How rare is a Supreme Court breach? Very rare
politico.com
politico.com
https://twitter.com/SCOTUSblog/status/1521295411545260035?t=...
It’s impossible to overstate the earthquake this will cause inside the Court, in terms of the destruction of trust among the Justices and staff. This leak is the gravest, most unforgivable sin.
But to go further and say the Supreme Court “has lost all credibility” by returning US law to the international norm—where abortion is a legislative determination—is breathtaking.
Well yes, this is the part that people are most objecting to and calling a human rights violation. How do you gloss over the fact that millions of people in the US will lose a basic right that practically all the rest of western world guarantees its citizens?
That has nothing to do with a majority of people imposing restrictions on themselves. 59% of people in Mississippi oppose abortion, including the majority of women. There is no need for California or New York to parachute in and tell them otherwise.
You could also argue that if 59% of people in Mississippi oppose abortion there's no need to make it illegal. No one will ever force that 59% to start having abortions.
The 59% could simply _choose_ not to have an abortion.
This isn't true. The US is somewhat of an outlier in how liberal the abortion laws are here. What's likely is that, should SCOTUS not bow to the inevitable mob that will come after this leak, blue states keep their liberal abortion laws and red states don't. Most of the country will probably have abortion laws that look pretty similar to those of e.g. Germany.
I don't see an issue; this is Federalism and it's by design.
I didn't say "the US will lose a basic right...".
I said "millions of people in the US will lose a basic right...".
No one thinks this will result in a federal abortion ban, but over a dozen states will immediately ban abortion upon the overturning of Roe v Wade. Those states contain millions of people who will lose the right to an abortion.
Abortion isn’t like civil rights, where southern states passed laws directed at a minority that had a unique historical position. States where voters choose to ban abortion have women the same as states who choose to allow abortion and those women agree with the bans. The majority of Black women in Mississippi think abortion should be illegal. Why should anyone in New York get a say?
Because if that's your argument it sort of gives away the game about the robustness of the Roe/Casey decision(s) in the first place.
The Federal government abdicating the protection of certain rights means states will infringe on those rights. I can be upset that my fellow citizens will lose those rights even if I live in state that will continue to protect my rights.
Yes, that's exactly the point. States run themselves like little countries and the glowies handle issues that are truly interstate or effect the entire nation.
The idea that someone in "practically Canada" Maine and someone in "practically Mexico" California and someone in "I can see russia" (lol) Alaska all have to run their businesses in some particular way because some jerk on Wall Street ruined it for everyone and got a law made after them is asinine.
Very few countries around the world think that there is a “right” to abortion until viability. It was created out of whole cloth by elite lawyers in the US.
Nope, anybody paying attention thinks this will result in a federal ban.
Conservatives are already calling for a senate majority to specifically apply a 6 week abortion ban nation wide. And that is just the start.
https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/...
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/republican-marria...
https://jezebel.com/yes-republicans-are-coming-for-gay-marri...
https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1521296185977417732
https://twitter.com/notstevenwhite/status/152129472044988825...
One of my acquaintances who's a lawyer says in particular certain personal rights to privacy/autonomy that Griswold is built around is a target of the federalist society for a variety of reasons, some of which are business related. Can't remember the details but if you combine a wealth/profit-driven interest with a social conservatives christian patriarchy, the idea that Griswold is just safe because the court wouldn't go there looks pretty thin.
The courts are going to go for broke here, they've got a certain makeup that's been in the making for decades and McConnell's manipulations and Trump's victory got them across the finish line. They're not kidding around with power, they're going to use it.
EDIT: Downvoters, while we're all entitled to the use of that pointy disapproval button, if you think it's fundamentally incorrect to state that Obergfell or Griswold are going to be targeted by the court, you have no idea how thrilled I'd be to be persuaded you're correct. Please, make your case.
And what have they been saying they would do for the past 20 years? Get rid of Roe vs. Wade. And what happens as soon as they get control of the court? As fast as they humanly could they tested Roe in front of their new court, and now they've overturned the entire decision in the most brazen way possible.
That was item 1 on their list. In the intervening 20 years there have been other items added to the list as reasons for wanting control of the Supreme Court. Gay marriage has been absolutely listed as a top target since 2015.
Given how they've stated they want to overturn Roe and they followed through, why do you consider the idea that they will go after gay marriage a slippery slope? They've told us they want to do it. Why are we not to take them at their word at this point?
* It reads like an incredible conspiracy theory that the makeup of the court has been engineered. In addition, abortion has been hotly contested and debated, even from just looking at this site. Gay marriage is far less so, and I'm willing to bet that even the most conservative poster on this site would not be against gay marriage. There isn't simply a reason to be against it.
* Even if it were true, same-sex rights are not deeply rooted in history, as is stated in the leaked ruling. The law and rulings should be made without bias of public pressure, and with the knowledge that citizens who votes for these representatives who voted for these justices are getting what they voted for. Who are we to say what is legally right or wrong, without morals?
There is an HN poster who is well known for losing his position as a CEO for failure to deal with the PR backlash over his opposition to gay marriage, and others have argued against it on either direct religious grounds or on grounds like the need for marriage to be associated with the production of children.
So, you’d lose that bet.
That would imply that there is no conservative Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, etc. readership on this site?
