Solicitor General and clinic Respondents in Dobbs have until Tuesday, July 19, 2022 to File their Petition for Rehearing in Dobbs abortion case

If they do not intend to file, they should help groups file a Petition to Intervene post-decision and a Petition for Rehearing raising the Thirteenth Amendment

Though I have emailed the Solicitor General and the attorneys for the Respondent clinics in Dobbs, they have not responded as to their intentions. I do not know if they will file the necessary Petition for Rehearing raising the necessary Thirteenth Amendment issue. That Petition for Rehearing must be filed in the Supreme Court no later than Tuesday, July 19, 2022.

I have asked them if they think my argument under the Thirteenth Amendment is wrong, but they have not even responded to that inquiry.

Since lives and financial and emotional conditions for millions of women are at risk in this litigation as it stands, it may become necessary for non-party organizations to file a Petition to Intervene post-decision and a Petition for Rehearing, with both to be filed by July 19, 2022.

To again summarize the 13th Amendment argument, as follows: the State cannot coerce a pregnant woman to go to term, labor and delivery of a baby against her will and intent when she wanted to terminate the unwanted or unintended pregnancy earlier, but the State prohibited her from doing so by applying it’s abortion laws to the woman’s situation and conditions. This State coerced pregnancy delivery amounts to involuntary servitude violating the Thirteenth Amendment.

As discussed in my July 9 Newsletter, a relatively recent decision of the Supreme Court in 1988 gives us strong support that coerced labor violates the Thirteenth Amendment. In the cited case the labor referred to was by a worker, but in the abortion context, the labor applies to the pregnant woman going into labor and then delivery. But there is nothing that would apply the 13th Amendment to a worker’s labor that would not also apply to the pregnant woman’s labor.

The 1988 case is titled, United States v. Kozminski, 487 U.S. 931 (1988), where the precise issue was whether the Congressional enabling legislation under the 13th Amendment was broad enough to cover psychological injury caused by landowners subjecting immigrant workers to abhorrent living and working conditions. Though the Justices agreed that the actual conditions came within the definition of involuntary servitude or peonage, there was some disagreement as to the types of coercion sufficient to justify a criminal prosecution of the landowners who kept the workers in a form of bondage.

In the context of a State coerced labor and delivery after abortion was denied to the pregnant woman under State law, the coercion is from the State itself, and all the Justices agreed that State coercion would be sufficient to amount to involuntary servitude violating the Thirteenth Amendment.

But unless the Solicitor General and counsel for Respondents file their Rule 44 Petition for Rehearing by Tuesday, July 19, 2022, the June 24 decision will be controlling and Roe-Casey will stand overruled.

CJ Roberts had sought to get one of the Alito 5 to abandon ranks and join him in what turned out to be his concurrence. Unfortunately, he was not then successful. But on a Petition for Rehearing, he can again seek a defector from the Alito 5, and if CJ Roberts gets one defector to join him in an opinion retaining Roe-Casey, he can then negotiate with the three dissenters to settle on a standard or timeline when the State’s interest is to be balanced against that of the pregnant woman. The result could be a 5-4 decision withdrawing the June 24

decision and substituting a new 5 person majority retaining Roe-Casey but with the new standard or timeline that five Justices can agree on.

But if no Petition for Rehearing is filed, the June 24 decision and Opinion will be controlling and remain the law of the land. That would be horrendous when there is a strong Thirteenth Amendment decision that could be issued instead.