Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade
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It is good for unelected bodies like the Supreme Court to allow such dividing issues be figured out democratically. The US house has bled power to the other 3 institutions and of them, the judiciary is the least democratic. Ofc, my support for this change assumes that this Supreme Court will show restraint towards political activism (in either direction) in general. Call it naive, but I'll wait and see.
States rights has always been a double edged sword. You can't have your cake and eat it too. The same state rights that allow gun control and homosexuality to be locally legalized before national concensus; also now lead to abortion legislation being a state issue.
The sad part of democracy is that it aims to represent the views of the voting majority. If the voting majority truly cares about access to abortion then we will hopefully see enough democratic traction to give them the mandate needed. Now, the rural republican votes counting for more in the senate is a huge issue and threat to democracy that the US needs to figure out if it ever wants to represent the views of the people. But, the Supreme Court should not be responsible for managing dysfunction in other branches of govt.
My personal opinion is that polarization has pushed both sides to be completely antagonistic towards each other. 'Own the libs, fuck the deplorables', no compromise. The jaded side of me says: vote in more moderates that are willing to strike compromises. Crazed jesus Republicans and hyperprogressive activists are terrible people to put into national office. They gain power by antagonizing and being unhelpful roadblocks for change, all while asking for the most stubbornly impossible outcomes.
In the long run, history will have a dim view of this era of global polarization with all political sides to blame.
You can vote in your state for reps that support your cause. Don’t like it? Move elsewhere.
People are doing exactly the same. Florida being one of the top states with influx of people from other states, specifically California.
I think this nation needs to kick start innovation and tech progress that was displayed in 1950-1970.
That means, low taxes, control inflation, get budget in order and have a surplus even, stop spending and question the efficiency of the Gov (Do 2x from existing funding). Huge tax breaks for startups and small biz. No state income tax.
It’s wishful thinking but I want Taiwan x Singapore x HongKong economic policies in the USA. Special economic zones like Shenzhen.
I mean there was segregation, anti black and LGTBQIA violence and lots of rape of women and children, but economically, it had taxes. And larger non-entitlement government spending.
IIRC, the top marginal Federal income tax rate in the 1950s-1960s was never below 70%[0].
[0] https://bradfordtaxinstitute.com/Free_Resources/Federal-Inco...
Edit: Fixed prose.
I refuted the points here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31867958
Not an attack on you, just correcting the record.
Worth visiting this debate at Yale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RITVJy7ogI
Inequality is overplayed and oversold to people who conflate crony capitalism to capitalism. The kinds of Thomas Piketty has done a tremendous amount of disservice to the west which hailed capitalism for over 2 centuries, unfortunately, USA + EU are regressing into socialism.
I do agree that they fail to utilize their advantage more often than not but to say that Democrats in control is going to keep government out of peoples lives is... an interesting approach given history.
Both do it... the idea that Democrats stay out of your lives is stupid. They want to control your lives every bit as much. They are trying to create a Ministry of Truth. They are sending the FBI after soccer moms. Biden made unconstitutional moves to use the FDA to enforce unproven vaccines. He's gotten slapped down by the courts repeatedly for various things.
In none of the previous paragraph did I say "republican are innocent". They both want expanded powers and will abuse them given the chance.
"have not moved the needle from player to overreach" one of the largest - if not the largest - expansion of government in recent history isn't "player" level. You can't say "1/3rd of people are covered by the government" and not admit that that is massive overreach for a federal government that has no right in that area to begin with. Lock stock and barrel: over reach.
You realize that both sides aren't for shrinking the government or staying out of your lives?
saying "its the other branches problem" doesn't work either as SCOTUS is appointed by the undemocratic president and Senate
And why do we give more voice to the rural vote? Sure they would be a minority otherwise, but so are left handed people and we don't give them more vote. Are they better informed politically than people who live in more densely populated areas? It doesn't really make much sense and I've never heard a argument stronger than "but then the cities would have a lot of political power" without explaining why that is a bad thing.
My point is that people who clamor "popular vote" don't always take into consideration what would happen if we implemented popular democracy.
Interestingly, Japan is another country that gives the countryside political advantage and tax advantage.
So, twice?
Only 3 justices were appointed during those terms, all by Trump in 2017 - 2020.
Bush Jr did appoint two justices but they were during his second term, when he won the popular vote.
The remaining four justices were appointed by Bush Sr, Clinton, and Obama (2).
So I have no idea where you are getting your figure of 7/9 from.
But, one of the best explanations for why founding fathers built the system the way they did is this[1], by late Justice Scalia.
The fundamental idea is that the American system is created to represent the will of the republic across time and space:
- Every bill needs to be passed by all three House, Senate and the President
- House recycles very fast (every 2 years)
- President recycles at a moderate speed (every 4 years)
- Senate recycles at a slow pace (every 6 years, and partially every 2 years)
- House represents the population
- Senate represents all states equally (or represents land)
- Presidency is elected through a hybrid system (electoral college, which is distributed in proportion to the population).
- The fundamental idea is that any bill must be agreed upon by:
a. The will of the people not just in short term (house), but in mid-term (presidency) and long term (senate) also. When UK wanted out of EU, the remainers believed that they should have a revote because they didn't believe that people voted with full information. Of course, years later a second proxy vote through general elections made the intent clear, but in the US we will not go for a bill to be passed unless its not just what we voted for in the past 2 years, but also what we voted for in past 4 and 6 years.
b. The will of fifty states, and territories and not just by a few populous states. In contrast, EU's policy making is all a decision of France and Germany. EU is more 'democratic' than US, but also far more fragile.
American Democratic Republic system is a part of experiment of 'Union of Unions'. It's a balance between the different sides. If you make the union too weak, it will fail to hold itself up. Like Articles of Confederation was a failure because it was too weak, pre-Civil War US also turned out to be a union not strong enough. League of Nations wasn't strong enough.
But if you make it too strong, then individual states will start walking out because they don't find their interests represented (like UK voting for Brexit from EU).
Today's bare-knuckle politics sure does not help moderate the peaks.
"This problem will be inconvenient for me to solve, so please wait until I die of old age before you solve it, thank you for your patience."
A fundamental problem of catering to minority opinions is that if a minority shrinks it tends to become more and more strident to the point where it can no longer compromise, but they still maintain power due to the way the system is set up. This leads to highly polarized and dysfunctional political systems.
Plus, if there is a danger that a minority might feel disenfranchised and want to leave, what happens when a majority feels the same way?
Which is why the government system they created allows us to update the constitution. Which we have done. Many times.
At least give specific reasons for why you think we should abandon the political philosophy that has underpinned our government for almost 250 years rather than vague references to technological changes.
Of course I don’t want to have to study every law and decide how to vote, that would be a full time job. So I’ll pick a representative and add my vote to the weight of theirs. But I can change my representative any time, even on a vote by vote basis, and obviously they don’t have to be from my state.
There are all kinds of better way of doing things that are possible now that nobody has gotten around to trying.
I feel like you made zero effort to understand the point I tried to make. Founding fathers may have been from a different time, but they absolutely weren't wrong about democracy not being a solution.
They studied numerous constitutions written during the antiquities and correctly concluded that for a large geographical nation like the US, democracy cannot work. That part does not change just because we have super fast communication lines and computers today.
They had 2.5M people, we now have 330M. We’ve scaled 100x. It shouldn’t be surprising that we need to rethink the initial architectural decisions.
Think about it this way. They got to study their antiquities and learn from those lessons right? It would have been really weird if they had said, “Look, wise men already studied this stuff and figured out the right way,” and they’re talking about ideas from the year 1500, as if there was nothing to learn from the preceding 250 years.
They didn’t do that. Why should we?
You are making the same mistake as in the earlier part. US was already pretty big at the time of US constitutional debates to make direct democracy not possible.
> They didn’t do that. Why should we?
You're more than welcome to do that, but understand something, all the past constitutions/republics/democracies is data, which cannot be easily replicated and controlled for. You're going to come up with a new political system which ignores literally every negative lesson of the history of past 3000 years then you will need to explain how are those concerns not necessary.
Founding fathers were, really really really worried about things devolving into a military dictatorship and violation of individual rights. There are plenty of reasons to criticize them for not caring enough about the individual rights, but none that their concerns were unwarranted.
Just to give you an idea of the concerns we need to care about:
- Build a system which is democratic in nature and works for a large country like ours.
- Make sure that it prevents the democracy from violating individual rights.
- Make sure that it does not become a dictatorship (like how Roman Republic ended and became a dictatorship when Julius Caesar declared himself the permanent dictator).
> - Every bill needs to be passed by all three House, Senate and the President
> - House recycles very fast (every 2 years)
> - President recycles at a moderate speed (every 4 years)
> - Senate recycles at a slow pace (every 6 years, and partially every 2 years)
> - House represents the population
> - Senate represents all states equally (or represents land)
> - Presidency is elected through a hybrid system (electoral college, which is distributed in proportion to the population).
I feel like a lot of people fail to consider whether this is a good thing. Like social studies classes always present this as an unvarnished good - "checks and balances, the bedrock of our system". But a system really should be designed to build consensus to action - there should always be someone in the driver's seat, even if it's not someone I agree with. Letting the rudder flap in the breeze until 100% of people can agree on something is not an inherently desirable outcome, because that almost never happens!
And yes, some people would say that's a good thing too, that we should bias towards doing nothing instead of doing something, but... that's not really a viable model indefinitely. The world is now based around exponential growth in economic output, exponential growth in technology, and we are preferring political systems optimized for an O(1) constant-state world where there's 100 years between the cotton gin and the internal combustion engine.
Especially in times of crisis that bias towards doing nothing is a really bad thing... consider the case of the Polish Sejm and how the goal of "excessive consensus" basically crippled the country and allowed their enemies to manipulate the system to create disruption and then exploit the deadlock for political gain.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Poland/The-17th-century-cri...
Everyone agrees 100% isn't the right number, but then, what is? is 75% the right number? 60%? Simple majority? How big a consensus has ever existed in the modern political sphere, short of 9/11-style world-changing events? A 60% popular vote is considered a landslide, but if the system requires a 75% popular vote to achieve a 60% senatorial/house majority, the number is effectively 75% and actually achieving consensus really isn't possible in that system.
The American system's focus on checks-and-balances really is excessive - it's not a good thing for a system to be unable to reach consensus. It worked for a while as long as the "gentleman's agreement" held but now we are seeing people exercising political maximalism, "hardball" so to speak, and with those participants the actual rules of the system no longer result in consensus
We can then optimize around the "what if we flop back and forth between parties" problem separately but - requiring 100% consensus between all dimensionalities of society to do anything is not really the solution for that.
This idea that "deadlock between branches is a positive design goal" is fundamentally not how the rest of the world approaches this. After all, in parliamentary systems the PM is the leader of the party/coalition that controls parliament. That's a good system, it builds a government that has a consensus towards action and goals! Producing deadlock between branches of government isn't a desirable outcome in itself. And that, if you phrase it as such, is an inherent rejection of the American ideal of "checks and balances" in the sense you outline it here ("to require massive consensus across all dimensionalities of society via multiple branches and political compartments each favoring a dimensionality"). Yes, absolutely they still have a constitution and judicial branch to protect people, but they don't design the system around deadlocks between arms of the government being a design goal. And it still doesn't lead to "laws completely flip every time power changes" or the other supposedly negative outcomes from consensus-oriented systems.
There are other minorities that we think a bit harder about than left handers. Consider, for example, that African Americans are approximately 12% of the US population.[1] They are not, however, evenly distributed around the United States. For example, they make up 33% of the population of Georgia and 22% in North Carolina,[2] states that crack the top 10 in US population.[3]
It took a bit of doing, but I weighted the electoral votes for all 50 states and DC (see [2]; you've got to issue your own queries to get them all) according to the percentage of African-American population (AAPC). For example, Alabama has nine electoral votes and an AAPC of 26.8%, which returns 2.412 adjusted votes.
In sum, African Americans account for 70.658 total electoral votes, about 13% of the total compared to their population representation of 12%. That step change is an 8% advantage relative to their total population (538*0.12 ~ 65 electoral votes; 1 - 65/71 ~ 8.45%).