It's not a conspiracy theory or a theory at all. You just had to listen and watch what they were doing for the past 20 years. It's not a conspiracy to have a long term project that you telegraph to everyone by campaigning on it. That's called a political platform. It's not some shadowy thing they've done in private; they've done it in the open, slowly, but deliberately. I don't think this is even a question, so I'm surprised you're pushing back on that point unless you don't pay attention to politics. I'm not giving them credit for anything they haven't already taken credit for.
And although I say engineering, it wasn't something they could entirely control. But what they did do was exercise power in pretty craven ways to end up at this 6/3 split (I'm thinking precisely of McConnell holding a seat open with the argument that the people should decide through the upcoming election; and then filling the next vacancy at lightning speed despite being even closer to an election than the last opening).
> I'm willing to bet that even the most conservative poster on this site would not be against gay marriage.
Missing from this site are the fervently religious conservatives. The objection isn't grounded in reason. They're the ones who don't want gay marriage, and they're also actually in power right now in many places. This opinion is a testament to that.
> The law and rulings should be made without bias of public pressure
This presumes that the actors on the court are apolitical and the opinion is grounded firmly in law and logic. I'm still reading the full opinion but my feeling so far is... not positive on that front.
in all fairness, that is prime conspiracy narrative. "just follow the line of strings and it all makes sense!".
The US has been in a swing between the two parties for the past 40 years. to suggest that there's been some kind of plan to fill the courts up an convince the country to overturn a previous ruling would only be possible if you believe the opposing party was in cohoots with the plan. Which is a conspiracy level take that I'd need signifigant, official documents to be swayed on.
Occam's razor still supports your point while keeping the story simple: there's been decades of swing votes with each party getting a justice in over the decades. with the last case happening right towards the end of a controversial president with a controversial 2016 and 2020 election period.
It's a platform, sure. But I think this comes down to a series of happensstance for their plans lining up rather than some carefully crafted web of plans like some sort of thriller movie. We don't need to turn into reddit and make things out to be some grand conspiracy to discuss a topic
Many people said “gay marriage won’t stop there” and that argument is irrelevant too.
We don’t stop making good decisions because it might lead to bad decisions later.
Edit: And the fun part about this leak? If the Court comes out differently, people will wonder if it was pressured. If anything this leak just will just HARDEN the opinion. The person who leaked probably caused the exact opposite response they wanted.
In short, America is soon going to switch from a system where a pregnant woman has a human right to self-preservation and instead in many states the life of the unborn child will be privileged over the pregnant woman which is rather far outside international norms.
Women should be able to control their own bodies, so let's change state laws to make that clear in a way that doesn't depend on judicial interpretation. This shouldn't even be a federal issue to begin with.
Alito's opinion deciding that there isn't a right, or distinguishing one case from another, is as much a way of "legislating" as Roe was.
And frankly, due to the high likelihood of conflicts in law, this SHOULD be a federal issue. Should states be able to decide who is, and who is not, a human being? Under the Constitution, full faith and credit must be given to the rights afforded by those in other states. If state A says that an unborn child is a person and state B says that they're not, and a pregnant woman travels from state A to B, which state law controls?
The purpose of a judiciary is often to interpret laws that are complicated, often ambiguous, and sometimes in conflict. When people say that judges should just "interpret law" and not "make law," or that these issues should be determined by states... well, the issue will eventually come back to the federal level.
Courts are not supposed to legislate from the bench. Roe v Wade was clearly inappropriate ruling from day one. It undermined the integrity of the supreme court.
Abortion should be ingrained as legal via state/federal law.
I can't imagine a ruling stronger than saying "a state must provide a means for citizens to legally carry a firearm outside their home". Even in that case, there are all kinds of legal impediments that blue states would use to make it as difficult as possible.
> In short, America is soon going to switch from a system where a pregnant woman has a human right to self-preservation and instead in many states the life of the unborn child will be privileged over the pregnant woman which is rather far outside international norms.
I'm not aware of any other major country where abortion third-trimester abortions are legal, as is the case in the US today. Most countries set the gestational limit at ~12 weeks.
I'm not really sure what mentioning those European countries is supposed to demonstrate. Are Western European countries supposed to be the last word on human rights? I can believe France, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Spain currently violate a variety of rights I consider human rights, rights that the US upholds. Europe will have substantial political differences with other countries on how it sees rights, this is to be expected. This is a very odd appeal to authority.
They're just the talking points of the last cycle, when the case was argued in front of the court. I don't think the poster as quite internalized what this opinion means in relation to those old talking points. The thinking back then was that the court was maybe going slightly soften Roe by changing something subtle like the line past which an abortion is no longer legal. With a decision like that, the defense would be "Well look at these European countries! You can't say we're worse than them, because Europe is so progressive and liberal, right?" It was supposed to be a way to short-circuit Democratic arguments.
With this newly leaked opinion, the calculus has changed -- it seems that the court will not go with a slight modification to Roe and is instead going with a complete overturning. I think the mistake is in assuming that that's where it all ends. The court has surprised the right and the left here (in opposite ways). So I think it's a valid question as to how far this goes. Because who can stop it? All it takes to invalidate gay marriage is for some religious conservative to put it before the court, and it's done if the court says so.
