The politicking behind South Dakota's ban on all abortions (except to save a mother's life) fascinates me.

I think this is part of a concerted effort to force the hand of the new Supreme Court in time for the next election. Whether newly appointed justices Roberts and Alito will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade remains to be seen; I think it's unlikely.

South Dakota isn't the only state, of course. There's been a rush of state legislatures doing the same thing, and it's almost as if the "rank and file" of the Republican base are finally having their say. Assuming Roe is not overturned and these laws are invalidated, the longterm national political question is whether this will be seen as an official effort by the Republican Party as a whole.

If it is, it might mean trouble in the national elections. According to this poll reported by Fox News, a solid majority opposes efforts like South Dakota's:

According to the latest FOX News poll, most Americans think abortion should be legal if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest — exceptions not included in the South Dakota law.

The poll finds that 59 percent of Americans would oppose the South Dakota law in the state where they live and 35 percent would support it. Gov. Mike Rounds signed the new abortion bill earlier this week, and Planned Parenthood says it will fight the law in court.

The South Dakota law is clearly too narrow for many Americans, as more than seven in 10 (74 percent) think abortion should be legal in the cases of rape or incest — including majorities of independents (82 percent), Democrats (79 percent) and Republicans (67 percent).

Fully 83 percent of Americans think abortion should be legal if the pregnancy puts the mother’s life at risk, and another 62 percent think it should be legal if the mother’s mental health is at risk.

But is what's food for the base also food for the Democrats? Time will tell.

I'm also fascinated by the mechanics of deliberately passing laws of dubious constitutionality (I mean that in the sense of settled Supreme Court precedent). Might this be a trend? I mean, if the idea is to supply "food for the base," why stop with abortion? Can't "new" sodomy laws be passed too?

Which leads to a related point. Would they really be "new"?

While I haven't researched the individual state abortion laws, normally, when the Supreme Court declares a law unconstitutional, it remains on the books unless the state legislature actually goes to the trouble of repealing it. For example, in a case with which I'm intimately familiar -- KOLENDER v. LAWSON -- the U.S. Supreme court struck down (for vagueness) California Penal Code Section 647 (e) (which prohibited "loiter[ing] or wander[ing] upon the streets or from place to place without apparent reason or business and who refuses to identify himself or herself and to account for his or her presence when requested by any peace officer so to do, if the surrounding circumstances would indicate to a reasonable person that the public safety demands this identification"). Yet 647(e) remains on the books. It's just not enforceable.

So, my mechnical question is, if states like South Dakota already have old unconstitutional laws on the books (which sixteen states still do) why bother passing duplicates?

If the goal is to stop abortion, why not just enforce the old laws?