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Comment by not2b | Hacker News Reader

The issue is that the decision was not final; Chief Justice Roberts was still trying to persuade other justices to adopt a split-the-difference decision (uphold the 15-week law but don't kill Roe v Wade). Justices have switched sides before. Leaking it could kill any quiet negotiations. There was a second leak after the first one about this (about Roberts' position).

So someone on the hard-line anti-abortion side had a motivation to do the leak.

View on HN

There's an excellent podcast (What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con[stitutional] Law) with Roman Mars (of 99% Invisible) and Elizabeth Joh (of UC Davis) that discussed many aspects of this leak and potential ruling here.[0]

They discussed the potential value in an anti-Roe-side leak. It may hold justices to an early decision. I'll let Ms Joh make the case better than I could.

[0]: https://learnconlaw.com/63-the-leaked-draft

The domain name "jewishrallyforabortionjustice.org" was registered two weeks before the leak and points at a page protesting the ruling. The leak was coordinated and intentional by an anti-states-rights group.

States rights, that old chestnut we only ever hear about when someone wants to maintain control of other peoples bodies (slavery and abortion, included).

Also, why are you mentioning “ jewishrallyforabortionjustice” completely unprompted?

It's the only protest I know of that seems to have been planned two weeks before the leak was public, which strongly indicates these people are involved. That they're jewish is incidental and they seem to be inclusive.

And no, states rights isn't about giving people control over other's bodies: it's about maintaining consensus and self determination. Last year people were talking about states rights to prevent from being forced to take a medical treatment they didn't want.

> It's the only protest I know of that seems to have been planned two weeks before

Who are you trying to convince with this weak argument? Is the fact that it was anticipated in advance somehow invalidating? Nothing you assert follows from what you’ve proffered (separate from the fact that what you assert is wrong).

> Last year people were talking about state's rights to prevent from being forced to take a medical treatment they didn't want.

Oh, so you mean another thing that most people agree with (compulsory vaccination to participate in society) being made into an issue so an rejectionist core can throw a tantrum and get lots of people killed along the way?

>compulsory vaccination to participate in society

That's extremely far from agreed upon, but if you want to take people's medical choices away as a condition for participating in society I don't see how you can even make an argument for abortion.

> Is the fact that it was anticipated in advance somehow invalidating

It didn't occur to me that they might register the domain in advance of the ruling just in case. That seems a little strange but I've never planned (or even attended) a political protest so I guess I wouldn't know.

The opinion piece from about a week ago in the Wall Street Journal reporting this wavering on the margins of the conservative bloc points to a more normal, less unprecedented type of leak.

So then, one view is that the leak of the draft is just a continuation of that effort to hold the line on the full overturning, and that view seems pretty sensible. On the other hand, what to make of the fact that the leak goes to Politico and not somewhere like the Journal? Do you instead see it as a disgruntled partisan opponent trying to counter the likely leaks that led to the WSJ piece? Or simply a minor smokescreen?

I don't think there's any reasonable basis to be particularly sure either way. My gut leans toward the leak having come from the "overturn Roe" camp, but I think most peoples' "gut" on this is pretty highly correlated with their personal views on the topic.

The court's top priority, shared by everyone there, is to remain credible. I entertain the possibility that it was leaked to test the public response. So they could make a decision that would be popular (bolster their credibility and appear authoritative).

My opinion is that this issue is too contentious and should have been ignored by the court and the entire problem deferred to Congress...but then that expels the court's credibility capital. They can't resist the occasion for authority and pomp.

My biased opinion out of the way, I think a growing population of the body politic feels the Supreme Court takes on too much (way out of its lane), and Congress likes to be able to dodge contencious issues (happy to have the court insulate them) and then soapbox after the fact.

Waffling on long standing pivotal precident after 50 years smacks of a brewing revolution--in any society.

In the words of my sweet little apolitical wife (and mother) after expressing surprise at seeing her participate in discussions about this on facebook: "They are fucking with the wrong people."

Well one main issue for the court is that, having weighed in with Roe and its successors, they can't help being still involved one way or the other now.

More broadly, the ongoing total dysfunction of Congress (and/or the entire political system) has meant both parties have increasingly turned to the relatively-functional court to get their wins. The fact, at least historically, that Supreme Court precedents are seen as quite durable is another factor weighing in favor of the court's involvement. The insulating effect on the politicians is a good point, too.