No one ever said that... and apparently you've entirely missed the ProChoice argument. Does a government have the right to prevent you from having an appendectomy? Where does the government end and you begin? ProChoice is about limiting absolute government authority, like, over your cells and junk.
btw the rights in question are already in the Constitution. We generally refer to it as the Fourth Amendment, though an explicit line limiting what the government can do also lives in the Third Amendment. With the 3rd and the 4th Amendments, any ban on abortion is necessarily unconstitutional, in that we have a right to be secure in our persons free from government intrusion, and the government can't force anyone to take on a tenant, even if for only 9 months.
There are also credible pro-life arguments. The 14th amendment's Equal Protection clause is arguably provides the strongest legal basis for banning abortion: "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
So the legal question is whether a baby that hasn't yet been born is a person - if so, their life ought to be protected by state laws in the same way they protect anyone else's life.
It's a pretty straightforward question - is this baby an individual human being or not? I for one can't accept that I wasn't me while I was yet inside my mom (we know scientifically that after fertilization, I was a distinct human from my mom and dad) - and I see no reason to deny that personhood to fellow people. Answering in the affirmative, and various reasons for such an answer, forms the basis of the pro-life view.
Zooming out a bit, pro-life people see abortion as a modern analog to slavery in the US (where enslaved African-Americans were viewed as 3/5 of a person), except that unborn babies are viewed as not a person at all -- and this framing is used to justify killing them, not merely enslaving them and denying them the right to vote.
I would argue the better slavery analogy is taking away the bodily autonomy of one individual and forcing them to go through an unwanted and dangerous process for the sole benefit of another individual. That would be like making it a legal requirement for us all to regularly donate bone marrow. Even if we acknowledge the fetus as a person, my rights over my body should still supersede anyone else's rights over my body.
I haven't heard anyone seriously challenging the extent of parental responsibility, only when it begins.
I don't have to argue against you. I can just point to the leaked draft that argues against you. It specifically cites safe haven laws which allow people to anonymously put their child up for adoption. These laws have no consideration on what the child's life would be like with their biological parents or after they become a ward of the state. The mere existence of those laws is legal precedent that it is acceptable to abdicate care over a child post-birth. Why shouldn't that be possible pre-birth?
I think this is wrong too, but I think banning abortions is much worse because it's a more direct interference with an individual's body. One is like a a tax, money is taken from you without consent but you are mostly free to get the money however you like. The other is like a mix between forced organ harvesting and slavery where somebody else asserts direct ownership/control over your body.
That's not the important question. The question is can one person be compelled to use their body to sustain another persons life. We can't even force DEAD people to use their body to sustain life (i.e., a person has to consent to donate organs before they die).
This debate hinges entirely on a disagreement over which moral question is the most important.
Edit: One thing I don't see mentioned is how a ethically consistent Pro-Life stance seems to require support for state sponsored healthcare. Requiring people to bear the costs of pregnancy to achieve the state's moral obligations seems unreasonably cruel and counter productive if the infant's well being is the priority. Banning abortions without covering pregnancy costs seems more interested in imposing culture than in protecting the helpless.
Nobody is forced to support anyone with universal healthcare. We won't (and shouldn't) send people to jail for not working. Taxes are a part of participating in the economic activity of your country and the amount you pay back into the system is mostly proportional to the amount you get out of it. Disputing the fundamental role of taxes is morally inconsistent in a Kantian sense as the income that is taxed relies on the economy enabled by the government those taxes support. There is plenty to debate about how much to tax and what to spend it on, but I can't take anyone seriously who claims taxes and government shouldn't exist.
While there is room for a range of opinion on what government should be doing, d
If I hadn’t made it out alive, I wouldn’t care about a thing, same as I won’t care 70 years or so from now. Would have been fine with not experiencing the life I’ve had.
A newborn is completely dependent and isn’t meaningfully any more of an individual. Also can be killed at will?
A foetus is dependent upon its mother. Specifically. One person to whom it is biologically attached. Not society generally.
Technology is advancing, but costs of transferring care are extraordinarily high, and outcomes quite uncertain.
Help me understand what protections against warrantless “searches and seizures” has to do with the State regulating medical procedures?
> 3rd amendment
Which says: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner.”
I’m at a loss. You understand the Constitution is a legal document, right? Not a sequence of metaphors and allegories? Is a fetus a “soldier?” No? Then the Third Amendment is irrelevant.
I'm sorry, you have to read the first 11 words of the Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons
> Which says: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner.” I’m at a loss. You understand the Constitution is a legal document, right? Not a sequence of metaphors and allegories? Is a fetus a “soldier?” No? Then the Third Amendment is irrelevant.
I said the spirit of a right of abortion lives in this amendment. If the government bans abortions, this is precisely the same thing as effectively nationalizing fetuses and quartering them in bodies, yes, but also in houses, as those bodies live in houses. The point is consent... if a woman does not consent to a pregnancy...
You really have to try very very hard not to see it. Well done.
> tenant
Eviction is not something a landlord may decide on their own. Typically you have to take the tenant to court. Sometimes in fact they do end up staying rent free for months.