This is not, I want to point out, an argument about racial inequality or the fitness of the electoral college to deliver solutions to those kinds of problems. Neither is it an exhaustive treatment (obviously) of every kind of demographic. There are obvious flaws in this approach (you can't split EC votes, EC votes are typically winner-take-all, not all of the population are voting age, etc., etc.). So it's also not intended to say, "Well, akshully..."
I do think, though, that there is some nuance that is missing here. Rural people aren't the only minority affected by the electoral college, and questions of geography and demography play important roles in how people vote. It's worth considering what happens when you are in the minority, because it is the rights of the minority that are most likely to be overrun by the majority.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_Unit...
[2]: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/GA,NC/PST045221
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
Replacing tyranny of the majority with tyranny of the minority isn't a win.
While the EC could "erode voting power" of the majority in favor of minorities we don't like, it may also favor those minorities we do like.
It seems like as a society we have a complicated relationship with this idea. Rights are in principle equal, but power is not equally distributed. Maintaining any balance is a really hard problem.
The electoral college could be a relic of a bygone era whose time is over and done, but I'm not sure that eliminating it is going to reset the balance of power in a way that protects rights more effectively.
The senate is, by design, an inherently anti-democratic institution (it represents the rights of the states instead of the rights of their populations).
The presidency I think is at least elected quite democratically, so I'm not sure what GP meant there.
Look at the way primaries are run. Candidates put extraordinary effort into small states because that's where the party has decided it wants to have its candidates slug it out. They could instead choose larger states but they don't. Or the candidates could campaign in larger states but it would sink their candidacy --they campaign in order to extract maximum value. It's similar with presidential campaigns.
Also why is everyone playing “devils advocate” on this thread? It’s clear what the majority sentiment is here, why bother pretending to take a middle of the road “nuanced” position?
And it's not. The underlying problem is most of voting public doesn't understand how the system works, and why.
Repeated the language has been "The SC is making abortion illegal." That simply is not true. But with that falsely dumbed down "fact" ppl judge, form opinions, make noise, etc.
That's not what's playing out.
If a dead person can't be forced to give up organs without prior consent, a living woman should not be forced to provide life support (at a risk to her own life by the way) for a fetus. Just like I can't be forced to donate a kidney to another person, a woman should not be forced to donate blood, bone and full life support to a fetus.
IOTW, it's literally a matter of competing rights to life. Carrying a pregnancy to term is a mortal risk. Certain pregnancies will kill the mother if not ended, and the fetus will never be viable. Other times the fetus is already dead, but since the law doesn't actually consider the fetus a person, it can't be removed due to abortion bans, and the woman is forced to carry a dead parasite and risk fatal sepsis.
All of this should be left to the woman, her doctor, her circumstances and her conscience, not a bunch of old men in legislatures and courts.
> All of this should be left to the woman, her doctor, her circumstances and her conscience I agree completely, however if we are contending with the counter argument that a fetus does become a "person" at some point late in the pregnancy, having an abortion after this point for no other reason than "I don't feel like it/ I changed my mind" would by definition have to be murder. The "competing rights to life" argument would not apply here.
Do you think the majority of democrats would support granting "personhood" to the fetus at some late stage in the pregnancy if conservatives would support legislating abortion into law (abortions before the fetus reaches personhood for any reason, after which only if the doctor believes the mother's life to be in danger.) Or this is too much of a compromise, women should be able to abort at any time for any reason?
Assuming the child isn't a danger to the mother, it just seems like punishing the child for who their father was.
People who claim they care about the fetus' rights, and that they oppose abortion from this point of view, are either hypocritical or haven't given it enough thought. If they did, they would at best insist upon the woman carrying the fetus until it becomes viable, then having the right to a C-section where it is removed and placed on life support, and given up for adoption. But no one holds this position.
In reality, people use the rhetoric of the fetus' rights to muddy the waters, and to avoid admitting that they don't believe women have a right to control their own bodies. They hold collectivist views that are typical of conservatives, who believe all people should be subservient to the social fabric (while espousing individualistic views when it comes time for the social fabric to help those same people in turn) - no free sex, no freedom to use drugs, etc
Of course this is an ethical, not legal argument, so I don't know how it would translate to US law.
Speaking as a generally pro-abortion person, I don't think it's that black and white. When you agree to sustain someone's life, is taking away that sustainment murder? For example, if you reach out and stop someone from falling off a cliff but then choose to let go before they regain their balance, is that murder? I also don't see how to logically reconcile the idea that abortion isn't murder but letting a baby starve to death is. Either you have a responsibility towards human life you created or you don't.
I suppose that depends on your definition of agrees. If you know that sex creates babies you are agreeing to the baby as much as you are agreeing to an explosion when you light a firecracker.
Maybe odd at first glance, but the more I think about it the more sense it makes. It helps to turn the logic on its head - should it be legal to deliberately or negligently create human fetuses, only to kill them?
Judith Jarvis Thomas: "A Defense of Abortion," 1971. https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.h...
You aren't required to save their life, but you also can't kill them.
Is this seriously an abortion argument, or are you just trolling? Are you seriously telling me people are OK with killing someone just because it's not convenient?
I always thought that the abortion argument was because they did not consider their unborn child a person. If you do consider that child a person then obviously you can't kill it.
Bodily autonomy and integrity is not merely an inconvenience. It's a major principle in human rights. Otherwise you could demand I give you my healthy kidney to save your life, and if I don't I'd be "killing you".
> You aren't required to save their life, but you also can't kill them.
You're not killing the violinist, you merely withdraw life support you're not obligated to give it in any way, they die on their own.
Body autonomy is great and all, but it doesn't excuse murder.
Like I said: I'm not required to save you, but I also can't kill you.
But it's not murder if I wake up in the middle of the procedure, walk away, and you die on the operating table.
To me the lines are clear: You don't have to take action to save his life, but you also can not kill him by your actions. i.e. if everyone froze at this moment and did nothing - would he live, or die?
As an adult who is profiting from a crime committed against you, they are morally obligated to return you to your original state that existed before the crime was committed (even though it would return them to their original state, which was illness and near-term death).
For a child in the womb, though, they do not have a pre-existing state (under the philosophical premise that conception is the starting point of a unique human), and most conceptions are not the result of crimes (although I can understand someone drawing a bright moral line between different pregnancies based on that factor).
At the risk of stretching the metaphor to its breaking point, this is you choosing to go out and get drunk while aware that members of an unethical music lovers' organization are skulking about looking for victims to graft sick violinists onto. Sure, they no longer need to actively drug you because you willingly did that yourself, but that doesn't imply your consent to what happens next.
It's as much consent to pregnancy as dropping a cinderblock on your foot is consent to a broken toe or eating ten cheeseburgers a day is consent to getting fat.
People around the world routinely engage in frequent sexual intercourse without becoming pregnant. If you show me even a fraction of that same number of people who have demonstrated an ability to consume ten cheeseburgers a day for a prolonged period without gaining weight, maybe you'd have a point. Otherwise, this is just a blatant false equivalence.
Yes, and people routinely take methamphetamine without having a heart attack and shoot themselves without dying. That doesn't obviate the fact that pregnancy is the direct result of coitus. Claiming you did not consent to the function for which a body part evolved when you used that body part is like saying you didn't consent to sweating when you went for a summer jog. Sure, you may certainly take measures to prevent an undesired outcome but the physical results of your choices can only be tragedy, not injustice.
Social constructs don't apply to biology.
From my perspective, even if we assume the person plugged the needle into the arm, it's absolutely not my place to mandate that you must now keep the needle attached until the violinist can live independently again.
You may feel horrible about disconnecting that needle. We may even agree that it's a pretty awful thing to do to the violinist. In fact, we may even agree that you should be responsible for at least attempting to find alternative options for the violinist. But I certainly would never imagine creating a society in which we would prevent you from doing it. It is your body, and you should absolutely retain the right to revoke consent for the violinist to live off of it.
The only fully consistent argument I've heard is that a human mind is the definition of personhood and that parents should be able to terminate up until several months after birth, but that's pretty out there.
The problem is we have an electoral system that forces us into a two party system. One of those parties is beholden to religious ideologies. If any republican votes for abortion protection they will get primaried. So we end up in a situation where a healthy majority of the country wants some level of abortion rights, but because we need 60 senate votes it's impossible to implement.
It’s not JUST about means, motive, opportunity. There has to be the desire to spend the political capital. I think it’s interesting no one in 50 years with all the majority make ups have put the effort in.
I don’t speculate a reason other than it seems more expensive than the media might have me believe?
I believe Roe was the precedent of the land and not something explicitly codified into federal law.
Maybe you're using a fuzzier definition of "law", but there was never any federal legislation that guaranteed access to abortion. That is what we need.
"In law, common law, also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law, is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions.[2][3][4] The defining characteristic of “common law” is that it arises as precedent. In cases where the parties disagree on what the law is, a common law court looks to past precedential decisions of relevant courts, and synthesizes the principles of those past cases as applicable to the current facts."
Though it does kind of make sense, after all it's the United States of America, not the United People's of America, or the United Local Jurisdictions of America.
The States can have rights that supersedes the people apparently.
My reading of the particular passage[0] in the Wikipedia article is that while Federal courts are no longer independent sources of common law, they operate along with other systems that are, and often impact the common law of the several states with rulings that set the limits of Federal, State and individual power.
As such, the reality is a bit more complicated,
N.B.: IANAL and this is not legal advice.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law#United_States_feder...
But it does. Our common law system treats judicial rulings as law. There is nothing stopping the supreme court from ruling on literally anything they like. They could make cars illegal in the next session if they wanted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress "gave the Senate Democratic caucus sixty votes, enough to defeat a filibuster in a party-line vote."
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/us/politics/01minnesota.h... "providing Democrats with something they had long hoped for: 60 votes, and thus at least the symbolic ability to overcome filibusters."
The cynic in me thinks that neither party wants this issue to go away because it fills voting booths.
Democrats have had multiple chances to codify it and didn't even try. They could also get some buy-in from on-the-fence people and maybe even a few very centrist Republicans in bluish states with a compromise that codifies protection for abortions in the first trimester but nope.
If Republicans really were serious about adoption as an alternative they'd make reforming and funding adoption and foster care a huge priority. They'd also entertain medicare coverage for uninsured women giving birth even if it's to be given up for adoption so as to remove the financial incentive for abortion. But nope.
Why solve a problem or find a viable compromise when the controversy gets you elected? Culture war controversies also distract from incompetence and corruption.
This is a big flaw in your thinking. The republicans typically vote as a cohesive group of lemmings. Their leadership signals how they should vote and they follow. The democrats act more an independent collective of votes that happen to align on many issues, but not all.
Can you really not see it in yourself when you post things like this?
When were these chances? I don't think there have ever been 60 pro-abortion votes in the Senate.
How do you know, since, again, no one even tried?
Joe Manchin's pro-life and been in since 2010
Blanche Lincoln voted for the partial birth abortion ban
Mark Pryor voted for the partial birth abortion ban
Kent Conrad voted for the partial birth abortion ban
Byron Dorgan voted for the partial birth abortion ban
etc. etc. etc.
That is three weeks longer than France, Denmark, and Germany among others in Europe. In Germany you have mandatory counseling the tries to talk you out of it first.
some level of abortion rights != Roe and the extent of Roe
I'd imagine an easy majority supports it in cases of threats to the mother's life, but does an easy majority support letting Roe stand without any sort of weakening? I doubt it
https://news.gallup.com/poll/393275/steady-americans-not-roe...
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/13/about-six-i...
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/19/1099844097/abortion-polling-r...
https://news.gallup.com/poll/393104/pro-choice-identificatio...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/upholding-roe-v-wade-is-support...
This seems like the type of abortion “rights” that would get broad-based support across the aisle.
I imagine there will be a few states that outright ban abortion. But I think it will be a very small number, less than 10. And I think they will quickly change that position over the next 10 years.
I know that doesn’t help the people who live there now who want an abortion. But this ruling is not going to end abortion in America. That’s a guarantee.