There's also I think the factor that both parties have found it convenient for the Supreme Court to be very powerful and involved in lots of issues just as a motivational factor for their bases: the dialogue around presidential and senatorial races now routinely revolve around Supreme Court appointments as maybe the only important issue.

> The issue is that the decision was not final

Wasn't it?

From the descriptions I've seen of the process, the decision draft starts circulating once the decision has been taken. The language can be softened or hardened, but from what I understand here Roe would be dead regardless.

I'd think the possible changes would have been with respect to the "blast radius" aka the references to (and explicit targeting of) Obergefell, Lawrence, Eisenstadt.

As far as I know the decision isn't necessarily final after the initial vote following arguments. A prominent example of this is National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, where Chief Justice Roberts was reported to have initially voted to strike down individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare), but later changed his mind.

Yes, this is exactly what I meant when I said that justices have switched sides before. I understand that there was a draft opinion overturning the ACA when Roberts switched sides, though I'm not certain how complete it was.

In fact, knowing how and why these opinions change during this phase could be quite illustrative and interesting.

Would also be interesting to see if Roberts received a windfall during his deliberations. Insurance companies surely appreciate the individual mandates … it’s the closest thing to printing money they could achieve.

Earlier today I heard someone state that historically the Supreme Court rules in favor of the large corporate interests. My thought at the time was it did not make sense, since technically supreme court justices are beholden to Noone. What explains this bias on the part of the Supreme Court, if it truly exist?

supreme court justices are beholden to Noone. What explains this bias on the part of the Supreme Court, if it truly exist?

The people who nominate and confirm them may very well be beholden to any number of interests. Lower federal judges are also appointed for life. It would be logical that those who nominate and confirm would select judges with a record that aligns with whatever issues they (and the ones they are beholden to) find important.

Predicting future human behavior is fraught with disappointment. Many justices act unpredictability and change opinions over time.

Which is an inherent part of the process of nominating anyone to any position. Selection is an inherently political process. The goal is to eliminate post selection influences.

They are beholden to no one AFTER they are appointed. They are only appointed, however, if their views match the people who are doing the appointing, who are beholden to many.

Yet there are numerous examples of justices not rendering opinions meeting their appointee’s expectations. Many of these justices serve for decades which is plenty of time for any human to change their viewpoints.

> They are beholden to no one AFTER they are appointed.

Article V of the US constitution makes them ultimately beholden to the states. It describes how the constitution can be amended. Such an amendment can possibly threaten the supreme court. Seems very unlikely to happen, though.

Congress also has the power to impeach a justice

They are beholden to the people and the people's perception of their credibility. At any time we can dispel that court--or just stop taking it seriously. They are terrified of being waved off. Imagine all the politicians that would jump on board if they saw a large enough groundswell (energized voting bloc) calling for the "non-constitutional illegitimate third branch" to be disbanded in favor of state courts.

We are witnessing the same with the "election fraud" Trump populist fervor right now.

The leak itself is enough to shape legal precedent, it's made clear that the majority of the court believes that "Roe was deeply flawed". The only way for this to change would be for the court to explicitly rebuke the arguments in the leaked draft in the new majority opinion.

I don't think "precedent" works the way for first sentence seems to think it does. The final decision will be precedent; drafts are not.

And, "the majority believes that Roe is flawed" is interesting information, but it also is not any kind of precedent. Decisions are going to depend on the details of the case before the court.

Precedent occurs when a decision is challenged and upheld. If Roe is struck down, that will not be precedent, but overturning precedent, since Row was challenged and upheld in Casey. For a decision overturning Roe to become precedent, it would need to survive at least one future challenge.

Overruling a case isn’t an all-or-nothing thing. Upholding Mississippi’s 15-week ban would simply require the Court to acknowledge that Roe’s protection of elective second trimester abortions turned out to be an error that continues to defy international norms and attract public opposition.

Overruling that part of Roe doesn’t require a meandering rant about abortion rights writ large.

International norms?

According to [1], in 1973, Roe v. Wade said abortion is legal US-wide at 27/28 weeks and earlier, then in 1992, Planned Parenthood v. Casey said abortion is legal US-wide at 22/23/24 weeks and earlier. I'm not exactly sure whether the ages are inclusive or exclusive or how rounding/truncating works with the ages, which is why I made them fuzzy with the slashes.

According to [2], there are 203 countries listed. I'll look at "on request" abortions.

* North Korea is marked "unclear".

* 6 allow abortion at 23 weeks (24 weeks is also an identical list): China, Colombia, Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, South Ossetia

* 2 additional allow abortion at 22 weeks: Iceland, Vietnam

* 191 ban abortion at 22 weeks.