There have been attacks and denunciations against the court and its credibility for quite a while. At the very least since that one nomination got deliberately stalled at the end of Obama's last term, but I hear there were people attacking the court even before then, when I wasn't paying much attention yet. Something about hanging chads in Florida for one. Or the previous before-my-time attempt at court packing.
Like, truth is stranger than fiction levels of insane. From what I learned of the Supreme Court in the most advanced classes offered at my highschool, to then seeing that debacle go down…
Like, it’s impossible to not view the joint as one of the biggest jokes & public failures of our government.
Furthermore, it’s very much an “and this is what’s in plain view” sort of thing. I, and I presume most HN users, have always known the US gov is a bit of a gigantic joke… but I can’t really imagine how much worse things probably are in private after seeing that play out.
[1] 2016 - It's inappropriate to do an appointment on election year! [2]
[2] 2020 - Of course we will fast-track an appointment on election year!
I've yet to see a work that puts such a concept in a good light. Even if humans are prone to corruption, the theoretical point of a judicial system is to deal with the edge cases that are never clear cut.
> The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
It doesn't have to be written down for it to be one.
Similarly, a right to privacy of some level is generally considered to stem from the Fourth Amendment. The right to freedom of movement is inferred from the Privileges and Immunities Clause.
An attempt by the FDA to ban dairy would likely meet Constitutional challenges, and I'd expect SCOTUS to find some way to deem it a legislative overreach.
English common law has meaning in the US because of State-level actions, not Federal/Constitutional. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reception_statute (Entertainingly, this means oddities like theoretically having the right to trial by combat in Virginia.)
But it seems to be getting closer to the point where we can say AI judges are generally unwise based on real experiment rather than on thought experiment. (Assuming it turns out the way I expect.)
The comments about institutions and trust and process seem to miss the point: those are the first casualties. It gets uglier from here.
I'm looking forward to a post-leak Supreme Court, at least for now. I can't foresee negative outcomes yet so I'm open to a counter-thought to the one I presented above.
Judges care about their legacy, and most of the time, most of them don't want a legacy of being the asshole on the wrong side of history.
The subject of public discourse at this hour.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abort...
https://twitter.com/jonathanwpeters/status/15213098161483448...
Not to mention, the basic premise of THIS OPINION is that public debate about controversial issues is healthy. Anyone complaining about this leak being damaging are doing a great job of undermining the basic premise of the opinion.
yes, the point of the supreme court is to interpret established law (which IS made through public opinion) and make judgement that isn't trying to appeal for their re-election campaign.
>These nine people are unelected and appointed to their positions for life.
in a vacuum, yes. In reality, they are appointed by the president (elected official) with approval from the senate (elected officials). Checks and balances, it's not perfect but it's made so that no one person can basically rule the country like a monarchy.
>the basic premise of THIS OPINION is that public debate about controversial issues is healthy.
no, the basic premise you replied to is "things are so polarized that even state officials are trying to skew opinions through leaks".
Whether it be revealed yesterday or in 2 years, this ruling would not have changed the obviously charged discourse that such a landmark case would bring. There isn't any particular justification that it's in the public's interest to hear this ruling earlier (since, well...it's been ruled over by now I assume. They aren't just going to re-judge the case over some pre-emptive protests). It is in the courts' interests to not have employees release documents off cue.
Yes! That the entire point of the Supreme Court.
It’s amazing how many comments don’t even understand basic civics and how the US government is structured.
But more specifically -- when the country was founded jurisdiction of the court was limited in nature and mainly involved mediating disputes between state governments. The idea that the Court was the ultimate arbiter of constitutional interpretation was a radical idea that was essentially imposed by the first Supreme Court justice.
If you think that the Court shouldn't be concerned with public opinion, well, the court staying out of public opinion is a large part of Alitio's reasoning here and that belies his argument. If being tasked with issuing public and controversial opinions, the justices shouldn't be political activists who are imposing their own personal agendas regardless of political opinion.
I mean, that's correct, but isn't that relevant to the discussion of the Court's role 230 years later.
I think what you want to say is "when the court rules the way I like, it's correct, but when it doesn't, the court is acting incorrectly".
It doesn't work that way
And what’s most hilarious is nobody actually read the draft opinion it says “Roe vs Wade has not resolved it, far better to have Congress resolve it”.
How is that an opinion worthy of attack?
HN likes to think it has as a more intelligent and logical discussion but looking at these comments it’s clear about 90% of it typical social media commentary you’d find anywhere. The few well thought out comments are downvoted to oblivion.
That's not entirely true, the people voted for them by proxy. We live in a republic not an athenian democracy, this is how a lot of things work, it's how it's supposed to work.
And I would further argue that the justices are pillars of the government in that the foundations are not easily swayed if indeed they are impervious to the temporal whims of galvanized crowds.
This was ultimately the choice of the country within the current framework of the government.
Roe exists only because Supreme Court Justices in their ivory tower overturned the laws the “public” had supported. People are afraid of Roe being overturned only because they are afraid of the laws duly elected officials will enact with public support when it’s gone.
The Supreme Court, as conceived by liberals, is an ivory tower where elite lawyers dish out rulings on moral issues without regard to the public perception.
The courts will make a decision and then it's up to Congress to draft new laws if it wants.
Undermining the process of the judicial branch is not going to end well at all.
