be a person seeking revenge some non-abortion related issue or simply the cash bounty authorized by the law.

Guess who will be greatly harmed by the new Texas law? Poor people, especially people of color who have no means to simply travel to a sane state such as Illinois for a basic medical procedure, the right to which every human being deserves. Did the Texas legislature and the U.S. Supreme Court ponder echoes of Dred Scott when the former passed, and the latter ratified this nefarious law and judicial ruling?

Karma might be unleashed upon the law's authors and ratifiers. The Dred Scott decision helped ignite the simmering abolitionist movement which began our nation’s march to end slavery. So too the 2021 shadow docket decision ending Roe v. Wade in Texas might spur the forces championing the rule of law over the rule of men to organize for re-instatement of full abortion rights nationwide.