* Australia ranges from completely prohibited to no limit, depending on region.

* Canada ranges from 12 weeks and 6 days to 24 weeks and 6 days depending on region.

* United states ranges from (ignoring the recent laws that prompted the ongoing cases) 20 weeks to no limit depending on region.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade#Planned_Parenthood...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law#Independent_count...

Interesting, thanks.

I feel like nobody brings up other countries when it comes to abortion, but the context seems pretty helpful (as it is for most issues, I suppose). Esp since, looking at Australia and Canada, people get on and tolerate internal divergences, and maybe we should too. I suppose is it's because they accept that their federalism is much less centralized than ours.

Men arguing over women's wombs. Love it. So this doesn't paint a complete picture. It turns out that 93% of abortions in the U.S. happen at <= 13 weeks gestation:

Among the 43 areas that reported gestational age at the time of abortion for 2019, 79.3% of abortions were performed at ≤9 weeks’ gestation, and nearly all (92.7%) were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation (Table 10).

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/ss/ss7009a1.htm

So it's not like we're a country of monsters despite what's technically allowed by Roe. Now I want you to imagine for a moment what's happening in the life of a woman who chooses to have an abortion well into her pregnancy, likely after quickening when she can feel movement. Well it turns out you can't, because every case will be different. And I don't trust the state to insert itself into that decision. But I'll bet every one of these women has a story to tell and that it's heartbreaking, and that we don't make those women's lives better by forcing them to carry to term.

Data from the Turnaway Study has resulted in the publication of more than 50 peer-reviewed studies, and the answer to nearly all the questions asked, said Foster, is that the women who got abortions fared better in respect to economics and health, including their mental health, compared with those who did not have abortions.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/01/21/1074605...

So that's my first point, but I acknowledged some will disagree.

Now, Mississippi's law is to limit abortions to 15 weeks, so you may think it's a reasonable compromise. But with Roe overturned, it will not stop there. It's only a matter of time till some states ban abortion entirely. Some already have:

https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/state-polici...

Anti-choicers will push for restrictions at the Federal level. They'll try to ban pharmaceutical abortion pills through the mail. They'll try to prevent women from traveling out of state.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/02/abortion-ba...

https://khn.org/news/article/texas-medication-abortion-crimi...

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/03/24/inside-missouris-pus...

Finally, outlawing abortions won't stop abortions. Never has and never will. What it will do is to punish poor women who don't have the means to travel to where abortion is legal. This is already the case under Roe, and w/o Roe it will be worse.

So sure, Roe may have been poorly reasoned. Perhaps a decision based on equal protection instead of privacy would have been better. But it's what we have, and given the virtual impossibility of amending the constitution, it's the only way we can have a Federal standard.

And no, I don't think handing it over to the states is workable, any more than it was workable to allow the states to decide segregation, voting rights, contraception, or interracial and gay marriage.

Women are entitled to equal protection under the law, and that includes deciding whether to carry a baby to term.

Overturning Roe is a travesty.

Disclosure: I'm a guy.

> Men arguing over women's wombs. Love it.

Men and women have similar views on abortion: https://www.vox.com/2019/5/20/18629644/abortion-gender-gap-p.... Indeed, abortion is one of the political issues with the smallest gender gap in views. Women diverge from men much more on questions like the size of the social safety net. In Mississippi, the State whose law this Supreme Court case is about, the majority of women, and people of all races, oppose abortion.

Abortion advocates are no different than any other kind of progressive advocate--they claim the mantle of an entire group to champion extreme positions that most members of the group don't support, while seeking to suppress the voices of other members of the group. In reality, all the people I know who oppose abortion are women. They're moms, typically religious, and are rarely represented in discussions among educated elites like on HN. (I myself, like most educated elites, support some level of abortion rights, though I find myself favor limiting it to the first trimester, like most Americans.)

The backbone of the pro-life movement is conservative women, just like the backbone of the pro-choice movement is liberal women. Many conservative women--and slightly more women identify as conservative than liberal--deeply care about abortion. Many prioritize abortion more highly than libertarian economics, which is why the impetus for the GOP to take action on abortion has grown as women gain more power in the party. Conservative women almost uniformly love Justice Barrett. Many Republican men, by contrast, (the Justice Roberts type, or the four Republican men who voted to uphold Roe in Casey) would love to drop or at least moderate on abortion to capture more votes in affluent suburbs.