There are plenty of devils out there, they can advocate for themselves. This ruling can be as technically correct as anyone likes, but it is disastrous in every conceivable way. All this ultimately demonstrates is how feeble rights - real, natural rights - are under the American conception of federal constitutional rights.
Edit: there are a lot of people who are clearly very clever advocating for the devil. The devils have the best lawyers money can buy; all I can really suggest, as someone who is not American and not a woman, is that you advocate for human beings for a change.
Another devil's advocate here...the people advocating for outlawing abortion are also convinced it's a rights issue: the rights of the unborn child. This isn't an open and shut case.
Granted, I think Roe v Wade struck a fairly nuanced balance and I also think this is a disastrous decision. It's unfortunate RBG didn't quit when she had the chance and also unfortunate the dems ran Abuela in 2016. This could have been avoided, along with 4 years of complete buffoonery and international embarassment. It sucks our one-party-with-two-factions system has one faction that's consistently spineless and lacking foresight.
Then authority shouldn’t be given to the states, right? Presumably those people will be proposing a federal ban soon, right?
Sure, that'd be a logical next step. The people who argue for states' rights are often doing so as a ruse to eventually exercise federal control.
That said, I think it will end up like marijuana: illegal federally with a bunch of states who just don't give a fuck. In the end, it may only weaken the power the federal government holds, which at this point is a good thing because power has been concentrating more and more the past 100 years.
I feel I have to reiterate though: this is still a disastrous outcome for a lot of people. I'm not happy about it. The conservative morons who "want the government out of their lives" but also continuously try to legislate people's bodies and sexuality have scored a real win, and I'm scared and upset for all the women in red states who have to live under their reign of hypocritical terror.
And don't forget the immense amount of suffering inflicted disproportionately on minority and disadvantaged groups.
It's funny how symmetrical hypocrisy is.
Liberals are hypocrites because they favor states rights when it comes to firearm regulations but not for abortions; and conservatives are hypocrites for exactly the opposite positions.
(I'll point out that in this instance, on a purely logical basis, the conservatives have the upper hand because they can clearly point to the second amendment, whereas the liberals need to try to identify abortion as some kind of implicit natural right that's not written down anywhere. I say this as a pro-choice person.)
In either case, you are right, it is largely a ruse. If abortions and firearms were both illegal nationally, then liberals would fight for states' rights on abortion but not for firearms; and conservatives would again have the opposite positions. Political creatures fight on the battlefield where they can win (or, more often, keep the status quo and stay in office but look like they are fighting to keep the campaign cash rolling in).
It's really a tale as old as time (or at least as old as the United States). "States' rights," outside of theoretical discussions, has always simply been a tool, not a true guiding ideology.
----------------------------------------
"The unborn" are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don't resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don't ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don't need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don't bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It's almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.
Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.
----------------------------------------
It has come to my attention recently that the abortion of unwanted fetuses is likely to become illegal in large parts of the United States.
Fortunately, there is another alternative, which I am sure members of the Republican Party will hearty approve of.
Have the unwanted baby. Shortly after birth, drive to the middle of nowhere. Place the baby on the ground, naked, look at it sternly, and say
"Listen here, you whining little brat! You think I'm just going to support you for 18 years because I'm some sort of bleeding heart liberal? You got another thing coming you stupid welfare queen! This ain't socialist Europe! There ain't no leftist safety net here! You're just going to have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps!"
Then just leave it there, crying itself to death.:)
Granted, there are deeper problems to our democracy than selecting representatives. At this point, our federal government is a puppet to the financial and corporate worlds: a marriage of industry and state. Hmm, where else did that happen?
Hence Americans regularly vote against there own self-interest because they have been turned into fans.
The US is the oldest and most stable democracy.
It also works more-or-less as intended. On issues where there is broad consensus (e.g. COVID relief) it can move incredibly quickly. On issues where there is broad disagreement (e.g. abortion) it moves very slowly or not at all (requiring compromise).
I wish more countries were like the US (or, alternatively, like Switzerland, which represents the other extreme with their direct democracy).
https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking
We use the world's worst voting method and are heavily gerrymanded.
Both Democrats and Republicans are more similar than different on all but a few social issues (these issues can change over time-- for instance, many Republican politicians used to be pro family planning and contraceptives). Both parties use those few social issues to sow all the division they can.
E.g., Clinton finished what Reagan had started with NAFTA (Democrat and Republican parties both support neoliberal policies)[1]. Clinton, continuing Reagan's initiative, dismantled the federal welfare system[2]. Clinton signed into law an expansion of policing, lengthened sentences, and a three strikes-- life imprisonment provision[3]. Clinton also supported deregulation and signed Gramm-Leach-Bliley which effectively repealed Glass-Steagal[4]. Clinton could have been a Republican except for a few social issues such as, his justice picks supported Roe v. Wade[5].
Clinton wasn't an outlier. Obama proposed changes to the CPI calculation to reduce, already low, Social Security (public pension) benefits[6]. He continued with financial deregulation signing the Security Modernization Act into law[7]. He supported privatization of schools[8]. His landmark health insurance legislation, which maintained private insurers and health care providers, was originally proposed by a far right think tank, the Heritage Foundation[9].
[1] https://time.com/5468175/nafta-history/ [2] https://www.history.com/news/clinton-1990s-welfare-reform-fa... [3] https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/billfs.txt [4] https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/glass-steaga... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_Supreme_Court_can... [6] https://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/articles/2013/04/2... [7] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/financial-services-act-... [8] https://blackagendareport.com/obama_legacy_III_privatization... [9] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/apr/01/barack-oba...
https://www.electionscience.org/library/approval-voting/
It's already used in Fargo and St. Louis and will be voted on this November in Seattle. If a majority approves it, they'll use it August 2023.
This is a nice fiction but it doesn't hold up to any level of scrutiny most of the time. Largely the "pro-life" people also believe in things like self-defense laws and the castle doctrine, which require that you not believe anyone has a real right to life.
Unless you think they'd all be ok with a squatter coming into their house and demanding food and that they wouldn't use their guns on them. But they think a mother should be required to literally risk her life in order to support a being she may not have chosen to create.
You don't need to give the benefit of the doubt here. You don't need to believe disingenuous arguments just because people say they're what they mean. Dig a little deeper and understand what they really believe: women with unwanted pregnancies deserve to have it carried out against their will because they think they've sinned.
That said what I said holds: this is not a clear-cut case of rights, because the rights of two entities are in question and they are in conflict. Is a handful of cells with human DNA a person? Of course not, it's less biologically developed than an ant. Is a fetus that's developed for 8 months a person? Yeah, at that point it could exit the mother and be a (somewhat) functioning being. Where do we draw the line? At what point is a fetus a person? And from there, we can determine where its rights to not die at the hand of another person begin. And yes, we have to factor in the health of the mother, the health of the fetus, etc into these decisions.
This is, and always has been, a nuanced issue.
My mom marched with Operation Rescue during the summer that culminated in the bombing of an abortion clinic, and later the execution of the Dr that ran the clinic, in his own church, during service, while he was collecting offerings as an usher.
I know in painful depth every detail of how these people think.
It is not nuanced on their side. They outright reject empirical facts. They believe the earth is only 6000 years old, that the dinosaurs died in Noah's flood, and that evolution is a myth, not the central mechanism of all biology.
They do not care about the facts other than pattern matching them as rhetorical thought ending cliches.
They believe because they had an imaginary conversation in their head once, they are now born again, and have a private telepathic phone line to absolute truth. When they feel certain about something, it's the will of god revealed to them through the holy spirit. When other people express opposing certainty, it's because they have been tricked by the devil.
There is no good faith debate on the basis of facts or nuance with these people. You could spend years refuting every single thing they believe on a factual basis beyond any nuance or doubt, and they will blink, look at you, and then say something like "I know what's true in my heart of hearts."
Every single detail of how they talk about this and the actions they take make clear their actual grievance is regulating women's sexual behavior outside of their theocratic conception of marriage.
There is no need to defend these people as some sort of morally principled people confused by the underlying nuances. They are no where near that intellectually honest on the subject.
Most pro-lifers in the upper echelons of intellectual and professional life are probably silent, fearing reprisal.
Go read and learn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rescue_(Kansas)
Wichita is stuck in Kansas, a conservative state yes, but the average person you'll meet there is very similar to who you'd meet in any of the major metro areas. They are captive to a conservative rural minority in a microcosm of the same effect at national scale. "Go to crazy places" is a completely inadequate deflection. You know it.
My family's church went into schism in response to the Tiller murder. The strongest condemnation on the anti murder side was basically "they shouldn't have done that in a church." I cannot recall a single person out of hundreds that condemned the murder (or bombing) itself directly. The closest is my father, who maintains a "abortion should be outlawed except if rape" perspective. Additional useful information here is he failed to know my older brother was sexually abusing me in his own house.
I know "what if" style contrarian takes are an addiction on this forum, but please, do not engage in hypotheticals on this issue if you are not actually familiar and plugged in. You are doing evil purely in the service of some forum warrior "what if I actually have the smart take here" nonsense. These people know they're hypocrites drowning in dissonance. It's central to their mindset. Not only do they not care, they will double down on it every time.
So you would support an abortion procedure on a fetus after 8 months and two weeks of pregnancy? If you believe this to not be a nuanced issue, then are you in opposition to the original Roe vs Wade ruling that determined personhood for a fetus once it reaches a viable age for survival, and you instead support the ability to abort a fetus all the way up to the moments before birth?
> There is no need to defend these people as some sort of morally principled people confused by the underlying nuances.
I'm confused which one of my comments leads you to believe I'm defending the anti-abortion crowd. I was responding to a comment saying that this is an issue of bodily autonomy rights only. It's not. There are the rights of the unborn child at play as well, hence the nuance.
I could argue that ability of an organism to survive on its own is not a requirement nor a sufficient criteria for neither personhood (a legal construct) or anything in lines of sentience, self-awareness and sapience (philosophical constructs commonly associated with a person, although it's not a clear cut - e.g. a person may become incapacitated and is still considered a person).
That is irrelevant. At most, where you draw the line could affect what type of abortive procedure doctors would be allowed to employ - if you believe that the fetus is a person, you could mandate that the doctors must remove it from the mother's body without harming it.
But just as you have no obligation to allow someone into your home (and are in fact perfectly within your rights to murder them if they refuse to leave), you have no obligation to grow another person inside your own body.
There is no nuance here. There are only fallacies employed by people who desperately want to uphold some perceived status quo from time immemorial.
It's also important to note that there isn't even any reason to believe ancient Christians considered abortion forbidden or immoral. This is a much more modern invention, one given steam by the desire to oppose sexual liberation.
I find this an interesting argument, but I have to note the difference: the person in your home is willingly violating your space. The fetus is not willingly in your body, and is given no chance whatsoever to leave without being harmed.
So I don't find personhood irrelevant here, and I think the nuance still applies.
> There are only fallacies employed by people who desperately want to uphold some perceived status quo from time immemorial.
So for you, rights begin at birth? I'm not judging, I'm trying to assess your solid position.
> It's also important to note that there isn't even any reason to believe ancient Christians considered abortion forbidden or immoral. This is a much more modern invention, one given steam by the desire to oppose sexual liberation.
I believe this to be irrelevant to the discussion. I think we've already determined that modern anti-abortion Christians are, as a group, often hypocritical. But the discussion has diverged from them and is now about when rights are assigned.
This is an interesting point, but I believe the castle doctrine doesn't make this distinction: if you find someone on your property who you didn't give prior permission to enter, you may murder them, regardless of whether they were there willingly (or even knowingly). For example, if you wake up in the middle of the night to a loud bang and find someone jutting out from your broken front door and shoot before asking questions, you will not be accused of murder or even manslaughter if that person was actually thrown into your house by someone outside.
> So for you, rights begin at birth? I'm not judging, I'm trying to assess your solid position.
I think a compromise where rights begin at viability makes enough sense. I would also be OK with allowing women to request a fetus be removed from their body even after it becomes viable, but not through procedures that are intended to kill it - for example, I could see an argument where a woman should be allowed to have an elective C-section to remove an 8 month fetus/baby from her body, who she could then abandon in the care of the hospital. But, I don't think it would be OK to request a procedure where an 8 month fetus is killed in utero and removed.
