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.
The same doesn't hold for aborting a fetus, because that can be key to the mother's wellbeing. Whether the scale tips toward that of the mother or that of the fetus is the debate, and since it's not cut and dry, individual choice makes sense.
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
No I'm not saying follow any strings, I'm saying this is exactly what they said they'd do, and then they did it. How is that a conspiracy? Not every coordinated human movement is a conspiracy. I'm not articulating a conspiracy theory, I'm articulating the Republican Party Platform as expressed by them. Go back and read the platform for any year and it's in there.
I didn't say it was a carefully crafted plan, you're reading that yourself with your assumption that I'm describing a conspiracy. What I'm saying is that when given power, Republicans used it maximally and with purpose to advance the objective of overturning Roe v. Wade. Your observation that parties have swung back and forth does not imply Democrats would have to be in on the plan because Supreme Court appointments are for life, so every time Republicans appoint one Democrats cannot get rid of them.
Republicans did get lucky in 2016 with Trump winning the election, but only because they had previously used their power to unilaterally hold that seat open. And they held that seat open for the express purpose of putting someone on the court who would overturn Roe. And look, that person they put on has voted to overturn. Republicans also got lucky in 2020 when RBG died, but only because they had decided they would abandon their rationale for keeping the previous seat open, and they filled the newly opened seat anyway. That person will be voting to overturn as well. They say that opportunity is luck + being prepared. Yes Republicans got lucky in some ways, but they were prepared at every turn to use all available levers of power to advance this singular objective.
> Occam's razor still supports your point while keeping the story simple
This is an inappropriate usage of Occam's razor, as it requires us to put our heads in the sand about how politics and power work in relation to the supreme court. Saying "there's been decades of swing votes with each party getting a justice in over the decades" implicitly gives weight to the fact that Supreme Court Justices are appointed as part of a political process, driven by political parties, who have stated they intend to use the appointments to further political goals. To that end, conservatives erected an entire vetting system of rating SC nominees on the basis of their friendliness to the anti-choice cause. Only those who were friendly enough have been confirmed.
That the justices then go on to do exactly what they were put there to do is therefore completely unsurprising. But to discount it as mere happenstance and a confluence of factors completely ignores that the process of appointing and confirming them was considered (they didn't just pick the names out of a hat, they picked the names from a list of judges approved by groups who are anti-choice). Arguments were given for appointing these justices, and they always included a recognition that they supported the anti-choice position.
The alternative, that Republicans have been attempting to overturn Roe v. Wade for 50 years, yet when it happens attributing it to happenstance is much more unbelievable to me. It would seem to imply that political parties are completely powerless in advancing their own political goals, and even when they are achieved they can't be attributed to their own deeds. It would mean that Republicans worked feverishly with a singular mind to overturn Roe v. Wade for decades, and ended up doing so on accident. How would the world even work if that were the case?
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.
If you can abandon a child without repercussion, how is that not directly affecting parental responsibility?
Whether there are specific exceptions to these rules is irrelevant. Almost no one is pushing for unrestricted abortions up to birth. The analog is that we give people potential outs so they are not forced to be responsible for another person.
I'm 100% in favour of unrestricted abortions up to birth. Bodily autonomy doesn't have a time-limit and it doesn't suddenly become okay for another person to decide what someone can do with their body just because they waited past a particular deadline.
I wonder if you take the same position regarding fathers and child support.
I don't think it is fair for one parent to bear 100% of the financial responsibility for a child. I would be in support of a system that allowed a parent to relinquish any financial obligation to a child in exchange for forsaking any familial rights parenthood would traditionally grant them as long as the state would step in and assume that financial obligation. Until the state does that, I think expecting the father to contribute to supporting the child is fair.
If someone advocates for a parent to not have an obligation to pay child support without a way for the other parent to receive the money that child support would traditionally provide them, then they aren't truly concerned about the wellbeing of the child. I therefore will ignore any anti-abortion argument they make that places the wellbeing of the unborn child above the wellbeing of the mother.
Do you mean a system that provides for the needs of poor children (based solely on financial need)? That already exists, and I'd support expanding it.
Or do you mean a system that reduces the financial burden on a wealthy woman who can afford to provide for her children but simply doesn't want to? I don't see the compelling need for a system like that.
Government support for children should be provided based on their financial need, not an alternative to child support based on the father's income. That's how the available funds can most improve children's welfare.
During pregnancy a woman should be able to terminate her pregnancy to avoid obligation to the child. The rights of the woman supersede the rights of both the child and the father because it is her body that needs to go through pregnancy.
After the birth the parental rights should be equal. Both parents should be able to renounce their obligation to the child. In this situation, the state should step in and assume that responsibility. That applies to both guardianship and financial obligation. The state will only take over guardianship if both parents give up their obligation. The state will step in financially if one parent gives up their obligation.
It is acceptable to put limited restrictions on these such as establishing a reasonable cutoff for abortions as Roe v. Wade allows or the short windows of time that safe haven laws usually establish. What is important is that the parents at least have a choice at some point in the process. Once the parents make that decision, I am fine with them being held to it.
Always? Like, if two millionaires have a child and one gives up their obligation, the government would pay child support to the other millionaire parent?
I couldn't support that. I think whether the state steps in should be based on the child's financial need, not the number of responsible parents.
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.)
It’s easier to find some rights implied than others. And the US Supreme Court is unusual in how aggressively it overrules legislatures in finding implied rights.
For example, the European Convention on Human Rights contains an express right to marriage. Yet in 2016, the European Court of Human Rights found that there was no implied right to same sex marriage in the Convention. But the year before, the US Supreme Court had found the same right in the US Constitution, which doesn’t even contain an express marriage right.
The Supreme Court was not designed to be a tribunal of experts that overrules the people on moral questions. Not only is there no basis for that in our Constitution, it’s a departure from how most developed nations understand democracy to work.
They've ruled EU states have to recognize other countries' same-sex unions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coman_and_Others_v_General_Ins...) and required at least civil unions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliari_and_Others_v._Italy), which puts them well ahead of the pre-Obergefell USA.
> Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life
> 1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
> 2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
> Article 12- Right to marry
> Men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and to found a family, according to the national laws governing the exercise of this right
Even a dedicated textualist could find the above provisions ample justification for finding a right of same-sex couples to marry. Instead, the EU court adhered to a traditional definition of "marriage" and only found a right to civil unions and to mutual recognition across member states.
The U.S. Constitution, by contrast, contains no remotely similar provisions on which to premise a right for same-sex couples to marry. Yet, five justices, including a Reagan appointee, did just that. The U.S. Supreme Court is vastly less respectful of our democratic process than its counterparts in other developed countries.
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...