Government is ignoring processes and right at all levels to some degree. I sympathize with the idea that rule of law has become a joke since nobody can enforce it on the people in power.
Which, while perhaps unethical to someone on the other side of the political debate, doesn't contravene any rules as far as I'm aware. Same here, so I think the leak is fine.
RBG could have retired earlier when democrats had majority but probably for some selfish reason she did not do that.
His did.
I've made it myself.
Again: it did not subvert process or go against precedent. Numerous justices have long-overstayed their terms.
Now, the justices will be facing intense public discontent from those who want a different decision to be made before the draft is finalized (not that I suspect anything can realistically be changed at this point).
If you favor the decision, then it also speaks to money not getting a significant motivating factor (taking money to leak would betray someone they are supporting, which seems less than likely).
By this line of reasoning, I am assuming it was done by someone who deeply opposes the result.
When members do not have a way to change their opinion and save face, they won't change their opinion.
Politico should have been more thoughtful about its disclosure if they preferred to see changes because now the names on that opinion will never change and we could very well see the exact language become the published opinion.
They are humans that have to live in society just like the rest of us. No one is completely invulnerable to society. I imagine being the target of some of these radical abortion groups (anti or pro) would be scary, especially for officials that are normally not in the limelight.
These are federal supreme court justices that rule on often (by the nature of the cases they receive) controversial topics constantly. It's not a position you take if you value privacy.
I'm sure now it's especially dangerous, but I don't think this is a novel factor in their life at this point.
Pro-life / anti-abortion people believe that a fetus is a unique human life; from their perspective, that's 60 million murders committed against the unborn.
Of course, for any who do not think a fetus is a living human, it is a hollow argument.
Seems to be working quite well, I'd say a success overall.
Yes, there is. You potentially lock in someone who’s been waffling on their final vote by making their initial vote public.
Edit: No, no law is “settled” and impossible to overturn. The comment said “casually overturned”, not “never overturned”.
It’s how it’s supposed to work
You don’t get to pick and choose what decisions you like and then attack the ones you don’t. If you do you undermine the decisions you don’t agree with AND the ones you do.”
And again, there is nothing stopping Congress from turning around and passing a new abortion law that maintains the status quo.
It may not be perfect but if you don’t respect the process then you might as well throw the whole system out the window.
Stare decisis, aka precedent.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/is-roe-v-wade-settled-la...
"During his confirmation to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh convinced Sen. Susan Collins that he thought a woman’s right to an abortion was 'settled law,' calling the court cases affirming it 'precedent on precedent' that could not be casually overturned."
https://theconversation.com/the-supreme-court-has-overturned...
> A person familiar with the court’s deliberations said that four of the other Republican-appointed justices – Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – had voted with Alito in the conference held among the justices after hearing oral arguments in December, and that line-up remains unchanged as of this week.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/21/brett-kavanaugh-ro...
> “We talked about whether he considered Roe to be settled law,” Collins told reporters. “He said that he agreed with what [Chief] Justice [John] Roberts said at his nomination hearing in which he said that it was settled law.”
Lisa Murkowski now openly claims to have been misled by the nominees, as well. https://twitter.com/SamanthaJoRoth/status/152152291819859148...
> degressing(?)
regressing ("deteriorating" or "degenerating" could also work)
Sure I do. This one hurts people and is being decided by a broken court, formed by illigitimate means.
Nothing except Congress being useless. When empty land gets to vote, and half of it votes against functioning government, unsurprisingly nothing gets done.
At that point the Court itself is fubar. It probably already is fubar since Trump anyway. Clarence Thomas and his wife’s Jan 6th involvement is just the cherry on top of a shit show.
In the end they are falliable humans like the rest of us so perhaps we hold too high an opinion.
Roe is so bad that it has long united libertarian conservatives (who hate it because it makes up a right out of thin air) and social conservatives (who had abortion on the merits).
In addition to that it manages to be wildly out of line with international norms, which:
1) Generally recognize abortion as an issue for the legislature.
2) Typically draw the line for elective abortions at the end of the first trimester, not viability. The abortion laws in Denmark, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain would be unconstitutional under Roe.
Isn't our take on freedom of speech rather out of line with international norms? And probably also our take on bearing arms being a right?
I don't think I buy the implied claim that being out of line with norms is necessarily a bad thing.
I'm not following how you think these are comparable.
And even if accepting this framing -- which "process" exactly has been undermined? Has someone suggested stripping the courts of jurisdiction for certain cases? Have the courts been defunded or had their staffers taken away? Have the number of courts been reduced or the justices circulated to another court? These are all "process" changes well within the power of the other political branches, that aren't happening here.
In short -- quit changing the topic and perhaps read the draft opinion, which waxes philosophically about the value of public debate on controversial opinions.
Are you aware of “separation of powers”?
Are you aware that no such leak has ever occurred before it interferes with judicial independence?
Are you aware that the courts job is to decide if laws are constitutional/valid and Congress’ job to actually create law?
You hand wave away “process” when the entire function of the government is based on process.
If you throw away process you throw away the entire system.
Specifically -- are you aware that before the Roe v. Wade decision was released in 1973, that news of the decision leaked to the Washington Post? The idea that this has "never occurred" is absurd when a) it has, b) it literally happened in the case that this will overturn.