For non-elective procedures (where the life of the mother is at stake) the discussion is more open-ended, I believe.
Essentially, the right of the mother to her own body is quite obviously separate from the fetus' right to life. People who seek to conflate them are typically doing so with ulterior motives.
As someone else was pointing out, taking the extreme view of fetal personhood, while still correctly recognizing a woman's right to her own body, one should seek to (a) prevent any procedure that outright kills the foetus, (b) demand the mother carry the pregnancy until it is viable, (c) allow only late term "abortions" where the fetus is removed from the mother's body and kept alive on life support.
I think the difference here is that there's no "a wild fetus appeared" but rather something intentional happened (intercourse of some kind). There's some level of acceptance/invitation here. If you invite someone into your house and they accept, that doesn't give you license to immediately kill them.
Granted, there are things like rape which need to be part of the equation.
I've said it a number of times in the comments but I will say it again: I think the original Roe vs Wade ruling had a great stance on the issue: once a fetus is old enough to survive, it receives personhood. I still think this is the most acceptable of all outcomes.
> I think a compromise where rights begin at viability makes enough sense. I would also be OK with allowing women to request a fetus be removed from their body even after it becomes viable, but not through procedures that are intended to kill it - for example, I could see an argument where a woman should be allowed to have an elective C-section to remove an 8 month fetus/baby from her body, who she could then abandon in the care of the hospital. But, I don't think it would be OK to request a procedure where an 8 month fetus is killed in utero and removed.
I think we see eye to eye here.
> For non-elective procedures (where the life of the mother is at stake) the discussion is more open-ended, I believe.
Right: which life is more important? Difficult questions, and survivability factors have to come into play here.
> Essentially, the right of the mother to her own body is quite obviously separate from the fetus' right to life. People who seek to conflate them are typically doing so with ulterior motives.
Separate rights with intersection at a point of conflict (assuming the fetus wants to live, which of course cannot be reasonably determined). I don't know if you're considering acknowledging of this conflict a "conflation" but if so, then I have to disagree.
> As someone else was pointing out, taking the extreme view of fetal personhood, while still correctly recognizing a woman's right to her own body, one should seek to (a) prevent any procedure that outright kills the foetus, (b) demand the mother carry the pregnancy until it is viable, (c) allow only late term "abortions" where the fetus is removed from the mother's body and kept alive on life support.
This seems to tip the scales in favor of fetal personhood over female bodily autonomy. I'm not a woman, but I think I would find it horribly painful to carry the child of someone who raped me and I'd likely want to get it out of me as soon as possible.
Are you saying this is a hypothetical position that anti-abortion people should support, assuming they were being logically consistent? If so, then yeah, that would seem to make sense.
Yes, that would be at least logically consistent of them.
You're misunderstanding me here (and I think this is the crux of a lot of "liberal" misfire on this and other issues): I don't think they're hypocrites, I think they're operating on different axioms from me (and probably you) and their views are entirely self-consistent. Absolutely reprehensible axioms to me, but they're not idiots.
There is a minor hypocrisy in framing, but it's not really important and you never have to talk long before the real axioms come along. Just look at this subthread's dissenting views and find the cases where people subtly or overtly admit that "life" is relative, and the innocence of the child is key. Then consider: innocent compared to who?
They do not believe that people have a right to life. They believe innocent people have a right to life. Once you understand that, what they say makes more sense. The mother who has a child out of wedlock (rarely will they consider the possibility a married person might need or want an abortion) and the man in your house demanding food have a thing in common: they both broke a rule considered sacrosanct and they both "knew what they were doing had consequences" (never mind broken condoms, hormonal birth control not working for medical reasons, let alone more obvious things like rape).
It's not hypocrisy. Most people who fall on the side of "pro-life" arguments believe these things for reasons that make sense to them, and not always for religious reasons.
If a single mother struggles it's because she deserves it. If her child suffers for that struggle it's her fault. So long as there's something or someone to blame, you can ignore the question of how you could have prevented the problem in the first place.
In fact, if you provide her support, you might be rewarding her infidelity. And then people will perceive that as a reasonable thing to do and more people will do it and then and then and then....
But the important thing is that she didn't "sin" by "killing the baby". If the baby dies after it's born, it's also her fault.
Like I said, there's no hypocrisy there. Being a hypocrite isn't the worst thing someone can be. It's entirely possible to have a perfectly (or as perfectly as humans are capable of) self-consistent worldview that is also incredibly cruel. I think a lot of people have lost sight of that.
At some point people started to believe that conservativism was about "preserving the past" but that's subtly wrong. It's about "preserving hierarchies". Recognizing that all people are worthy of life is contrary to the idea that some people deserve what's coming to them.
> This is a nice fiction but it doesn't hold up to any level of scrutiny most of the time. Largely the "pro-life" people also believe in things like self-defense laws and the castle doctrine, which require that you not believe anyone has a real right to life.
Huh? I know people are really tempted to construct straw-men to make their opponents look like hypocrites, but this one is especially weak.
> You don't need to give the benefit of the doubt here.
Eh, no. You do, otherwise you end up with nonsense like what you wrote next.
> Dig a little deeper and understand what they really believe: women with unwanted pregnancies deserve to have it carried out against their will because they think they've sinned.
You may be able to find an example of that, but I really doubt that's the motivating idea for the vast majority of the pro-life movement. I would bet money what most of them "really believe" is that a fetus is a baby and that baby should be protected from harm.
Yet when my friend lost a child to a miscarriage, they grieved.
It's interesting to note when people latch on to starkly dehumanizing rhetoric such as you've displayed. It's not just in the abortion debate.
A lot of people really want this question to be black and white, and struggle to make it so, but it really isn't and never will be.
Why do you want other women who did not choose this way to go over the potentially even more terrible thing of birthing a child at significant health risks she half-loves (as hormones are powerful things), half-hates? That just kills 2 people mentally.
Parasites are organisms that reduce the host's fitness while giving nothing in return. Babies are the exact polar opposite of parasites. They are literally the entire reason you're alive as far as evolution is concerned.
I'm sure any reasonably intelligent and good faith person would parse "Evolution is concerned" as a metaphor, just like they parse "The computer looks up the ip address in the DNS server" or "The atom shares some of its outer electrons".
>not all pro-social behaviors are directly reproductive
How is this relevant ?
And it's relevant because even if you assume that there's some magical driving force to persist a species, there are ways individuals contribute to it other than having offspring. Thus, it is not their sole purpose.
This is trivially true, a computer's entire reason for existence is to be used by a user, and looking up DNS servers is a crucial part of what makes that happens.
Similarly, a living organism entire reason for existence is to manufacture copies of itself, and, for female mammals, that means carrying babies.
>People don't have an "evolutionary purpose,"
This is just semantic hair-splitting. Planets don't have a 'purpose' either, but every single one of them finds a star and goes around it, and the ones that don't just can't find a star close enough. It's fair to say that, in a very real sense, planets only exist to revolve around stars, their very being necessitates it. This doesn't mean they are "aware" of it.
People are similarly machines made and remade by evolution to do a single thing : spread copies of themselves. It doesn't matter that evolution "didn't mean" to make them that way, they are that way anyhow. And they will behave that way.
>there's some magical driving force to persist a species
It's not magical, it's all the hormones and electricity flowing inside every part of you. You can see it on a screen and measure its concentration.
>Thus, it is not their sole purpose.
Yes it is, Evolution doesn't care that you founded a startup or worked for SpaceX, unless those things increase your genetic copies somehow.
You can write something like "if we look at it from a lens other than biology" before your statement to make it more correct, but I was replying to a person who compared pregnancy to a parasitic relationship, therefore they were invoking biology. Biology, in no uncertain terms, makes it quite clear that this is bullshit. Every living organism, in biology's book, is a self replicating machine made for nothing but spreading copies of itself.
The other meaning you want to use necessarily require intelligent design - there is no higher level goal to a human’s life in itself, as that would require something designing it for such. Though sure it depends on religious interpretation as well, but then higher level goals are usually claimed - so decide whether you mean the biological cause for our existence which is simply a side effect of a population that grows and is fit to their environment, or some chosen Deity’s higher level goals for an individual. None of those makes us primitive replica generators.
You said that babies are parasites, this is just factually false (aside from being dehumanizing and disgusting, but that's typical for most mainstream pro abortion arguments, so I will just ignore that aspect). A parasite isn't just "any organism that lives inside me and makes me feel pain", by that definition, your own immune cells would be parasites in some cases.
Outside of popular movies and video games, parasites are organisms that are
(1) typically of a different species than their host(s), and
(2) depend on 1 or more host for their entire life and reproduction cycle, and
(3) manipulate the host(s), usually maliciously, for their benefit while giving no benefit in return.
You can also add a (4)th point about the host(s) usually not "knowing" they are being manipulated, but maybe that will get too philosophical, I can't be sure if parasitised animals realize anything is wrong with them, but the safe thing to say is that
(4) the host(s) don't host the parasite willingly or deliberately, and usually fight a constant arms race of anti-parasite adaptations followed by counter adaptations from the parasite. It is said that sexual reproduction itself is an anti-parasite countermeasure: the 2-way genetic mixing serves as a "jammer" to make life hard for parasites.
Points (1) and (2) are trivially false for babies. Point (3) is also false, but more subtly : the baby isn't "manipulating" the mother's body, it is itself a piece of the mother's body that gained independence, and the mother's body is adapted to willingly give it whatever it needs to survive and thrive. Point (4) is trivially false as long as the mother's impregnation wasn't due to rape.
I don't understand where all the philosophical baggage about "Design" and "Purpose" came from, I'm just correcting your sloppy use of "Parasite". A female human’s body is a machine perfectly adapted to having babies. This isn't a normative statement about that body's 'higher' purpose or what it 'should' do, just an empirical observation that refutes any similarity between babies and parasites, because parasites are invading entities that exploit "bugs" and "vulnerabilities" in the bodies they inhabit and control, while babies are first-class entities that have dedicated machinery and full, intentional support from any healthy female body that hosts them.
It would be like opening a python interpreter and being shocked that you can do Arbitrary Code Execution at the prompt, *that's literally what an interpreter is*, that's what it does, why it's designed and implemented. You haven't discovered a vulnerability, you just discovered an interpreter. Hosting babies is why the female primate body is adapted the way it is, there is nothing parasitic (read as: 'incidental', 'invading', 'foreign') to it, parasitism is when you exploit a body against its own fitness, just like a security vulnerability is exploiting a program against its own purpose. A python interpreter executing arbitrary python code isn't a security vulnerability, and a female human hosting a human embryo isn't parasitism.
So I really have no idea where you got these ridiculous made-up requirements, but just to clear things up, Oxford’s dictionary only has this as a “requirement”: “an organism that lives in or on an organism of another species (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other's expense.”
And this is absolutely true of human babies, technically, no matter how disgusting the notion is. Technically true is still true.
And no, the female body is not made for bearing children. Women usually have the ability otherwise evolution would select against them, but babies are not “first-class” in any way, otherwise there would be no such thing as Rh disease (where the mother’s body literally attacks the fetus). There is no design in evolution, it is a spaghetti code where the vulnerability of a vulnerability happened to be a feature over time and everything seems to be working statistically good enough in extant species, just enough so that they can reproduce enough to not go extint.
Off course there is plenty of any thing in biology, I was describing every single parasite I know of or read about.
You can remove that requirement from the list if you want.
>I sure hope you don’t mean manipulation in a sci-fi brain controll way,
That would be ridiculous. I meant 'manipulate' as in "cause something to happen for your own benefit" which is an extremely boring way of saying that the parasite has all the agency, the host body is not cooperating with it. Unlike a baby, which the host body is bending over backward to host and nurture, the parasite is 'making its own living'.
>how the hell knowledge even come into the picture
Did you just mis-quote me on that? Because I remember quite clearly that this isn't my actual 4th point, it was a philosophical remark that I said could be a 4th point, my actual 4th point was
>>the host(s) don't host the parasite willingly or deliberately, and usually fight a constant arms race of anti-parasite adaptations followed by counter adaptations from the parasite.
