US-Roe vs Wade overturned

[StringJunky]

Just now, iNow said:

While they don’t always act like it, they are a part of congress. 

Ahh, gotcha.

[MigL]

Maybe Justice Alito is looking for a way that the SC can avoid the responsibility ithas had for the last 50 yrs. of maintaining the status quo, and place it where it belongs; on the shoulders of our elected representatives.

I have always thought that a society has the right to set the rules that it lives by, and not have unelected intelligentsia determine those rules. I think abortion could be one of those rules.

That being said, most of those rules should apply to the greater society of the country, and not be a mix'n'match at the state level.
An American should not have one set of rights in one state, and another set in the next. Nor should travel between states be a problem.
That is the absurd situation.

And I get the feeling the SC will be dragged back into this debate, at least, to decide what it means to be American, and how some Americans have rights other Americans are denied.

[uncool]

Additionally, the Senate could refuse to confirm any extra Supreme Court justices if it changed its mind after allowing more.

It would be very unlikely, but the Senate has both direct power over the number of justices (through legislation) and indirect control (through confirmation).

3 minutes ago, MigL said:

That being said, most of those rules should apply to the greater society of the country, and not be a mix'n'match at the state level.
An American should not have one set of rights in one state, and another set in the next. Nor should travel between states be a problem.
That is the absurd situation.

What are you defining as “rights” here? Does e.g. the right to buy alcohol count as a “right”? The right to buy guns? The existence of a patchwork of rights sounds like the same thing as different states having different laws.

What you are looking for is probably covered by the “Full Faith and Credit” clause of the Constitution.

[MigL]

I'm not overly familiar with the Constitution ( Canadian ), but I don't see how an imaginary line between States determines that one American has the right to an abortion, while anothe American does not.

Maybe the SC can interpret what exactly it means  'to be American', and what rights cannot be taken away by a State, according to the Constitution.

Edited May 3, 2022 by MigL

[exchemist]

40 minutes ago, MigL said:

Maybe Justice Alito is looking for a way that the SC can avoid the responsibility ithas had for the last 50 yrs. of maintaining the status quo, and place it where it belongs; on the shoulders of our elected representatives.

I have always thought that a society has the right to set the rules that it lives by, and not have unelected intelligentsia determine those rules. I think abortion could be one of those rules.

That being said, most of those rules should apply to the greater society of the country, and not be a mix'n'match at the state level.
An American should not have one set of rights in one state, and another set in the next. Nor should travel between states be a problem.
That is the absurd situation.

And I get the feeling the SC will be dragged back into this debate, at least, to decide what it means to be American, and how some Americans have rights other Americans are denied.

I was wondering that. If states try to make it illegal to travel to another state for abortion, I would expect that part of the state law to be challenged - in the Supreme Court! I don't see, on the face of it, how it can be acceptable to deny people the right to travel, within their own country, to take advantage of differences in law between different parts of it. Are there no precedents from other state legislation that can be cited? Drinking? Gun ownership? Age of marriage? 

Edited May 3, 2022 by exchemist

[Peterkin]

6 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Are there no precedents from other state legislation that can be cited? Drinking? Gun ownership? Age of marriage? 

Now, there you have a whole pitch of sticky wickets. Jurisdictional disputes between states, and state and federal agencies. I can't see these issues resolved any time soon: what's needed is nothing less than a full sweep of reforms.  

[MigL]

Not to pick on Democrats, again ...

There have been plenty of opportunities during the last 50 yrs. to turn the SC decision into law at the federal level.
All that time, Democrats have held the naive notion that the Roe vs. Wade decision was settled law, and failed to enact actual law.
I would think it is much easier to overturn a previous opinion, rather than an enshrined law.

We are failed by our elected Governments, and we blame the SC when they change their mind.

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Peterkin said:

I'm not sure. But SCOTUS is not a single mind; even the Republican appointees don't have the exact same response to every constitutional issue. It's a difficult document to interpret in the face of contemporary social reality. And they're not - mostly - stupid people or dishonest judges. They may reach a majority decision on one issue and  a different conclusion on another.