> So this doesn't paint a complete picture. It turns out that 93% of abortions in the U.S. happen at <= 13 weeks gestation. So it's not like we're a country of monsters despite what's technically allowed by Roe.

What the laws "technically allow" are an expression of society's values and sense of morality. Laws create not only legal effects, but social norms. In many cases, the social norms are more important than the legal effect. If we made stealing legal, most people, in the short term, wouldn't steal, because of the strong social norm against it. But over time and generations, we would have normalized stealing.

And even before that, we will have legalized conduct that is immoral and wrong, even if it's rare. by your numbers, you're talking about over 40,000 second trimester abortions a year. Some of which I'm sure would be justified regardless due to fetal deformity or health risks, but you could still be talking about thousands of monstrous acts a year where neither of those factors is implicated.

> And no, I don't think handing it over to the states is workable, any more than it was workable to allow the states to decide segregation, voting rights, contraception, or interracial and gay marriage.

Leaving abortion to legislatures has worked just fine in the rest of the world. Roe was heard within a few years of similar cases in Austria, France, Italy, and Germany, except Germany which found legalized abortion to violate the Basic Law. All of those Courts determined to leave abortion to the legislature. The courts in the EU left same-sex marriage to legislatures as well: https://eclj.org/marriage/the-echr-unanimously-confirms-the-...

It's fundamentally mistaken to view every social issue through the lens of segregation of Black people. Black people were a minority, brought to the U.S. in slavery, and after they were freed, they were excluded from white society. The white majority had no common bond with the Black minority, and no material interest in their welfare. Segregation laws did not affect, directly or indirectly, the white people who voted for them. Democracy could not operate in this situation.

Contraception, same-sex marriage, and abortion are completely different, because they effect everyone. Women and gay people are uniformly distributed throughout the population. The women who support restrictions on abortion are supporting restrictions on themselves. And the men who support such restrictions will be directly affected if they have to raise an unplanned child. Because the population as a whole has an interest in the outcome, democracy can operate to find a socially acceptable resolution of a contentious issue.

Liberals have used this mistaken analogy to segregation to champion a view of the Supreme Court that wrests control of society's moral and cultural development away from the public and entrusts it to highly educated elites. Abortion is legal to 24 weeks not because the public wants it, but because a bunch of libertarian-leaning Republican judges in the 1970s and 1980s did. Had Roe gone the other way, I strongly suspect we would have reached an equilibrium today that reflects public opinion of supporting elective abortion in the first trimester, but only in exceptional cases after that.

> Men and women have similar views on abortion

I never made any claim about support for abortion rights of men vs women. My point is only that men should be especially circumspect about restricting what a woman can do with her body.

> Abortion advocates

First of all, I'm not an abortion advocate. I'm an abortion-rights advocate. Let me lay out my position so that it is clear:

The way to reduce abortions is to reduce unintentional pregnancies and to better support women and mothers.

To wit, I want free and universal contraception and sex education. I want better birth control options for men (and I put my money where my mouth is by having a vasectomy after my wife and I had two children). I support a stronger social safety net than America provides.

I believe we can reduce second and third term abortions by making first term abortions easier. But should a woman, for whatever reason, need an abortion after the first term, that should be between her and her medical provider. I don't think any woman wants to have an abortion, especially one after the first trimester, and so I trust women to make that decision for themselves.

> are no different than any other kind of progressive advocate--they claim the mantle of an entire group to champion extreme positions that most members of the group don't support, while seeking to suppress the voices of other members of the group.

Supporting abortion rights is not an extreme position among men or women. A majority of Americans, men and women, support Roe and think abortion should be legal in "most or all cases":

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/06/about-six-i...

I am not trying to suppress anyone's voice. I am arguing against those who aim to restrict what I believe is fundamentally a woman's right.

> In reality, all the people I know who oppose abortion are women.

This is neither here nor there, but I happen to think that women who "oppose abortion in most or all cases" have fortunately never had to face a decision like this:

https://joshandrebeccashrader.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/my-cr...

> And even before that, we will have legalized conduct that is immoral and wrong, even if it's rare. by your numbers, you're talking about over 40,000 second trimester abortions a year. Some of which I'm sure would be justified regardless due to fetal deformity or health risks, but you could still be talking about thousands of monstrous acts a year where neither of those factors is implicated.

In Germany in 2020 there were 2,226 abortions in weeks 12 to 21. There were 648 at 22 and more weeks:

https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Health...

Which of those were immoral and wrong? Which were monstrous acts? Who decides?