Are you aware that there was a series of leaks during the Berger court and that everything ended up fine?
> Judicial independence, separation of powers
If the leak came from within the judiciary, how does this threaten the independence of the court?
That's not the same you realize?
I wonder if politico will acknowledge whether or not they paid for the leak.
I see two likely outcomes here:
1) The leaker is not publicly identified and their career goes along as well as it would have had they not leaked.
2) The leaker is identified. They lose their clerkship but the leak will end up pleasing about half the country and they get a really nice job with some ideologically aligned law firm/NGO, a book deal, and a lucrative speaking career as the one who bravely risked their job to save the right to abortion.
Because the opinion can still change. The votes can still change.
We can only speculate until (unless?) the details come out. It certainly could be for the money. On a hot potato political issue like this, someone who is seen as "helping the cause" could easily make millions from a Gofundme or a book deal. There is also the social capital to be gained among those who would view this person's "sacrifice" as heroic. And of course there are always true believers like Reality Winner who are blinded by ideology and fail to consider the potential consequences of their actions.
But they’re just warming up. Obergefell v. Hodges, Affirmative Action… a lot of unwinding in the next generation.
Remember, both sides are the same. /s
Likewise in affirmative action. You just listed three things where the supposedly arch conservative Supreme Court is simply making our law the same as France.
30 days: http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2021-22%20INT/SB/SB...
South Dakota is working on 5 weeks. There are something like a 100 state bills in work this year.
The reason abortion is not legal until 22 weeks in France is because the Netherlands allows it, and our left-and-center governments don't want to spend the political capital on it. Same stupid reason why Democrats haven't passed a bill since Roe vs Wade.
That said, I would not want to be a Republican right now, giving people something stupid that they want is the best way to get to stupid-ass results.
Roe guarantees elective abortions to the end of the second trimester with few restrictions, and is well to the left of what the public supports: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730183531/poll-majority-want-....
Generally, when the current law is detached from public opinion, the party that seeks to change the law should stand to benefit from it. Of course liberals will use their vast media and cultural power to dupe people into thinking the Supreme Court just banned abortion. But most people will notice that the Supreme Court didn’t do that when blue states inevitably adopt liberal abortion laws as a reaction. And most of the people who will be really worked up about it will live in blue states that will quickly enact abortion until birth. I suspect most other states will pick some 13-15 week middle ground.
I can see Republicans fumbling the ball by trying to ban abortion nationwide. But I can also see a bunch of white liberals reacting to this by shouting “celebrate your abortion” and turning off the mostly Hispanic 3 out of 10 Democrats who identify as “Pro Life,” as well as a bunch of squishy moderates.
And do you thinkt he cons on the SCOTUS are satisfied with this? They’ll be glad to ban abortion nationwide completely. They’re not gonna leave it to the states.
Did you read what Alito wrote? He's explicitly stating he doesn't want SCOTUS ruling on the legality of abortion. How, precisely, would SCOTUS "ban abortion" in this scenario?
What's your point?
They largely won’t even uphold the VRA.
On what basis? Do you think they’ll make up a right to override state abortion laws the way Roe did?
Around time Roe was decided, the high courts of several developed countries (Italy, West Germany, etc.) all took up the same issue. The US was the only one to find a fundamental right to abortion. Germany found the opposite, a fundamental right to life. The other courts determined it was an issue for the legislature.
There are six votes to overturn Roe. There aren’t six votes to overturn a federal enactment that protects some level of abortion rights.
I don’t see much evidence of what you’re asserting. 13 states have already pre-banned abortion, and another ten plan to when Roe falls. Doesn’t seem to be much of a split.
https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/map-23-states-ban-abor...
Similarly, polling of what “most Americans oppose” says the opposite of what you assert.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/03/most-amer...
That would violate the Full Faith and Credit clause of the US Constitution. Even before Obergefell v. Hodges, states that didn't allow gay couples to marry still had to honor the marriages of gay couples who were married in other states that did allow it.
This being said there are lot of R politicians who secretly hate this potential ruling. They want to say a few words about being pro-life, raise some money and thats it. They don't want the blow back of abortion actually becoming illegal.
I’m getting pretty tired of watching what might as well be 4+ parities pretend to be 2.
Main topic is the leak of the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abort...
In terms of a breach, I don't believe I've seen anything like this. They seem to have figured out who leaked this. That person will have to live with their decision. I don't know how they will justify or rationalize it, but I don't fathom I would want to be them right now.
Insider threat is very commonly a breach/leak issue. People who have legitimate reason to have access can decide what to do afterwards. No magic DLP is ever stopping someone who has real access. You have to pat people down and wand them for metals and even look for concealed sd cards. It far more security than they are ever subjecting to these people. So the hole is open.
The only way to prevent a breach when the hole is open is to ensure there's no need to leak. If discussing or planning to repeal roe vs wade. The supreme court should be doing this all in public. It doesn't have to be all out news event or even live for that matter.
Source? Can you elaborate? This is the first I’ve seen anything even mentioned about identifying the source of the leak.
I can see why that got leaked.
Hear me out before you shred...
A big part of Russia's game has been to try to divide the US politically. Well, this is probably the single biggest hand grenade they could have thrown into the middle of our society. And it's at a time when they'd really love to distract us from what they're doing in Ukraine.