Their stated goal was adding justices that would eliminate Roe, Obergfell, and likely Griswold. Seems likely that they sufficiently vetted their choices regarding matters like this, especially since they all fall under an umbrella of non-enumerated rights. 

[MigL]

And I think Gay marriage rights should have also been enacted as Federal law.
That could be next on the agenda.

[CharonY]

 

37 minutes ago, MigL said:

Not to pick on Democrats, again ...

There have been plenty of opportunities during the last 50 yrs. to turn the SC decision into law at the federal level.
All that time, Democrats have held the naive notion that the Roe vs. Wade decision was settled law, and failed to enact actual law.
I would think it is much easier to overturn a previous opinion, rather than an enshrined law.

We are failed by our elected Governments, and we blame the SC when they change their mind.

Problem is that anti-abortion sentiments are not entirely party specific. In the 70s most folks were only for abortions being legal in certain cases, with little difference between Reps and Dems. In fact, the support for abortion was slightly higher among Reps and highest among Independents (if we sum up legal support with and without restrictions). The support among Reps for legal under any circumstance really dropped of starting in the 90s when conversely the support among Dems increased. 

https://news.gallup.com/poll/246278/abortion-trends-party.aspx

So for the longest time it was a bit of a split issue, and while I think there were attempts to enshrine abortion as a right, it just had insufficient support.

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, swansont said:

Their stated goal was adding justices that would eliminate Roe, Obergfell, and likely Griswold. Seems likely that they sufficiently vetted their choices regarding matters like this, especially since they all fall under an umbrella of non-enumerated rights. 

Then I guess a lot of Americans - or rather, even more Americans - are just plain screwed.

Partition?

[TheVat]

The real reasons that the Evangelicals took up the anti abortion banner and made it their hot button issue....

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133

 

[MigL]

Some Canadian politicians have already commented that American women would be welcome to undergo the procedure in Canada.

[LazyLemonLucas]

10 hours ago, MigL said:

That being said, most of those rules should apply to the greater society of the country, and not be a mix'n'match at the state level.
An American should not have one set of rights in one state, and another set in the next. Nor should travel between states be a problem.
That is the absurd situation.

I would not be surprised somebody would make this argument; this is an argument that has been made regarding the issue of free states and slave states during the mid-1800s. Dare I say, history repeats itself... 

[uncool]

Worth noting it was used on both “sides”: by slavery supporters to say that their “rights” to own slaves shouldn’t end when they visited free states (or when slaves successfully ran away to free states) and by abolitionists to say that African Americans should have the same right to be free in all states

Edited May 4, 2022 by uncool

[LazyLemonLucas]

9 minutes ago, uncool said:

Worth noting it was used on both “sides”: by slavery supporters to say that their “rights” to own slaves shouldn’t end when they visited free states (or when slaves successfully ran away to free states) and by abolitionists to say that African Americans should have the same right to be free in all states

No wonder why the correlation between slavery and abortion (since it centers on personhood) is so often brought up.

[exchemist]

9 hours ago, TheVat said:

The real reasons that the Evangelicals took up the anti abortion banner and made it their hot button issue....

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133

 

That's very interesting indeed, about how the Religious Right became a political bloc.

However, the way I read it, the article does not suggest the preoccupation with abortion was, or is, merely a flag to mask another agenda.  It seems to say that while it was opposition to racial desegregation that originally caused the Religious Right to coalesce politically,  it was actually the spike in abortions following Roe v. Wade that made it a key issue for them subsequently.  So one can't infer from this article that the current preoccupation with abortion is a smokescreen disguising a racial agenda, it seems to me.   

[StringJunky]

A link to a copy of the draft: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21835435/scotus-initial-draft.pdf

[Peterkin]

7 hours ago, exchemist said:

That's very interesting indeed, about how the Religious Right became a political bloc.