The vast majority of women who have abortions after the first trimester don't realize they are pregnant, don't have resources to get an abortion sooner, or there is a fetal deformity.

https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2013/11/who-seeks-a...

What's immoral and wrong is to decline them the right to decide for themselves.

> Leaving abortion to legislatures has worked just fine in the rest of the world.

The U.S is not the rest of the world. We either let state legislatures decide or leave it to Congress. It is immoral to leave it to the states because it will disproportionally harm women who do not have the means to travel or who wish or need to obtain an abortion confidentially. It will increase abortions after the first trimester.

Leaving it to Congress is anti-democratic due to the Senate. But say we do leave it to Congress, which presumably has the authority to grant or restrict abortion access under the Commerce Clause. Then we're right back to the Supreme Court to rule on that authority.

> It's fundamentally mistaken to view every social issue through the lens of segregation of Black people. [...] Contraception, same-sex marriage, and abortion are completely different. [...] Liberals have used this mistaken analogy to segregation.

The analogy to segregation is because its supporters defended it as as states rights issue, just like supporters of restricting abortion access. Similarly for the other issues. These are all issues that should not be left to the states.

> Champion a view of the Supreme Court that wrests control of society's moral and cultural development away from the public and entrusts it to highly educated elites.

Do you think that Griswold, Loving, and Obergefell are also issues that should have (should still be?) left to the states?

Here's what I think: Only 6% of the country could vote when the country was founded. Since that time, we've been on a path to greater democracy. But the country still retains anti-democratic institutions, and they are currently held by conservatives and allow a minority viewpoint to restrict the rights of others. At the same time, I think the constitution and representative democracy are what protects us from mob rule.

If resting control away from the states by finding implied rights in the constitution in order to allow interracial marriage, gay marriage and so forth is what is required due to the particulars of America's government, so be it.

> Abortion is legal to 24 weeks not because the public wants it, but because a bunch of libertarian-leaning Republican judges in the 1970s and 1980s did. Had Roe gone the other way, I strongly suspect we would have reached an equilibrium today.

America has highly conflicting views on abortion:

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/06/americas-abo...

If Roe had gone the other way, I expect we'd be exactly where we're about to end up with restrictions varying by state, and with constant arguments over it in Congress.

> that reflects public opinion of supporting elective abortion in the first trimester, but only in exceptional cases after that.

Which is where we are as a practical matter in any case.

Abortion: one of the few times an american conservative will speak approvingly of “international norms”.

Conservatives would assert that the Constitution says what it says and means what it was intended to mean, and that what the EU does,[1] or what the polls say,[2] don't matter.

But given that nobody seriously argues that Roe has a foundation in the text or original intent of the Constitution, it's certainly fair for them to point out that Roe can't be defended by saying, as liberals usually do, that we have a "Living Constitution" that incorporates "evolving social norms." Because what the EU does and what the polls say are certainly evidence of what those "evolving social norms are."

Roe raises the question of "where exactly do those 'evolving social norms' come from anyway?" And I suspect the honest answer is "the opinions of highly educated lawyers."

[1] Just two EU countries, comprising 6% of the EU population, allow elective abortions after 14 weeks: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268439/legal-abortion-t...

[2] 65% of Americans think abortion should generally be illegal after the first trimester: https://apnews.com/article/only-on-ap-us-supreme-court-abort...

And completely forget international norms for health care :)

100% I think this is blind wishful thinking. Roe was dead the second Republicans got their justices.

How could one know about the history and beliefs of these justices, hear their questioning, see who has pushed them onto the bench, read their speeches, hell seen that their significant other believes in q crazy, and yet somehow think they'll change their mind or find some reasonable compromise.

You are correct in the danger of this blast radius.

This is TERRIFYING to me.

I'm skeptical here that this leak any differences though in that:

How can they make this ruling otherwise?

What changes could they make that don't set a scary and dangerous precedent?

without just flat out telling their truth that this is a religious decision and giving fetus' rights greater than actual living humans.

Their argument rests on their narrow view of "deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions."

If that is the logic, as you say, what is left to protect states from outlawing gay marriage, contraception, anal sex, and SOOOO much more.

What moderation could be added to this draft on this fundamental issue?

It's disgusting to me that they argue they are making some ethical stand to overturn 'egregious' decision equating this to Plessy, using this historical traditions argument.

We all know what the constitution actually did say and even worse the practices of the time.

What does history and traditions even mean too. It's obvious to me and not even slightly veiled. Hint it probably doesn't include indigenous history or the history of any non-white, wealthy, christian males in power, nor any traditions created or changed within the last 50 years.

