HuffPo: “The key architect of the radical new Texas anti-abortion law has argued in a U.S. Supreme Court brief that women can avoid pregnancy by simply avoiding sex.
The stunning argument was presented by attorney Jonathan Mitchell in a friend-of-the-court brief this summer supporting a restrictive Mississippi law denying women the right to an abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The brief also argued that Roe v. Wade should be overruled.
“Women can ‘control their reproductive lives’ without access to abortion; they can do so by refraining from sexual intercourse,” Mitchell, a former Texas solicitor general, lectured in the brief, which was first reported by The Guardian.
Mitchell and co-counsel Adam Mortara (a former clerk for conservative Justice Clarence Thomas), also noted in the brief that women have the option to travel to other states with different laws to obtain an abortion. “Indigent women” could avail themselves of “abortion funds” to help them with costs, the brief claimed.
As for women’s sexual behavior, “one can imagine a scenario in which a woman has chosen to engage in unprotected (or insufficiently protected) sexual intercourse on the assumption that an abortion will be available to her later,” the brief noted. “But when this court announces the overruling of Roe that individual can simply change their behavior … if she no longer wants to take the risk of an unwanted pregnancy.””