Leonard Leo’s network plans to challenge state efforts to protect abortion access
So much for “states rights” on abortion
By Jennifer Cohn
5/4/24
In 2017, the Trump administration officially supported a House bill that would have banned abortion nationwide after 20 weeks. Trump has since supposedly reversed course, presumably because he realized that he could not win re-election in 2024 while publicly supporting a federal abortion ban. He now claims that individual states have the right to protect abortion access if that’s what they want to do:
“Everybody agrees — you’ve heard this for years — all the legal scholars on both sides agree: it’s a state issue. It shouldn’t be a federal issue, it’s a state issue,” Trump recently declared.
Trump’s remarks are misleading at best. Unbeknownst to most voters, allies of Supreme Court “puppetmaster” Leonard Leo (who advised Trump on all three of his Supreme Court nominations) are already teeing up a plan to thwart state efforts to protect abortion access.
Those allies include attorney Robert George (a Princeton University professor and Leo confidante) as well as Orange County attorney Tim Busch who sits on the board of the Napa Legal Institute with Leo.
As we reported last week, Busch has glowingly referred to the Supreme Court as the “Leo Court,” reflecting Leo’s close ties to all six members of the Court’s right wing supermajority, including the three justices that Trump nominated upon Leo’s recommendation. (See Brief #3.)
Those three Trump justices sided with the majority in Dobbs, the case that overturned Roe v Wade in 2022.
Contrary to Trump’s recent remarks, Busch and Professor George argue that states cannot legally protect abortion access. In support of this position, they claim that a fetus qualifies as a “person” under the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment.
Busch has promoted this “fetal personhood” argument during a post-Dobbs event organized by the Napa Institute (which Busch co-founded).
Professor George has promoted this same argument during an appearance on EWTN, the largest Catholic media network in America.
Likewise, Professor George has promoted fetal personhood in an article published in 2023 by the Federalist Society, which is co-chaired by Leonard Leo. There, Professor George and his co-author wrote that “state laws allowing elective abortion … violate constitutional rights” because they “deprive a class of human beings — those at the earliest developmental stages — of ‘the equal protection of the laws.’”
Professor George had previously advocated fetal personhood in an amicus brief filed in the Dobbs case that overturned Roe. Similarly, the fetal personhood argument was presented in a pre-Dobbs article published by the Ethics and Public Policy Center where Professor George sits on the board of directors.
Leo sits on the same board.
In Dobbs, the “Leo Court” found it unnecessary to decide the fetal personhood issue. But we should expect Leo’s network to present it to them again after the 2024 election, especially if Trump wins that election, which would enable Leo and his associates to maintain and perhaps even expand right wing control over the Court.
