The writing seems to be on the wall about the fate of Roe v. Wade and the imaginary Constitutional right to dismember your offspring in utero and the entire leftist sacrament of abortion on demand. Mississippi has passed an abortion ban that begins at Week 15 of the gestation period, and the Supreme Court heard the case in December (Here’s What the Supreme Court’s Abortion Decision Could Mean for the Midterms). Not only did they hear the case, they allowed the ban to remain in place pending a ruling indicating that the tenor of the oral arguments was such that much of the left saw the end of a federal right to abortion. At the same time, the Supreme Court allowed the Texas “heartbeat” law to go into effect. This law has effectively stopped abortion in Texas, see Supreme Court Humiliates Biden, Refuses to Stop Texas Heartbeat Law, and Gorsuch and the Wise Latina Have a Public Spat.

Last Thursday, the Florida legislature passed a bill closely modeled on Mississippi’s law that bans abortion after 15 weeks. While the bill should not have shocked anyone, the White House response was quick and extreme.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris Friday condemned Florida legislation that would restrict abortion after 15 weeks.

“Last night, the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature passed a dangerous bill that will severely restrict women’s access to reproductive health care. My administration will not stand for the continued erosion of women’s constitutional rights,” Biden said on Twitter following the Florida Senate’s passage of the bill, which is expected to be signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

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Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman to hold her role, issued her own statement later in the day that called the Florida legislation unconstitutional in anticipation of coming court fights. The Florida bill follows an even more aggressive law passed by Texas last year that restricts abortion after just six weeks.

“The right of women to make decisions about their own bodies is non-negotiable. If signed into law, Florida’s bill would violate the constitutional right to abortion that the Supreme Court has recognized for nearly 50 years. It will block access to crucial reproductive health care for Floridians, with a particular impact on low-income communities, communities of color, and rural communities,” Harris said in the statement. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a “Cancer Moonshot,” event in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022, in Washington. Alex Brandon AP “Unconstitutional abortion bans and other bills that will dramatically reduce access to reproductive care are pending in state legislatures across the country. These efforts only strengthen our resolve: The Biden-Harris administration will continue to do everything in our power to protect access to healthcare and defend a woman’s right to make decisions about her body and determine her future.”

What makes this reaction so unusual is that the past six months have seen a blizzard of pro-life laws passed, many of which are much more severe than Florida’s law. Just two days earlier, West Virginia passed a 15-week abortion bill. Idaho has passed a law modeled on the Texas “heartbeat” law (so has Wisconsin, but I can’t imagine it getting past the governor’s veto). In fact, some 5-600 abortion-restrictive laws have been passed in the last year. Yet it is the Florida law copycatting a law that received a favorable hearing in the Supreme Court that Biden/Harris decided to get excited about. What’s going on?

I think this has to be viewed through the lens of 2022 and 2024. Right now, Ron DeSantis is a bogeyman to the left because he’s smart, he’s surrounded himself with smart and aggressive people, and he knows which fights to pick and with whom. The Three Days of Rage over DeSantis telling a group of students wearing masks they were participating in “COVID theater” (see An Annoyed DeSantis Tells Students They Can Remove Masks, Encourages a Stop to COVID Theater) show what kind of an obsession the left has with him. The attack on Florida’s abortion law is being used as a tool by the Democrats to try to spin up interest within their voting base for 2022. Showing Joey SoftServe is “doing something” about the right to murder babies will, they hope, distract from his unbroken series of failures in everything else he has touched. Also, DeSantis has to be seen as a leading contender for the 2024 GOP nomination. It is never too early to start roughing him up as some kind of ogre who wants to send women to the back alleys with a rusty coathanger to take care of business.