So they have motive. It fits their MO. Do they have the means to breach the Supreme Court? Probably.
Does that mean that they definitely did it? No. It's just an idea - a pattern that seems to fit.
Shred away...
That's a kind of technical nerdery despite having nothing to do with computers. And it's interesting, and fun to (argue|watch arguments) about.
They consider themselves fighting a holy war where these things are concerned, not mere politics, and doesn't compromise with the enemy when one can destroy them utterly.
In fact, I would guess that at least part of the conservative rage on this issue comes not from gay marriage being legalized, but from liberals who attempt to stamp out and punish any remaining counter-opinion.
Abortion will still be legal as a practical matter. Some people might have to travel to the next state over, of course.
For the wealthy, this is no big deal. For the poor, that's a huge problem.
Especially since the next state over might well have their own restrictions that, e.g., require multiple doctor visits and a waiting period.
Poor women will die as a consequence of this decision.
How many?
Whose is going to pay the transportation costs if you are poor?
We don't know if this is a majority opinion. It may be a minority opinion in the hopes of becoming a majority opinion. It may not even be real (although that seems unlikely). It could've been leaked by someone on the right to drum up on support but my guess is it's more likely to be someone liberal-leaning who leaked such a bombshell opinion as a massive regression for bodily autonomy and social rights.
If so, that person is a hero. Straight up. Just like then Bradley now Chelsea Manning leaking Benghazi video was (and is) a hero.
People have consciences whether you agree with them or not. Even in wartime and with unprecedented security measures the Manhattan Project was leaked to the Soviets basically immediately by people who saw the US having a monopoly on atomic weapons as being bad for the world.
It's also why I basically don't believe pretty much every conspiracy theory out there, particularly if it involves a lot of people (eg faked Moon landings). Governments are terrible at keeping secrets simply because they're made up of people and those people have motivations of their own.
The Supreme Court is and always has been a political institution. All of the talk about constitutionality is just moralizing and window dressing in expressing a political view as law. This is the same Supreme court that ruled that "citizens" did not include people of African descent [1]. This is the same Supreme Court that in the Reconstruction / Redeemer era completely undermined rights of former slaves.
If you concentrate on the leaker here you're missing the big picture. You're falling into right-wing propaganda about the sanctity of the Supreme Court. It's a myth and a lie.
[1]: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-americans-really-t...
I agree that many Supreme Court decisions do do this. And I think that two of those are Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. So I think the Court overturning those decisions would be a good thing, as it would send a signal that the Court is willing to back off from expressing political views as law and try to return to its proper function.
...the fact that standard politics tends to be off-topic here, but the meta about how the very unusual leak might impact the system is the sort of thing that's interesting to hackers.
I don't think you have fully thought through your position. See below.
> People have consciences whether you agree with them or not.
Yes, exactly. And many people's consciences in this country tell them that abortion is murder. Particularly abortion of a fetus after 15 weeks (which is when the Mississippi law under review here bans abortion), when the fetus, as the brief for petitioners in this case describes in some detail, already is recognizably human. You might not agree with those people's consciences, but they have them, and they're not going to go away.
And on an issue like this, where different people's consciences are telling them very different things, the Federal Government--any branch of it, whether it's the Supreme Court, Congress, or the Executive--should not be dictating one policy. It should be left to the states, who will enact varying policies according to what the consciences of the majority of their citizens tell them. Some states will be more liberal about abortion, some will be more conservative--because the consciences of their citizens tell them so. That's how the US system is supposed to work.
> a massive regression for bodily autonomy and social rights.
This is nonsense. You talk about right-wing propaganda about the sanctity of the Supreme Court; this claim is left-wing propaganda trying to push a concept of "autonomy" that completely denies personal responsibility, without which no republic like ours can endure.
As noted above, the Mississippi law under review in this case only bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. 15 weeks is more than enough time for a woman to make a decision about her "bodily autonomy and social rights" if she has an unexpected pregnancy. "Bodily autonomy and social rights" does not mean the right to dawdle over an important, life-altering decision indefinitely. The deadline this Mississippi law sets is perfectly reasonable.
So how is someone who leaked a draft Supreme Court decision that will undermine our trust in a valuable institution, in the name of a policy goal that doesn't even make sense, and which goes against the consciences of many Americans, a hero, again?
Ah, yes. The same “states’ rights” used to subjugate black people with chattel slavery should now be repurposed to subjugate women by robbing them of bodily autonomy.
Your 15 weeks bit is actually where I expected this to go. Robert’s, who I genuinely believe is aware of and concerned with the perceived legitimacy of the Court, I expected him to broker a compromise that looked like that. But that’s not what this draft looks like.
You may believe abortion is murder but that’s a completely arbitrary and, more importantly, a religious doctrine. As an aside, even that view is a modern reinterpretation that has its roots in segregation. In the early 1970s, Baptists said the Bible was silent on the issue.
Your religion is your business. I draw the line at you imposing it on others.
States' rights is in the Constitution: the Tenth Amendment. And there is another amendment that abolished slavery, so we fixed the issue that you are talking about here. But that fix did not abolish states' rights. It still leaves things to the states that should be left to the states.