Do you have problems with that as a necessary requirement for parasitism?
>So I really have no idea where you got these ridiculous made-up requirements
3 out of 4 of them are true when you take the time to interpret them as I meant them, and the 4th isn't exactly wrong either. I'm curious as to your definition of "made up".
>Oxford’s dictionary
Dictionary definitions are frequently less accurate than domain specific definitions.
>an organism that lives in or on an organism of another species
>this is absolutely true of human babies
Uhm... human babies are another species?
>the female body is not made for bearing children.
The entirety of this statement truth value rests on a semantic game played on 'made'. You define 'made' as necessarily requiring an intelligent design, whereas I define it simply as whatever happens when a process produce behaviourally-consistent artifacts. The vast majority of planets revolve around stars, therefore planets can be said to be 'made' to orbit stars. The vast majority of female bodies are well-equipped to carry babies, therefore female bodies can be said to be 'made' to carry babies.
When I say 'made', I don't necessarily imply a 'purpose' or a 'designer', I'm simply pointing out the sheer consistency of a form to its function, the female body is as suitable to carrying children as a planet is suitable to orbiting stars.
>Rh disease (where the mother’s body literally attacks the fetus)
Well, every program has its bugs :). How common is Rh disease? How many healthy babies are born for every baby attacked by Rh? Your own immune system turns mad sometimes and start killing you from the inside, does that imply that your immune system is not a machine with killing threats as the main purpose?
>good enough
This is underselling it. It's not hit or miss with a 50-50 or 70-30 %, the things you describe are extraordinarily rare, rarer than computer bugs and manufacturing defects in human-made machines.
This is a shallow read. Why do they believe the baby should be protected from harm and not the mother who wants to or needs to end the pregnancy? Or the person who broke into your home?
I've literally never had or seen a conversation about abortion with a pro-lifer that when it went down this rabbit hole didn't eventually get to the idea that the innocence of the child matters more than the life of the child (and thus the lack of innocence of the mother).
Your actions didn't cause the squatter to come into the house, while it's the pregnant woman's actions that caused the baby to form inside her. A better analogy would be you advertising free food and residence, then changing your mind after a squatter comes to take you on your word.
I personally believe you shouldn't kill a squatter as long as no credible threat to your life exists, you can always remove by force, non lethal weapons are a thing. I also believe you don't have the right to terminate a being's life when you're the one who started it in the first place, no matter how much you dress it up in colorful language and fanciful thought experiments.
It's a fundamentally treasonous thing to do, to invite someone into life then quash them like a fly at the earliest inconvenience.
If you can’t steelman any topic, you don’t understand the topic.
I don’t pick begrudge Republicans that actually believe and really feel the abortion has been terminating a human life unfairly.
I’m more begrudge Democrats that refuse to understand this is a nonfalsifiable issue. That we will never understand truly the point of which a thing becomes a human.
There will never be agreement. You need understand and accept that.
So given the choice between federally legal and federally illegal, where there will always be conflict, you could do worse than 50 state rules.
For all the rage that “some number of weeks abortion bans” in the certain state received, that is Germany’s every day. They have a 12 week ban with mandatory counseling. I have difficulty understanding how the same pitched here would get red eyed outrage from most Pro-Choice but Germans seem to be getting along.
I don’t think the issue is abortion, I think it’s just like everything else hyper-polarization.
I think it’s absolutely stupid that if I see you still wearing a mask in a store, that I can pretty much determine your views on abortion. We’re being played.
If you don’t want an abortion, don’t get one. Can it be simpler?
The prolifers would respond sarcastically and say:
"If you don't want to murder your 8 month old, don't do it? Can it be simpler?"
This fundamentally misunderstands the actual Republican position, and it does so in the way that they are intending to trick you into doing.
If they cared about lives, they would protect schoolchildren. If they cared about lives, they would protect the poor. If they cared about lives, they'd care about death from car accidents, from Covid, from lack of medical care. They don't.
So it's not about caring about lives, trivially.
The right smears the left with similar accusations. Every time an illegal immigrants rapes/murders/etc. you'll see them accusing liberals of the same thing--not caring about children's lives, etc.
Part of that is caused by stupid conspiracy theories and scientific illiteracy, but partially because its pretty obvious the government does lie to use when they think its for our own good.
Though part of it is valuing individual liberty over a slight reduction in risk of death. They are more willing to value sending kids back to school even if it means some 80 years olds die a few years earlier.
Natural rights are a terribly shaky concept to begin with—hardly "real".
What matters is the mechanics of how we're in this situation. They're complicated and thankfully this decision doesn't mean an outright ban for all Americans. Providing access for the rest is what should be discussed, over shaking fists and platitudes.
Why do you think your nationality and gender are relevant to your opinion?
Does the decision at all call out the rights of the unborn child? If so why would it be left up to the states and not outright banned? Why are contraception and gay marriage called out as comprable rights?
Your plea is exactly reducible to: “thou shalt support the Right Thing, always”. It’s almost disturbingly naive.
And then, two years later, after we democratically figure those questions out, we can flip-flop on them, because we voted in a new legislature.
Don't worry, SCOTUS won't let that happen. There's a pretty good chance they'll intervene in the next presidential election (unless a republican house takes it out of their hands), but either way they'll simply overturn any new laws they don't like. They're not burdened by any need for internal consistency - they'll rule in favor of Texas's abortion-bounty laws and rule against California's anti gun bounty laws, for example. Doesn't matter the logic is the same either way, they're not bound to any internal consistency or past logic, it's all about the will-to-power.
This is actually a pretty noted characteristic of .... "alt-right" movements.
> “Never believe [they] are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. [They] have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
You? You have to make logically consistent legal arguments and follow the process, because you believe in the system. They believe in power. And they have power.
Dangerous times indeed, but here we are overturning Roe v Wade. And criminalizing contraception, overturning gay marriage, and criminalizing homosexuality is up next - Thomas specifically calls out Griswold, Obergefell, and Lawrence as being on the chopping block.
This is a small minority that just needs 51% of voter turnout in a particular state (or not even that in a heavily gerrymandered one), and they can control the lives of anyone living in or even traveling through an entire region of the US with apparently very little federal protection (and certainly no representation for the travelers)
This ruling is disastrous and shows the capriciousness of the current court in interpreting precedent to mean whatever is popular with their party. The 14th can amendment be limited but the second cannot, the first can mean infinite money in politics but the 5th does not mean Miranda warnings are required anymore.
Edit -[0] this link is not hypothetical, Thomas’s solo concurring opinion calls these cases out by name to be reconsidered by the court in light of this recent decision, and shows members of the court are absolutely interested in returning these to the realm of the states.
The real tragedy here is that it took 50 years for this egregiously bad ruling to be thrown out. And despite your fear mongering, today's decision went out of it's way to say that it is not meant to apply to any of those other issues that you mentioned.
The Supreme Court's job is to interpret the Constitution, not to invent rights.
Thomas's opinion pretty specifically cited some of those other cases. It wasn't joined by all the others who voted with him, but then again, Kavanaugh claimed that Roe v. Wade was "settled law" during his confirmation hearing, which clearly doesn't seem to be what he's saying now. I'm not surprised that this is his real view, and I won't be in a few years if suddenly he also votes against some of those other rulings.
There isn’t any actual legal teeth there anymore as far as I can tell. Countless examples of presidents, justices, etc walking past perjury charges.
Bodily autonomy is not a constitutional right, but self defense is?
> Even Ruth Bader Ginsberg was on record saying that the decision was flawed!
A misrepresentation of what RBG was getting at. She was very much of the opinion that legislatively it should have been codified as a right. She's right, but it's pie in the sky, as much as her desire to be replaced by a woman President.
> today's decision went out of it's way to say that it is not meant to apply to any of those other issues that you mentioned.
Thomas specifically called out those decisions as being up for review. Alito mentioned it in his leaked opinion. (it may have been bargained out of the opinion, or maybe he chose not to be explicit as to not raise pressure in the political sphere, which seems likely given the nature of this court) Four of the justices who voted against Roe today within the past decade are on the record as saying that this was settled law. They are liars, and people are right to mistrust the court.
> She was very much of the opinion that legislatively it should have been codified as a right.
These positions are not in conflict, and seem to be supported with quotes:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/05/06/ruth-bader...
I have my own personal feelings on abortion, but as far as laws on it go I honestly don't care one way or another. So if all of these Congresspeople want to come out and say that the majority of the country wants abortion to be legal nationwide, then they need to DO THEIR FUCKING JOBS and pass a law to make it so.
To get enough Senate votes to pass a constitutional amendment, you're looking at 75% of the country voting for Democrats. Not going to happen. The Senate imbalance is ridiculous.
A constitutional amendment ought to have support from more than one party, not just Democrats. You might be able to get that if you took a more oblique approach, for example with an amendment explicitly upholding the natural right to control over one's own body, as opposed to one narrowly focused on allowing abortion.
[0] Assuming fetuses had rights, of course, which is obviously absurd. That requires the capability for deliberate action and the ability and willingness to take responsibility for the effects of your actions on others. Without that you may be alive and biologically "human" but you're still more an animal than a person--at any age.
These are lines of arguments they already use. A constitutional right to bodily autonomy doesn't change the math at all.
The whole point of the amendment is to make it explicit that they don't. That isn't how rights work anyway; it's never a matter of priority, one right vs. another. Any positive action which would infringe on someone else's rights is forbidden, including in particular using someone else's property, including their body, without their consent. But merely not doing anything for them--non-action--is always an option. The fetus is the one taking from the mother--that's the action. The mother merely wants this to stop. There is no conflict of rights. The fetus's rights, such as they are, are not being infringed.
> even though the mother has a right to bodily autonomy she would be committing murder
This line of argumentation would prove far too much. Refusing to serve as someone else's life support system is not murder. And again, the point of the amendment would be to make that explicit.
This is exactly how rights work, how they're debated and how the supreme court rules. Like the constitution says you have freedom of speech, but you don't have an absolute right to freedom of speech. You cannot go on someone else's property and start yelling because they have the right to kick you off, violating your right to freedom of speech.
What you're trying to do is frame it in a way that makes sense to yourself, which is great, but is not how things are decided by the judiciary. Which is my entire point: It doesn't matter if you explicitly say bodily autonomy is sacred in a constitutional amendment because ultimately the supreme court is whom interprets that. The only way you could in theory do something like this would be to have an amendment that outright says abortion is legal, but that wouldn't pass for obvious reasons.
You really need to go and try to debate more pro-life individuals because these are all things I've encountered while debating them. The idea that this line of thinking is 'too much' when that's literally what's happening in places like my current state of Texas means you really need to experience what's actually going on.
No, that does not in any way violate your right to freedom of speech. You aren't being punished for the speech. It doesn't even matter whether you were speaking. You were violating their rights with respect to their property by trespassing, which is exactly why they can kick you out. As I said before—any action which infringes on another's rights is forbidden. That includes actions which involve speech, when they also infringe on others' rights. It's not a right to speak, it's simply recognition that speaking, per se, does not infringe on others' rights and consequently is not a just basis for punishment.
That's the natural right to freedom of speech. The 1st Amendment, of course, adds extra constraints against the government interfering with speech, which shouldn't even be necessary in the first place but that's what happens when you grant some privileged entity the power to "legitimately" infringe on people's rights with impunity–natural rights just aren't enough any more, you have to spell out when you're going to respect them and when you're going to ignore them. That's not something you have to worry about when you just do the right thing and respect natural rights all the time without making special exceptions.
> Which is my entire point: It doesn't matter if you explicitly say bodily autonomy is sacred in a constitutional amendment because ultimately the supreme court is whom interprets that.
If you assume from the start that the court will ignore the text of the law and the intent of those who ratified it and simply rule whichever way they want based on their personal feelings then I don't see any point in even having a Constitution. Or a legislature, for that matter. Or this discussion. So let's assume the court at least pretends to do its job and take the text and intent of the amendment into account. Anything less is just defeatism.
> The only way you could in theory do something like this would be to have an amendment that outright says abortion is legal, but that wouldn't pass for obvious reasons.
