The left is often accused of slippery slopes when it comes to abortion: If you kill your “unborn child, ” what’s stopping you from killing your child after it’s born? But with the recent supreme court decision upholding the federal abortion ban, it seems we are heading down the other side of the hill.

If the government can choose to advance fetal interests over the pregnant woman’s health in the context of abortion, why can’t so-called “fetal rights” prevail in the context of birth?

Unlike the left, however, which never advocated for killing babies and children, pregnant women’s lives are now sometimes a secondary consideration.

In fact, this argument is already being used to justify court-ordered Cesarean sections in cases where physicians believe that a c-section will prove more beneficial to the fetus (this despite the fact that c-sections constitute major surgery and pose increased health risks to the pregnant woman and in some cases the fetus as well). True, most courts so far rule that such interventions unconstitutionally strip women of their civil and human rights, including bodily integrity, informed medical decision-making, liberty, and, in one case, life itself. In that case, later reversed by an appellate court, both the woman and her baby died after a forced c-section ordered to protect fetal life.

But at least one federal court has said that sending police to a woman’s home, taking her into custody while in active labor and near delivery, strapping her legs together and her body down to transport her against her will to a hospital, and then forcing her, without access to counsel or court review to undergo major surgery constituted no violation of her civil rights at all. The rationale? If the state can limit women’s access to abortions after viability, it can subject her to the lesser state intrusion of insisting on one method of delivery over another.

The Louisiana Senate recently passed a bill completely banning abortion in the state. There are no exceptions for a woman’s health, rape, or incest. And contraceptives like the morning after pill are also banned. This bill would not go into effect until after Roe v. Wade was overturned. But

[Senator] Nevers said he feels the likelihood of such a move is high after the appointment to the Court of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito.

Via Our Bodies Our Blog.