While we wait for the Supreme Court to issue rulings in the twin abortion rights cases, we have our eyes on a few non-abortion Court cases.

Some relate to basic civil and human rights:

Others relate to the preservation of democracy itself:

But you may be asking: What does any of this have to do with abortion? Why should I care?

Because it’s all about reproductive justice, my friends.

Reproductive justice has three main principles: (1) the right to have a child; (2) the right not to have a child; and (3) the right to raise your children in a safe and healthy environment. And each of these cases puts at least one of those principles at risk.

Nobody wants their kid machine gunned down at school. Nor do they want to raise their children in a city where the water is filled with lead. They also don’t want Christofascists determining who is allowed to access what types of health care. Each of these cases are part of the fabric of our democracy and if you haven’t noticed, our democracy is being shredded. So, while we wait for that to happen, let’s go through the cases we’re still waiting for.

Moody v. NetChoice, LLC and NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton

In 2021, after the far-right January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Florida and Texas enacted laws restricting social media platforms’ ability to moderate content and to, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put it, stop Big Tech from pursuing its “effort to silence, intimidate, and wipe out dissenting voices by the leftist media and big corporations.” That these laws were passed in the wake of former President Donald Trump being banned from social media platforms and relegated to Truth Social should give an indication of the type of grievance DeSantis and Abbott are peddling.

The Supreme Court will be issuing rulings on two aspects of these laws. First, the must-carry provision, which requires social media platforms to host speech even if they don’t want to, and second, transparency requirements that require platforms to explain why they removed or deprioritized certain posts on their sites.

Those of us who have been active on Twitter/X both in the pre- and post-Elon Musk eras understand that if the Court rules in favor of the states, social media platforms will become even bigger hotbeds of misinformation and hate speech. And it will be unbearable.

These cases are ultimately about speech, but they are also part of a concerted effort by conservatives to play victim and dilute the meaning of discrimination. Both Texas and Florida argue that their laws prohibit discrimination, just as civil rights laws do.

Notably, the decisions in these cases could have implications for media outlets like ours, since the intrusion on editorial autonomy could undermine traditional publishers’ First Amendment rights. Also, given that Texas and Florida are leading the charge in book banning, these states complaining that conservative viewpoints are........

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