No, it doesn't need to mention abortion at all. An amendment stating that no person can be compelled to provide life-saving medical support to another against their will would have that effect without being specialized to just abortion. Sure, motivated individuals would try to argue their way around it, but there is no way to reconcile forcing a mother to continue a pregnancy with the mother not being compelled to serve as involuntary life support. Would the SCOTUS do their job and enforce it? Who knows. I don't have that much faith in them, to be honest. But if not, an amendment explicitly stating that abortion is a legal right wouldn't fare any better.
What's happening in Texas is equally absurd, of course. I fully expect it to get struck down eventually, if only because it involves interstate commerce and threatens the federal government's exclusive prerogatives, but it hasn't been in effect long enough yet to work through the system.
Of course she wouldn't have voted to overturn it, but I never said or meant to imply that she would have.
Actual that’s what all these cases were about. Roe v Wade- some states wanted to treat abortion as murder and control women’s bodily autonomy. Lawrence was about keeping sodomy laws which could be used to legally discriminate against gay people. Griselwald is clearly about social views on contraception.
> egregiously bad ruling to be thrown out. And despite your fear mongering, today's decision went out of it's way to say that it is not meant to apply to any of those other issues that you mentioned.
The main opinion did not rule this out, or if I did I absolutely missed it. Thomas’ solo concurring opinion calls these cases out by name as worthy of reconsideration by the court - “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”
It’s hard to take this argument seriously at all. It feels like you are not paying attention, saying everything is fine while the 14th amendment is on fire.
He went further than that, he explicitly called them out as "errors in need of correction".
To me (and six Supreme Court Justices) the Constitution says you have the right to keep (own) and bear (carry) arms (firearms) and because of this, laws that put an undue burden on this right are unconstitutional.
Nothing in the constitution says this is a problem.
Oh you read the whole judgement?
Perhaps you missed this nugget on page 118
> For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell.
Are you going to amend your comment now?
what thomas did is a little gauche, the court generally avoids opining on cases that aren't actually in front of them because the facts and specifics of the case matter, but, yeah, the votes are probably there, thomas just likes to say the quiet part out loud.
who do you think is going to vote against it? thomas, who has outright stated he's a yes? kavanaugh, who said roe was "settled law"? Barrett, the actual handmaiden cultist? Alito?
Simply going "Oh, there are more rights" isn't a good answer. I'm pro-choice myself, but Roe vs Wade was terrible legislation, and is a fantastic example of tactical victory, strategic defeat.
This.
All this controversy could end right now by simple having congress... pass a law.
That's what they are supposed (and paid) to do. Maybe if they spent less time trading stocks...
Really, why is the ninth amendment even there if it's supposed to be ignored?
The court explained in great detail why the right to abortion is not an unenumerated right.
What we actually saw was the end of stare decisis. Any excuse is good enough now. For almost three hundred years, the court only overruled itself in areas of overwhelming public consensus. Now? It's just politics, man.
I genuinely don't understand all the HN libertarians lining up on the site of Government Power here. This is absolutely a libertarian issue. Is it just knee-jerk tribalism? Have you guys all decided you don't really care so much about individual rights? Or is it just that you don't have a uterus and are disinclined to align yourself with those who do?
Abortion is murder, life in prison for violators, no exceptions.
There's nothing in the ruling that I'm aware of that would prevent Congress from passing a law on it. But I haven't read the whole ruling, and I'm certainly not an expert. So I'm open to being shown otherwise.
So did the ninth amendment, FWIW: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Appelate courts decide on what a "right" is. That's arguably their most important function. Huge, huge chunks of modern constitutional law are based on subjects not enumerated in the constitution. The constitution doesn't speak about miscegenation laws, or miranda rights, etc... Yet those are still "rights" that you'd be awfully horrified to have destroyed, right?
This argument doesn't really work, basically. The argument you're making is, if you really think about it, not what you actually want.
I have some bad news for you. SCOTUS blew that one up yesterday. <sad trombone>
And there is, as of yesterday, no remedy for violations of your right to remain silent. So, you better hope your lawyer can have anything you say suppressed before trial.
Explain this, please. You still have the right to remain silent, you still have the right to an attorney. The police still have to stop questioning you when you invoke these rights. Literally the only thing that changed was the notification requirement. That's it.
Basically, the Court removed any remedy against state actors who fail to uphold your right to remain silent.
Prior to Vega, if the state ignored your right to remain silent, you could seek redress with the courts.
Post Vega, that right to seek redress no longer exists.
On paper we still have the right. But, we have to no way to hold the state accountable when it fails to uphold that right. Is a right really a right if the state can ignore it with impunity?
You can still sue a cop who continues questioning you after you have invoked your right to remain silent. Literally nothing about that has changed. The one specific thing that has changed is that you can't sue a cop simply for failing to read you your rights.
That does not impact your right to remain silent, or any remedies available in case of violation of it, in any way.
And my response: I have some bad news for you. SCOTUS blew that one up yesterday.
There is no longer a right to be Mirandized. That's what I said.
Officer Vega locked Tekoh in a room and threaten him and his family in order to coerce a confession.
That confession was used in the trial.
Are you saying there is some other way to recover damages from Vega? At best, had Tekoh been found guilty, he was looking at years of appeals. He still wouldn't have been able to sue Vega under the current ruling.
As I said above, yes, you still have the right to remain silence. But you no longer have a way to seek redress against a LEO who ignores that right.
"Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Bodily autonomy is more complex than just womb to birth. So, at what age is a mother no longer required to use their body to provide life for a child? ie. If a 4 year old needs a blood transfusion, can the state force the mother to provide their blood for their child? What about a kidney transplant? When does the states interest in the potential life of a child end?
Bodily autonomy aside, since Rowe v. Wade was primarily a decision about medical privacy, and was part of the foundations of many other precedents and laws, is HIPA still valid? What is the new line between medical privacy rights and free speech rights.
.
And it got thrown out for precisely this reason. Although cocaine can be prescribed in very limited circumstances, my doctor cannot just write me a prescription for cocaine. That's a "medical privacy" issue too, right?
> is HIPA still valid?
Don't be absurd.
Second, I think you have a very deep misunderstanding of how all of this works. HIPAA is not in any danger whatsoever, and really has nothing to do with Roe.
You realize that this goes against the right of the federal government to regulate the states re abortion?
Historically, yes, they can. The BoR didn't initially restrict state action, only federal action.
"The right to abortion is not explicitly defined in the Constitution, and therefore does not exist."
"The right to _purchase_ firearms is not explicitly defined in the Constitution, but somehow must also exist, because how could you bear arms without it?"
The sad reality is that this shit is all just twisted to convenience.
Why did Thomas exclude interracial marriage as a state decision, while calling out same-sex marriage as being a state decision?
Why do several Supreme Court Justices state that they are originalists, and the Constitution is sacrosanct, when the people who wrote it said that it wasn't, and was to be "reviewed and updated to the needs of the times as a living document"?
Roe was a "creative" interpretation. Upholding the 2nd Amendment is far from that.
But not "interpret in lieu of meaningful review". Look at 4A. It's gone to SCOTUS a huge number of times. But no review has ever taken place of it.
Your assertion is oblivious to the modern sensibilities of "Law and Order." Gay men will be arrested on "reasonable suspicion" of having had gay sex. And even when the suspicion is not found to be reasonable, there will be zero ramifications for the arresting officers.
"reasonable" in this case meaning "visiting the home of another gay man", let alone "living with one".
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing
2. https://www.history.com/news/stonewall-riots-lgbtq-drag-thre...
Earlier this month in Egbert v Boule, the Supreme Court said you have no right to sue a federal employee or the agency for which they they work over violations of your 4th amendment rights, as long as the agency has a complaint procedure (operated by that same agency). Yesterday in Vega v. Tekoh they decided that you don't have a cause of action against a police officer who doesn't read you your rights (although such testimony remains inadmissible).
In the months and years to co come, ultra-conservatives aim to eliminate birth control and install an overbearing theocratic government. They are not shy about saying so, nor are they a marginal fringe lacking influence. There was already one serious (albeit poorly executed) effort to interfere with the constitutional transfer of power. Conventional politics are very much over in the US.
I think that would affect a lot of people.. they might be shy to speak out, but if suddenly it's not available they might vote.
[1]: https://www.vox.com/2014/7/14/5891765/millennials-incoherent...
[2]: https://www.vox.com/2014/7/8/5878293/lets-stop-using-the-wor...
Guess other researchers think differently. Vox isn't extremely left.
And surprise surprise, this was founded by an ex-GOP consultant. There’s no need to consume fascist propaganda as part of a balanced media diet. Most of the outlets on the far right don’t qualify as news, and CNN isn’t hard left no matter how much it makes Republicans shriek.
This is like a food chart and on the left we see fruits and veggies and on the right we see various animals droppings.
Try joining a conservative discussion board and you’ll notice that they call Democrats Fascists/Totalitarian!
US democracy, at least from an European POV, is completely and fundamentally broken, to the point that it will need a civil war to reset it to at least somewhat sane levels:
- The GOP as a party is so far gone off the rails, so many actual Conservatives have left that there is barely any intra-party resistance left to the Tea Party, Trump and QAnon ideologues.
- A large enough part of the GOP voter base is similarly radicalized after decades of brainwashing. Seriously, the kind of stuff that Fox "News" airs daily is scary. They will keep preventing reasonable politicians to challenge people like MTG.
- The Democrat Party, which is center-right in its actual political doings from an European POV, has other issues: gerontocratic people like Feinstein or Biden who have long ago lost touch with the 99%, corruption, incompetence, and most importantly the lack of backbone. There have been many chances to codify access to abortions, everyone knew how thin the ice was, and the Democrats let many chances pass to permanently close that risk - only because they were scared of losing one of their major selling points.
- Wealth disparity. The US is just plain shocking - you have people like Musk and Bezos worth hundreds of billions of dollars, money they can't ever truly spend even if they have a dozen children... and at the same time people die because they have to stretch out their expensive insulin or can't afford an epi-pen. Or they freeze to death because even while employed they cannot afford a home.
- Climate change, assuming that the US will be able / willing to do anything past November, will need an awful lot of investments to handle. The Republicans won't grant any money (either because of "financial stability" or because "electric cars are for woke softies"), and the young people see the clock ticking. Some of them will radicalize, up to and including terrorism - why else were there snipers on the Supreme Court?
Add on top of that the aftermath of covid - which still isn't over! - and the costs of the Ukraine war... and there's a perfect storm scenario of enormously destructive potential.
Si vis pacem para bellum, and there will be war. I honestly am unable to think of a scenario that will prevent a collapse of at least the US democracy, if not the rest of the world with it (because let's face it, the US picked up the tab to ensure the freedom of democracies while us Europeans stood aside). The only thing capable of stopping the spiral towards death is if the Democrats win a solid majority in November... but that is completely unrealistic.
> US picked up the tab to ensure the freedom of democracies while us Europeans stood aside
Cite! The US does anything it wants to keep corporate power corporate. We topple lots of democracies. US is squarely imperialist.
See my comment about Smedley Butler from earlier, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31469671
Sure, the US was somewhat imperialist a century ago, but that's long gone.
I used to be a pro-American when I was a child blinded by US propaganda and television. Americans are heroes are what I always thought.!
Then the Iraq, Afghanistan wars, the coups in Libya and the Syrian War - encouraged via Obama's so-called 'moderate rapist rebels' completely changed my mind. What CNN said was completely different from what my Libyan and Syrian colleagues said. So Much Lying. It was around that time I did extensive reading of American history and realised I was a moron.
It is difficult combining low population areas with high population areas when they got completely different culture, wealth, and natural resources. Mistrust, suspicions, polarization, alienation and otherism abound.
The trend is however not impossible to break, and there is scientific understanding of those forces if people were willing to take them in. A key finding is to not shove culture symbols into peoples face, a proposition that scarce few want to agree in the name of cooperation. When people feel that their culture is threatened the natural repose seems to be the opposite and display as much of cultural symbols as possible.
Oh I do. And I know the reason behind that headline - the fact is we absolutely need gas infrastructure to allow diversifying from Russia in the short term while preventing dozens of millions of people from freezing in winter or to allow gas peaker plants to assist solar and wind so we can shut down coal and the decades-old nuclear clunkers.