> should now be repurposed to subjugate women by robbing them of bodily autonomy.
I already explained why this is nonsense.
> You may believe abortion is murder but that’s a completely arbitrary and, more importantly, a religious doctrine.
Not everyone who believes abortion is murder believes that on religious grounds. There are valid non-religious grounds for considering a fetus, or at least a fetus after 15 weeks, which is the deadline in the law under review, to be a person, at least to a sufficient extent that aborting it would be murder. (The brief for petitioners in this case describes some of them.) You might not agree with them, but that doesn't make them "arbitrary".
It's not mine, it's what the law under review says.
> I expected him to broker a compromise that looked like that.
Upholding the law under review would "look like that" no matter what. 15 weeks is what the law already says. The Court wouldn't have to rule that every state law has to use the 15 weeks deadline; indeed, I don't think it should. It would just have to rule that the 15 weeks deadline is within the power of the state's legislature to enact.
The opinion goes beyond just saying “this one law is fine”.
That went well for Texas' abortion law, didn't it..?
Majority is also not always right, not when it's used to tyrannise the minority.
That would depend on what your conscience says, wouldn't it?
> Majority is also not always right, not when it's used to tyrannise the minority.
If a person's conscience tells them that abortion is murder, how would enacting a law against it, for that person, be any different than enacting a law against murder? Nobody argues that laws against murder are "tyrannizing the minority" who want to commit murder.
Or, to look at it the other way, if a person's conscience tells them that abortion is murder, but the majority in the state they live in think it isn't, and the laws of the state they live in, which are in accord with the wishes of the majority, permit abortions liberally, is that majority "tyrannizing" that person?
I don't buy the "my point is that it's murder"-arguments, as the behaviors from those people don't really align with that. Why not instead focus on stuff that science and experience tell will reduce the amount of abortions and human suffering? My guess: Because it's mostly about control of others, right?
That kind of argument would not support the Roe and Casey viability standard for when states can ban abortions, since our current science and experience says that an abortion will cause suffering to the fetus well before viability.
> Because it's mostly about control of others, right?
A woman getting an abortion is controlling another: the fetus. She is determining the fate of that fetus without the fetus being able to defend itself.
A big part of the problem with the "bodily autonomy" side of the abortion issue is that they only talk about the woman, never about the fetus. The hard truth is that once a woman is pregnant, it's no longer just about her. Any reasonable concept of personal responsibility will require the woman to take the fetus's interests into account and will not support a claim that a woman has a right to an abortion just because she has a right to "autonomy".
Etc etc etc. All stuff that will reduce abortions. Isn't that the goal? So why are mist people against abortion also against most of this stuff?
And we all know that outlawing abortions doesn't stop them. It just makes them more dangerous and lead to more suffering for everyone involved.
So what is really your goal here? Tell me.
Our society already does most of these things. One I would add is adoption.
> All stuff that will reduce abortions. Isn't that the goal?
I don't think reducing the number of abortions is the goal of many pro-abortion people, no. I think they just want a convenient way to not have to deal with a child they don't want by making it just go away.
> why are mist people against abortion also against most of this stuff?
Many people who are for abortion are also against much of this stuff.
> we all know that outlawing abortions doesn't stop them. It just makes them more dangerous and lead to more suffering for everyone involved.
This argument assumes that abortion is not inherently wrong. Many people who oppose abortion do believe that it is inherently wrong. If abortion is inherently wrong, it should not be legal even if some people will choose to do it knowing it is illegal, and having to do it by more dangerous means. If they choose to do it knowing it's illegal, that's their choice and they will have to bear the consequences.
> what is really your goal here?
As far as I my personal policy preference? I think the fact that there is such profound disagreement about whether abortion is wrong means that there should not be one single policy dictated to everyone. Different states should be able to have different policies.
> This argument assumes that abortion is not inherently wrong. Many people who oppose abortion do believe that it is inherently wrong.
No. If they believed it, they wouldn't themselves get an abortion when having a child would be bad. Soooo many stories of pro-lifers preaching one thing, and doing something else when they themselves face a situation wanting to abort. They are "excused" because of the circumstances, but when others have the same problems, they are "immoral" for getting into the situation.
That's hypocritical, and shows it's more about imposing moral values onto others and controlling them, not a belief about it being inherently wrong.
It seems to me that you are the one weaseling, since the points you are responding to bear no resemblance to any points I've actually made.
> Soooo many stories of pro-lifers preaching one thing, and doing something else when they themselves face a situation wanting to abort.
I am not any such "pro-lifer" (I'm not a "pro-lifer" at all, that's a buzzword, just like "pro-choice" or "bodily autonomy"). So whoever you think you are responding to here, it isn't me. Nor are all people who believe abortion is wrong "pro-lifers".
Have you taken the time to read it? It is the majority opinion. They vote first, then go to write opinions and dissents. It is not a dissent..
Nothing is really final until it's published so I am cautious of taking it at face value as established fact. That's all.
HN is focusing on the leak, but I do not think the larger point here can possibly be missed. I think the male/female ratio here has something to do with the framing of the issue. Women tonight are not thinking about how the leak affects workplace relations between supreme court justices. I mean... my God, what are they going to talk about around the watercooler?
I miss deeply 2015 reddit.