However, the way I read it, the article does not suggest the preoccupation with abortion was, or is, merely a flag to mask another agenda.  It seems to say that while it was opposition to racial desegregation that originally caused the Religious Right to coalesce politically,  it was actually the spike in abortions following Roe v. Wade that made it a key issue for them subsequently.  So one can't infer from this article that the current preoccupation with abortion is a smokescreen disguising a racial agenda, it seems to me.   

The spike in abortions was not due to the Supreme Court decision.  It was merely the legal resurfacing of a practice that goes way back. Roe v Wade in the US, as had happened a few years before in Canada, merely meant that it happens on operating tables instead of kitchen tables. Of course, a great many abortions were already being performed in doctors' offices and private clinics, without documentation. Both the documentation and the patient survival rate in the lower classes increased dramatically (I don't have time to look up infanticide and abandonment stats). Everybody had known all along, but now they could know it aloud.

In the post WWII decades, western society exercised the break with its Christian foundations - a break for which the philosophical groundwork had been laid between the world wars, by Huxley, Russell et al. At the same time, the great burgeoning of women's social, economic and political emancipation - also with its roots in the early 20th century, and its collision with existing power structure in the 1960's, at the same time that the single largest cohort the western world had ever produced entered its reproductive stage. At the same time that the Civil Rights Movement - not coincidentally - made substantial progress. In the 1970's, all of these forces converged.

And they all threatened the the long entrenched, self-entitled power structure, social structure, legal structure. At the same time that some white factions feared desegregation (with the concomitant challenge from Black men for the jobs and positions white men considered their domain) they were also faced with a challenge for those positions of economic and political power from women, who, hitherto had been kept out of the fray by motherhood and dependency. Whipping up a moral backlash on behalf of the 'precious little murdered babies' had a triple advantage: it turned the decent, God-fearing women against the wanton Jezebels (dividing women for easy conquest), created a politically impotent underclass of shamed, impoverished unwed mothers (useful as football and whipping post) and, besides masking the unsavoury motivations of that faction, also concealed the building of the existential threat that is the GOP of today.

(Side-note: Wouldn't you think that, if the moral Protestants were seriously concerned about unborn babies and their mothers' souls, they would advocate strongly for, rather than against family planning, sex education and birth control? )     

The 'abortion issue' is indeed the biggest, most effective smokescreen since the 13th century witch-hunts... with much the same designated target.  

No, on second thought, that's incorrect. The great open-ended commie-hunt of the 50's was another. Similar motives, different fall-guy.   

Edited May 4, 2022 by Peterkin
poor editing

[TheVat]

7 hours ago, exchemist said:

That's very interesting indeed, about how the Religious Right became a political bloc.

However, the way I read it, the article does not suggest the preoccupation with abortion was, or is, merely a flag to mask another agenda.  It seems to say that while it was opposition to racial desegregation that originally caused the Religious Right to coalesce politically,  it was actually the spike in abortions following Roe v. Wade that made it a key issue for them subsequently.  So one can't infer from this article that the current preoccupation with abortion is a smokescreen disguising a racial agenda, it seems to me.   

No, not so much a smokescreen as a more palatable nucleus around which to crystallize.  Expanding the base around de facto segregation would have been a much harder sell.  The real irony, to me, is that a large number of the babies they were claiming they wanted to save were (owing to the demographics of abortion) Black or Hispanic -- those babies that conservatives were so loathe to provide any post-natal assistance to.  We're pro-life, at least until you're born.  After that, you're on your own, kiddo.

[exchemist]

21 hours ago, TheVat said:

No, not so much a smokescreen as a more palatable nucleus around which to crystallize.  Expanding the base around de facto segregation would have been a much harder sell.  The real irony, to me, is that a large number of the babies they were claiming they wanted to save were (owing to the demographics of abortion) Black or Hispanic -- those babies that conservatives were so loathe to provide any post-natal assistance to.  We're pro-life, at least until you're born.  After that, you're on your own, kiddo.