I do wonder if those trends actually deliver more turnout or less. I suspect less actually, as non-results are actually pretty demotivating in altering behavior.
I’m not a historian but hopefully someone here is, and is able to make an educated guess of what the actual trends are.
Russia didn’t really regress, did it? It experimented with 8 years of democracy after a thousand years of authoritarianism and went back to its comfort zone. Poland and Hungary as part of that soviet bloc once is affected by those old soviet ghosts still driving some of the culture. The US doesn’t have that long authoritarian past and is still pretty rebellious
India…well it’s an enigma anyway with such ancient traditions and culture, it’s going to be an outlier anyway.
My fear is with the recent increase in wealth inequality democracy in America may no longer be the stable phase
I hope our discrimination problems fall more along class lines, because that's much easier to solve by implementing economic policies to reduce economic inequalities. Government programs won't change people's races (well, non-terrifying government programs, at least), but policies can change people's economic class.
It's also entirely possible that different areas of the country have different mixes of classism and racism. My wife is of a different race, and our son is mixed race, and my wife and I both went to top-tier schools, so my social group is almost certainly less racist and more classist than the US median. It's very difficult and dangerous to extrapolate my lived truth to the whole nation.
Every class tranche uses fashion to differentiate themselves from the tranche just below, while imitating the tranches above. The upper class used to wear fancy clothes to differentiate themselves from the middle class; the middle class started wearing the clothes of the upper class to try and join them; boom, ghetto chic becomes popular among ivy-leaguers. (They don't have to worry about being mistaken for actual lower-class people; the cultural differences are big enough that that isn't a concern).
This helps maintain in-group selection with all the wonderful effects it has.
Sadly, in the US, we have a terrible system where schools are locally funded, and poor people get poor schools. Under this system, socioeconomic class self-perpetuates.
I think you've just described racism.
My point is that the resulting behaviors and discrimination can still be racist, even if they don't have their ultimate roots in racism itself.
From your link:
> also : behavior or attitudes that reflect and foster this belief : racial discrimination or prejudice
> : the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another
Edit: Anyway, I do recognize that the distinction you're pointing out does have implications for the best way to address the problems.
But then again, I’m not a historian. So this is just some guys on the internet’s interpretation.
But that’s not what I’m interested in though. False analogs and convenient distinctions are easy to come by. What I’m looking for is a historical trend of voting behavior during a democratic regression.
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2019/5/15/1857976/--The-Only-...
Same for same sex marriage, there is just not enough moderate political people against it. Repealing it won’t have the legs.
Pro life support spanned the political spectrum, I think you can even fairly argue that despite her rhetoric to the contrary, Speaker Pelosi’s deliberate inaction may have been due to her faith and passive action against something she wanted to publicly appear to be “for” for wholly political reasons.
And yet, here we are.
https://www.christianpost.com/news/less-than-half-of-us-evan...
The same political party then proceeded to rely on a court case about a physician’s privacy to practice medicine as a substitute for women’s body rights instead of creating legislation that could have at least guaranteed access to abortion in the first trimester, which would have received enough bi-partisan support to make Roe v. Wade a non-issue and relied on the 10th amendment and states to expand abortion access beyond the minimum guarantee.
But instead, they did nothing but talk, and here we are…
Huge asterisk on this. Can you point to any moment when doing what you suggest would have been politicially viable? Especially considering the fervor with which GOP are racing to pass bans that don’t include exceptions for rape and incest.
Say what you will about Roe but auto until Thursday it did strike a balance that worked for a vast majority of the country (60%). There were limits, there were restrictions. Why do you presume there were none?
Yeah, you hear consternation about the availability of late term abortions, but if you explain those happen in fewer than 1% of cases and often are medically necessary this concern often is ameliorated.
But now that’s all been blown up. Now there will be two Americas: safe haven America where women are free, and Gilead where women are forced to give birth to their rapists babies.
At multiple points in the last 50 years we have been in a place where our executive branch and congress has been controlled by the Democratic Party, and after presidential elections that were pretty solidly decided. At those points federal legislation could have been introduced that if crafted in a bi-partisan way—limited to first trimester, avoiding tax payer funding, limits on fetal tissue use, etc… the Democrats could have passed legislation with some basic bi-partisan support that could have provided access to abortion at a minimal level federally that would account for about 90% of the performed abortions out there. However, because the democrats either chose to die on that remaining 10% hill, or intentionally didn’t fight at all they lost the whole battle. People seem to believe that they were fighting all this time, in reality, they enabled yesterday to happen. I would argue, intentionally, because the only other explanation is that for 50 years the Democratic Party has been incompetent.
Roe never really struck a balance of anything, it was always weak and was always going to fall. It managed to simply pause the illegality question for a time, during which our congress could have and should have acted to affirm the rights.
Even RBG felt it was the wrong case for abortion rights because it didn’t focus on women’s rights, but rather physician privacy. If the most arguably liberal justice in the last 50 years is warning you that Roe is bad and going to fall, you might want to believe them.
> Now there will be two Americas: safe haven America where women are free, and Gilead where women are forced to give birth to their rapists babies.
Actually there will be 50 Americas—-which is really no different today than it was yesterday.
Hard to fault Democrats in the 105th for what Republicans wouldn’t do.
That leaves one congress in 50 years’ time with even a shot. Could they have done it, maybe, but we saw how even when Democrats bent over backwards to accommodate Republican ideas into the ACA (inviting and incorporating over 100 amendments, basing it off of a heritage foundation plan implemented by Republican Mitt Romney in MA), they still got 0 Republican support.
Do you think a partisan abortion law would have solved anything? Do you think that wouldn’t have been appealed immediately after the 115th Congress? They failed to repeal the ACA by 1 vote. I can’t imagine how they could have failed repealing an abortion law.
And btw, impeaching Trump in 2021 for orchestrating an insurrection and coup was absolutely necessary. Unfortunately Republicans refused to convict, because as we now know, many of them were complicit in the coup and sought pardons for their roles (read: crimes). Had they convicted him, he would have been barred from holding future office and a huge problem would have been solved for the country. It was worth a shot. Unfortunately, now a man who sought to overthrow the US government is running for President again, and might win.
even when Democrats bent over backwards to accommodate Republican ideas into the ACA
That's what I mean, the Democrats keep trying to appeal to the middle by saying 'look how bipartisan we are' and getting kicked int he gut. As a party, they want to appeal to the moral authority of a teacher or moderate voters' consciences, and so they continually aspire to good stewardship. The reality is that while that does appeal to some, American people in general don't respect weakness and reflexively distance themselves from losers. Culturally speaking, winning is more important than being right to many Americans, and even people who believe it ought to be otherwise have to balance their idealism with the logic of survival.
The GOP has been shifting toward a win-at-all-costs mentality since 1994 when Gingrich took Congress (after a long, long period of Democratic dominance) with the 'contract with America.' Despite many of these 'contractual' provisions not being serious (eg the commitment to balanced budgets has only ever been a talking/negotiating point for the GOP, when holding power they max out on debt), they provided a unifying agenda for conservatives whose object is power for its own sake, and such conservatives now dominate the GOP.
Democrats worry that whenever they drift too far 'left' the GOP will attack them mercilessly, and so they tend to huddle in the middle, where the GOP attack them mercilessly anyway. Centrist Democrats literally lose seats and console themselves that if they had put up more of a fight their margin of defeat would have been even more painful.
> Do you think a partisan abortion law would have solved anything?
I never said “partisan”, I said bi-partisan and yes I do. Polling within the electorate showed support across parties for first trimester access.
In any event, you seem to have missed the point of my post, which was that we can't assume that things like contraception, gay marriage, and interracial marriage are safe from being overturned just because a plurality support them. You said banning contraception is a "scratch issue" with evangelicals, and I'm pointing out, so is banning abortion, and yet, here we are.
Yes, I am definitely blaming them. Judge Ginsburg warned them, told them it was not going to survive certain challenges. The dems did nothing. If the smartest legal mind on your side (and she was not the only one BTW) is warning you that something you hold claim to hold sacred is in danger and you choose to do nothing to protect it, that is a dumb shit move. However, I’d argue that it may have been intentional—that to the democratic leadership abortion rights were not sacred, but only valuable to them for the political division it caused.
>You said banning contraception is a "scratch issue" with evangelicals
Contraception is simply different. There isn’t the “innocent third party without a voice” factor there that will motivate the activism and financial investment in that activism the same way. Same sex marriage is kind of the same, there is no third party component to it to protect.
I'm sure it's satisfying but I don't think it adds a lot to the conversation. Maybe the Ds don't play hard enough (blocking nominees, lying under oath, etc) but you shouldn't have to cheat to protect a popular long-standing precedent.
> Contraception [and same sex marriage] is simply different.
The belief that there's an "innocent third party" involved in abortion is a religious belief; I don't see why the court would enforce that but not other religious beliefs, like women submitting to their husbands and so forth. Your stance that D's were dupes for believing R's about Roe v Wade would appear to suggest that we shouldn't believe you about this either.
The theocrats on the court are young, they probably have 30+ years ahead of them, and the only sensible prediction is to assume that anything disliked by Fundamentalist Christians is in danger. That means not just contraception and gay marriage, but Obamacare, social security, trans rights, owning sex toys, gay adoption, domestic violence laws, spousal protective orders, womens' rights generally, Miranda and anything else predicated on Due Process, any gun restriction, and I'm not feeling super confident about the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, or interracial marriage.
Surely your "what a bunch of dumbshits, why didn't they see this coming" applies to those too?
That is mostly false. If a pregnant mother get harmed to the degree that it harms the unborn or kills it, the legal system (and "popular opinion" in my view) see it as being more than just harming the mother. In feticide, there is an third party involved. The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 is very explicit about that and it also gives an explicit exception for abortions.
If we view child in utero as similar to a cancer growth off the womans body then feticide does not exist. There would be physical assault, but not homicide, because no Homo sapiens would be killed. That view point conflict with how a lot of people feel in those situations.
Edit: also, if you're going to wade in to an ongoing discussion, it's nice to respond to the thing we're generally arguing about; don't just pluck one sentence fragment out and start a new discussion over it. When someone says, "I think X, therefore Y", they're arguing that X is true enough in this context to support a belief in Y, not that X is always true in all contexts, which is a much larger (and therefore, easier to argue against) claim.
My guess is that for popular belief, if a unborn dies because of violence to the woman then people emotionally see it as murder of an other human being. If the woman choose to abort then for social reason many/most people do not view it as a human being that died. This is however a conflict of views which has nothing to do with religion.
With contraception, even if it was done through force, no one outside of religious belief would see it as killing a human. How would even The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 be applied? Should each sperm count as a half human?
Similar with same-sex there isn't any direct situations where non-religious people suddenly would be in favor of outlawing it.
As for the exception written in the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004, what is say is that the legality of abortion is not effected by the definition of the that law. Nothing more, nothing less. We can have laws allowing abortion for social reasons regardless if we view the bunch of cells as being more than just a bunch of cells.
I think you missed my point on this, i was speaking in terms of things that drive they activist attitudes, not any specific legal distinction.
as belorn said in their comment to you, in certain legal cases we consider the unborn child as a person. You don’t have this sort of strange legal dichotomy with a innocent third party with contraception or gay marriage
edit to add: and most of the bible verses they quote to support that view also condemn divorce and sex outside of wedlock, so forgive us for not knowing what is and isn't in danger. You make a persuasive argument that we should be more concerned than we think we should.
Sure, but taking a position to prevent something from becoming legally recognized requires far less effort and commitment than taking something presently legal and making it illegal. Abortion was an outlier because there was a tangible victim to rally around in the pro-life activist’s eyes.
There simply isn’t a tangible victim they can point to for gay marriage and contraception. Those issues center around behavior they might regard as sinful, but in their eyes the sinner is the only one to suffer.
People may not approve…but will they care enough to work against them? I don’t think so. I know a lot of folks who are loudly pro-life, but I can only think of perhaps one that might actively work against gay marriage, and none that would have a strong opinion at all regarding contraception
As for the "victim," the most effective way we know of to reduce the number of abortions is giving young people easy access to contraception, and AFAICT very few pro-lifers are in favor of that. I think it's a mistake to think this is only or even primarily about the fetus.
