CBS This Morning on Thursday reacted to the big, breaking news that the Supreme Court has refused to halt Texas’s bill banning abortion after six weeks. Reporter Ben Tracy dismissed it as stopping abortion “once a so-called fetal heartbeat is detected.” He also spun the move by the Court’s conservatives as “contradictory” and “stunning” to liberals.
Co-host Vlad Duthiers blared, “Abortion rights supporters are protesting the law, calling it unconstitutional.” Reporter Ben Tracy dismissed, “The Texas law bans abortions once a so-called ‘fetal heartbeat’ is detected, usually around six weeks. It also seemingly contradicts the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, which guarantees abortion until fetal viability, which is about 22 to 24 weeks.”
"Talk about heartless. So-called? What would Tracy have us call the heartbeat of an unborn child?"
He cited one of the liberal dissents without reading from the unsigned conservative majority: “In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the Court’s decision stunning. She says this Texas law flouts nearly 50 years of federal precedent.”
To his credit, Tracy did feature two interview clips with Elizabeth Graham, the vice president of Texas’s Right to Life. She presented an upcoming abortion case at the Supreme Court as a choice:
The justices will either have to strike down Roe or say that life can be protected at this stage. And if life can be protected at this stage, we thereby concede that Roe was a judicial concoction and is no longer the law or precedent of the land.
On Wednesday, the networks breathlessly huffed about the "uproar" over the "controversial" law, "one of the strictest bans in the country."
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A transcript of the segment is below. Click “expand” to read more.
CBS This Morning
9/2/2021
VLAD DUTHIERS: We have breaking news overnight from the Supreme Court. In a 5-4 vote, the Court refused to block a new Texas law that is the most restrictive abortion law in the country. Chief Justice Roberts sided with the Court’s three liberals. The Court’s decision does not prevent it from considering this case in the future. Abortion rights supporters are protesting the law, calling it unconstitutional. Ben Tracy is outside the Supreme Court. Ben, good morning.
BEN TRACY: Vlad, good morning. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the Court’s decision stunning. She says this Texas law flouts nearly 50 years of federal precedent. But for now, this Texas law which bans abortion after just six weeks of pregnancy, which is before most women even know they are pregnant, will remain in place.
PROTESTERS: Hands off my body!
TRACY: Abortion rights protesters outside the Texas state Capitol vowed to keep fighting.
SARAH ECKHARDT (D-TX): It is our right, our individual right, to choose whether and when we are going to have children.
TRACY: Across Texas, abortion providers warn they may have to close their doors. And that the new law will only lead to illegal and dangerous abortions.
KATHY KLEINFIELD (Houston Women’s Reproductive Services Administrator): Medical professionals, clergy members that were around before Roe v. Wade in ’73, can tell you the horror stories.
TRACY: The Texas law bans abortions once a so-called ‘fetal heartbeat’ is detected, usually around six weeks. It also seemingly contradicts the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, which guarantees abortion until fetal viability, which is about 22 to 24 weeks. The Texas law also allows any private citizen to sue someone getting an abortion, which includes doctors, clinic staff or even someone who drives a woman to a clinic. Those who win a lawsuit can be awarded at least $10,000.
ELIZABETH GRAHAM (Texas Right to Life VP): Those are the ones who are breaking the law who will be found liable for their criminal activity.
TRACY: Elizabeth Graham is President of Texas Right to Life. She says anti-abortion activists are now focused on a Mississippi case that the Supreme Court will hear this fall that could overturn Roe v. Wade.
GRAHAM: The justices will either have to strike down Roe or say that life can be protected at this stage. And if life can be protected at this stage, we thereby concede that Roe was a judicial concoction and is no longer the law or precedent of the land.
TRACY: Now that Mississippi law bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy and supporters of that law are hoping the conservative majority here at the Supreme Court will use it to overturn Roe v. Wade. Tony?