Because if the standard is the status quo of 200 years ago, they will either let a few extreme states say no to basically every right we have lived for the last 100+ years OR they will just be hypocritically veiling their true reasoning.

>this is a religious decision and giving fetus' rights greater than actual living humans.

How is that? There still would be no federal law against killing fetuses, whereas there is a federal law against killing born people.

It doesn't really have to do with a law (which is a large part of the issue, the dysfunction of congress forces these controversies).

It's about unenumerated rights and interpretation of liberty under the 14th Amendment.

> nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

So in the past the court said liberty includes a right to privacy, which also includes things like having a right to buy and use contraceptives (Griswold v. Connecticut). This was extended to include women having a right to an abortion, with some qualifiers (the right was not unlimited, it said states did have some interest in protecting both the mother's health and fetus health).

The current court decision says that, while those other unenumerated rights have been found, they're different because they don't involve an "unborn human being".[1]

Thus they imply that a few cells (under some state laws this would be from the moment of fertilization) have rights that supersede (or at least conflict) with an actual person's right to have their liberty protected from the State.

The Louisiana state legislature has a bill introduced right now that seems to make abortion homicide, both for the mother who receives the abortion and anyone who administers it. [2][3]

[1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21835435/scotus-initi...

[2] https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1276214

[3] https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legisl...

> Thus they imply that a few cells (under some state laws this would be from the moment of fertilization) have rights that supersede (or at least conflict) with an actual person's right to have their liberty protected from the State.

This is a bizarre misreading. It doesn't say that. It says that the Constitution does not grant them the power to invalidate a state law against abortion, because Roe erred in determining that the 14th Amendment right to privacy entailed a right to abort a pregnancy.

(I'm not against abortion, for the record, but I'm increasingly disappointed with the facile arguments I hear about it. Of course this Supreme Court decision is not a 'religious decision that the fetus is a human being', my God.)

That loses the context of what I wrote. I'm trying to say that basically one of these two things are true.

if this ruling's argument is: ( unenumerated && !fit with history/traditions 200 years ago ) == states can ban

then every other 'right' we have like gay marriage, contraception, porn, anal sex, basically anything not written in the constitution that a bunch of white people 200 years ago didn't do regularly, could be made illegal state by state.

This is a sham justification to further their religious beliefs and the ruling should simply write that a fetus has some type of special rights that supersede.

At least that ruling would be honest about their obvious bias and plain intent.

> What sharply distinguishes the abortion right from the rights recognized in the cases on which Roe and Casey rely is something that both those decisions acknowledged: Abortion destroys what those decisions call “potential life” and what the law at issue in this case regards as the life of an “unborn human being.”

How is that not saying that because abortion specifically involves a few cells then the right to an abortion is not the same as other privacy rights?

Yes, elsewhere they make other arguments about tradition with regards to abortion not being a privacy right. They don't use a singular argument.

This may give the fetus the right to kill its host (an actual person) since a state may not allow any exceptions for abortion, including the health of the mother.

Texas passed a law denying abortions in the case of rape or incest, but I guess the notion of having a right to forced inception is hard for something that doesn't exist beforehand.

I don't think ending of these life of mother exceptions in certain states is that far fetched.

It's half way there in some states through vague language, using legal system to intimidate, ban by bureaucracy, and religious hospitals who won't even abort when there is an ectopic pregnancy.

This source is an opinion piece, but worth reading imho. The author includes state's legal language on when life of mother exception can be used.

A lot of them are vague or require an immediate emergency. Though to be fair some she includes aren't super persuasive to her argument imho.

When you empower every nut job in the state to sue it intimidates MDs to not use that very judgement.

Medicine isn't black and white and even if it was the government or citizens empowered by the govt should not get to arbitrate in the middle. Every miscarriage becomes suspect. Was her life really in danger? Etc

Basically, I'm no longer shocked at the kind of stuff that is now being said out loud or publicly fought for.

From healthcare, attacking elections, attacks on queer people etc.

I think we will increasingly see a group of states continue this trajectory and push this country to the brink. And the Supreme Court continue to enable all of this dangerous behavior.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/04/28/the-new-ab...

They would have to be very convinced that someone was going to flip. And even then there's a good chance that the wavering Justice would see this as a ploy the same as you do, and take offense.

> would have to be very convinced that someone was going to flip

The only element making me question the amateurishness of this leak is its timing, on the eve of bellwether primaries.

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