Sure, though that's a rather different point. Though I suppose that if the denial of abortions mainly affects ethnic minorities, that would explain why it cause huge opposition from the women. In a way the most interesting part of all this is how an issue that was originally only a Catholic position came to be adopted by evangelical Protestants as well.     

[Peterkin]

Condemnation of all things carnal was ever dear to the religious zealot's heart. Loose women are the easiest target; female sexuality is the most dangerous thing in the bible.  

[J.C.MacSwell]

This is an emotional issue.

it comes right down to it, we're probably just another species on just another planet, but it doesn't take much of what drives religious conviction to have some degree of faith that we are more than that, at least to ourselves as a human species.

We frown upon those who don't, or can't somehow bring themselves, to share that view and include all of mankind in it, the type of special we don't hold for other species. 

When does that "special" start in an individual? Is there a scientific answer? Surely science and logic can at least help with this emotional issue.

What is the special "human" value of a fetus? Surely it can't depend only on the emotional attachment of those closest in relationship to it.

Is every sperm sacred in terms of human value? Surely not. At least not special. Every egg? 

How about when the two are combined? Is it "special" at that point; conception? Special enough to override the rights of the mother at that point?

But at some point "special" starts with full force, or starts and presumably grows from some point.

Can anyone make a good argument that it starts at birth? Is a premature baby born 7 months after conception more "human" than a 9 months past conception fetus? Does it make one more human than the other depending on which one is wanted more? Which one has parents better equipped to nurture it, more rich or more poor? Which one's mother's doctor holds what views of life? 

Or are women's rights simply so important that they override any rights of a very human fetus, right up to that point?

 

[StringJunky]

6 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

This is an emotional issue.

it comes right down to it, we're probably just another species on just another planet, but it doesn't take much of what drives religious conviction to have some degree of faith that we are more than that, at least to ourselves as a human species.

We frown upon those who don't, or can't somehow bring themselves, to share that view and include all of mankind in it, the type of special we don't hold for other species. 

When does that "special" start in an individual? Is there a scientific answer? Surely science and logic can at least help with this emotional issue.

What is the special "human" value of a fetus? Surely it can't depend only on the emotional attachment of those closest in relationship to it.

Is every sperm sacred in terms of human value? Surely not. At least not special. Every egg? 

How about when the two are combined? Is it "special" at that point; conception? Special enough to override the rights of the mother at that point?

But at some point "special" starts with full force, or starts and presumably grows from some point.

Can anyone make a good argument that it starts at birth? Is a premature baby born 7 months after conception more "human" than a 9 months past conception fetus? Does it make one more human than the other depending on which one is wanted more? Which one has parents better equipped to nurture it, more rich or more poor? Which one's mother's doctor holds what views of life? 

Or are women's rights simply so important that they override any rights of a very human fetus, right up to that point?

 

I think the medical line is not necessarily when personhood begins, but when a foetus can exist independently of it's mother, as a general guidline. Currently, I think they are in  a potentially  survivable state around 6 months gestation. 

[TheVat]

This being a politics forum, I figure the thread here is looking at how we balance competing societal notions of legal rights rather than taking on metaphysical questions that concern theologians.  For lack of supernatural devices that detect souls, I guess the law must settle on using fetal viability as the standard.  AFAIK that has been determined at around 24-26 weeks.  

A society that provides young women with all the information they need about their bodies, strong legal protection against exploitative treatment from partners, free (or sliding scale) access to contraception, and safe prompt judgement-free access to either medicinal abortion (mifepristone) or surgical abortion when accidents happen, would be one where abortion was rare and would be done long before the latter part of pregnancy.  

The third trimester abortions that seem to fire up many of the appeals to emotion are already rare, under one percent.  One source (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) puts the totality of abortions after 21 weeks at around one percent.

I feel like my country is returning to the dark ages.