I didn’t dispute that. I said specifically that it’s easier to work against something that is currently not legal becoming legal.
> It certainly seems to have died down since then
Because…it’s now legal.
> is giving young people easy access to contraception, and AFAICT very few pro-lifers are in favor of that
They may not be in favor of it, but it’s legal for young people to use contraceptives, and has been for a long time and there is no where near the passion against it as there was for abortion. However, when you say “easy access” do you mean “free and government supplied”? That is wholly a different argument that has a more “taxpayer support of discretionary human behavior” driver against it.
I don't think you've internalized the thing that started this conversation. This is not a victory for the pro-life movement! The pro-life movement has never been less popular, even among evangelicals. In the battle to convince Americans of their cause, they have lost by any measure.
Roe was overturned not by "passion" but by a handful of ethically flexible judges. If they can do that with one unpopular thing, they can do it with a second and a third.
> However, when you say “easy access” do you mean “free and government supplied”?
Yes, but not as an ideological matter, just because that's the most straightforward way to implement policies. In general, "I support policy X" means "I want tax money to be spent on X". That's how governments do things, by spending money.
If you don't want to be involved I'm sure we can fund it privately, it's not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. But it's not clear why would you be against spending tax money to prevent abortions, but okay with spending money to jail the women who've had them. If this were actually about preventing abortions and not punishing sin, it wouldn't matter.
You are applying utilitarian considerations of outcomes to religious dogmatists. Such consider sexual immorality (as defined by them) to be a corrupting influence on everyone peripherally connected to it, and an affront to God.
Hence the current moral panic of denouncing all LGBT people as 'groomers' and insinuating or openly accusing people who disagree as pedophiles, which is considered sufficient reason to kill in some peoples' eyes. Now while this moral panic is by no means universal among religious Christians, if you're not aware of it then you just aren't paying attention.
I find it kind of strange that you are conflating marriage equality and concerns over sexualizing young children together. I don’t see people using this sexualization of children as an argument against gay marriage, I see it pretty hyper-focused on the sexualization of young children.
I am wondering why you are tying them together if the folks doing it don’t seem to be.
Among religious persons and societies, doctrinal considerations outweigh all others. If you are under the impression that the abortion issue is different because large numbers of non-religious folk are sufficiently motivated by the ethical issue to engage in activism and donate funding, I think you're quite mistaken.
Birth control might be a big deal to some devout Catholics and some primitive/fundamentalist Baptists, but virtually every other denomination and congregation is literally not going to care.
Since you were kind enough to provide references to your other statements of fact, would you mind doing the same for this one? Because I've been seeing that exact sentiment repeated ad nauseum for a long while now and yet every attempt I've made to figure out where it came from, so far, has been from the claimant imputing intent upon a nebulous Other, with all such claims assuming the most malicious version of a strawman possible... and we all know that's against the rules, here. The sole argument I've seen sourced, in this specific case, hinges upon a very uneducated misinterpretation of a (relatively unimportant) concurrent opinion by Justice Thomas in which the hyperbolic clearly don't understand the concepts of "substantive due process" and are mixing it up with something else entirely.
Time will tell who will be left standing, the theocrats or the reactionaries.
There are many exposés, books, articles, etc. Here are two of the more recent:
What measure of proof do you require?
Democracy in Chains' primary source are a cache of documents from economist James Buchanan's think tank, architects of the reactionary movement's strategy. By their own words and actions, they intend to end democracy and protect the rich. Disagree with the author's analysis, fine. But the thesis is not circumstantial, inferred, or speculated.
Whereas Dark Money is a standard whodunnit. Investigative journalism, following the money, ferret out the criminal conspiracy. If you have a different interpretation of the evidence, please share.
Your argument is foolish.
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/sta...
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/6/4/1411/pdf#:~:text=Abstract....
very uneducated misinterpretation of a (relatively unimportant) concurrent opinion by Justice Thomas in which the hyperbolic clearly don't understand
Dude, when you're trying to shoehorn 5 dismissals into one sentence it's not conducive to discussion.
I would recommend looking up American history, in the 70s, 50s, 20s, 1800s etc. Today is a milder form of the political polarization that is endemic to America, and ironically America’s strength.
If there was a betting market on a theocracy, I would bet the house in the opposite direction, but frankly so would everyone.
Relax and enjoy the weekend, America is going to remain America for a long, long time.
Not a great look for the US by any means, but the whole chapter is a joke compared to past election turmoil, especially during reconstruction era post Civil War. In those years, you often had large armed militias battling it out with occupying federal troops over which election results.
In states where there is a majority for abortion, abortition is legalised by law, not by court, i.e. the way it should be. It is in states where there is no majority for abortion that it is not. How is it not democratic?
For things to be done at the federal level, it needs a broad consensus across the country, not a 51% majority where the 49% is dead against. The EU has similar safeguards where you need effectively 3 keys to enable a law (European parliament, European commission, and the Council), not a simple 51% majority. Nothing prevents you from legislatating at a state level, but if you want to impose your views on other states, it needs to be a broad consensus. What you seem to complain about is that voters in California cannot impose their social view on the inhabitants of Utah.
What nonsense. This is not about state's rights.
Just yesterday the Court decided that no, California doesn't have the right to restrict guns. That's the inhabitants of Utah imposing their social view on the acceptability of guns on the residents of California.
It's about states rights when it comes to things you don't support, like abortion, and it's about the constitution and the rights it gives everyone, when it comes to things that you support, like the right for every nutjob to kill children with AR-15s.
There is no logical reasoning behind these decisions aside from a vindictive, right-wing court, imposing its social will onto the entire country.
>The Second Amendment is naturally divided into two parts: its prefatory clause (A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State) and its operative clause (the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed).
Edit: to pull context from another comment here.
"The 'militia' was the entire adult male citizenry, who were not simply allowed to keep their own arms, but affirmatively required to do so.… With slight variations, the different colonies imposed a duty to keep arms and to muster occasionally for drill upon virtually every able-bodied white man between the age of majority and a designated cut-off age. Moreover, the duty to keep arms applied to every household, not just to those containing persons subject to militia service. Thus the over-aged and seamen, who were exempt from militia service, were required to keep arms for law enforcement and for the defense of their homes."
This issue is that the States became lazy once the Feds got their standing military. All States should require citizens to muster for arms and disaster training at least twice a year.
Here's the first Google result for your entertainment:
You Can Purchase a Fully Functional Army Tank Online Because This Is America
https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/09/armslist-sells-f...
I'm aware and my point was explicitly about being able to drive them around wherever I like, under the guise of it being the rough equivalent of concealed carry for an MLRS.
You can't; there's restrictions. At the minimum, it's likely that people would argue they're heavy and would harm infrastructure (or outright destroy it in the case of some tanks).
Separately, explosives are also tightly controlled, but are still a key part of armaments.
The government owns the roads, ergo can sidestep a lot of the what might otherwise be mandated under strict scrutiny for their usage with rational basis tests. E.g., "the roads are rated for <x> class of vehicles, and a tank is <y> class."
But you're wrong, while I couldn't drive my tank around, I could certainly load it onto a tractor trailor and show it off around town. I would argue that's functionally the same thing.
A multi rocket system, is not a gun. It's ordnance. So this argument is weak and I don't need to extend into that except for.... ALSO LEGAL. Again, you are going to need to follow the rules of the NFA, and ATF's explosives requirements. The larger issue will be to get Lockhead Martin to sell you one! Which they will not. But you come up with the cash for 1000 of them, and I bet they do.
Explosives are regulated because they have no defensive purpose. I mean, they do, but it's tough to use them defensively and accurately. If you cite Heller vs DC, they are dangerous AND unusual, key point to use "AND" there.
Arms do actually mean arms. Arms meant cannons too. But bombs were never really arms.
The line in this case is drawn rather inconsistently by the federal government agencies, and more fairly but even increasingly restrictive by congress.
Any other questions?
Legally, how is:
> You can purchase a tank but not operate it anywhere off your own property.
functionally different than:
> You can purchase a handgun but may not carry it concealed on your person off your own property.
Emphasis on Legally. In both cases these are allowed weapons for people to own, which, while not exact parallels (Tanks can cause infrastructure damage and such) at their core seem very similar from a legal perspective, especially because of the NFA requirement for tanks. That latter is important to consider because the NFA largely deals with guns of varying sorts in its rules.
Also context: I'm an ignorant Canuck who occasionally lives stateside.
There is no NFA requirement for the tank itself. Only for the cannon, and the ammunition if it has an explosive payload. The tank is just a vehicle. If you can make it street legal, you are free to drive it anywhere you like.
The more interesting thing you bring up inadvertently is "on your own property". If that's the case, I should be able to own all the machine guns I like without NFA stamps on my own property right?
The NFA is an unconstitutional law that sought to put a tax on rights. Then extra double unconstitutional when in 1986 they said "Oh, we longer accept the tax for certain still legal things". We specifically deny behavior that elsewhere, like voting. All handguns were supposed to be included, and all rifles with barrels shorter than 18". 18" stuck for shotguns, but rifles were moved to 16" for silly reason I can't recall exactly. Pistols got dropped because even in 1934 the public reaction wasn't going to fly.
It doesn't matter though. The point of all of this is 2A is an individual right, enumerated, and verified with previous and recent court decisions. Abortion is not, so people using the BUT STATES RIGHTS comments about the NYRPA decision vs Roe overturn are being completely ignorant of the realities here.
It's very silly to compare them.
Since you seem to know a lot about "arms," is a sword an "arm?"
> functionally different than:
I believe you can take your tank off your property, assuming you went to the DMV and got license plates and a VIN number for it.
Knives and swords are arms, yes. This was most recently seen in states that tried to ban switchblades outright. Switchblades are pretty poor fighting knives, but have the same public reaction fueled by media as pitbulls.
I talked with a lobbyist responsible for the switchblade deregulation in my state. After her research it came to "What makes a weapon will always be up to the judge, but the easy test is can you swing it?". Which is fair I think. That said... I also trained with my state's swat unit for a class and they talked about their justification for getting their gun out according to dept policy being "Any time a weapon is involved", which can mean gun, knife, sword, folding chair, sharp pencil or really big box of hot dogs depending on intent.
You're right about the tank. So long as you have the right markers, mirrors, vision, licensing, etc. You're good to go. Although you won't enjoy it as a daily driver after the initial buzz wears off.
Unclear on explosives.
As far as "arms," the line is drawn at being able to be operated by a single person. So it would appear unconstitutional to prohibit keeping and bearing cannons and tactical nukes, though Congress can prohibit sale and interstate transfer.
"As the quotations earlier in this opinion demonstrate, the inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right. The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of “arms” that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose.
The prohibition extends, moreover, to the home, where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights, banning from the home “the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,”, would fail constitutional muster."
If people had commonly used cannons to protect their homes, maybe tanks would be protected under the 2nd Amendment by their logic.
IIRC, you need private gun ownership to have a militia (as the founders understood them). I believe the idea was regular citizens would organize when needed and bring their own guns.
Lots of ways to wring hands about a very badly written amendment.
You can argue that the previous decision was wrong all you want (I personally think it was), but you can't allow the states to just ignore the supreme court and do whatever they want or all constitutional protections are meaningless.
I mean it obviously can, as the law at issue in Dobbs did that, and it was allowed.
tl;dr we have a really dogshit system that essentially puts 9 people in charge of everything
It's not a stretch. They are literally "on a whim law makers." They decide what issues they want to take up and change the way they interpret the constitution depending on how they want to rule on an issue. In theory, they could be held in check by congress, but in practice that is impossible. Especially since the justice's are political weapons of congress. There's a reason the supreme court nominations have been huge campaign points for the last few elections. They have basically unchecked power.
> The constitution still somehow works in the U.S, and supreme judges doing a great job at keeping it honored.
We'll just have to agree to disagree. They choose how they want to interpret it depending on how they want to rule. There's no consistency and it's frankly a disgrace. Has been for a while too, this isn't something new to this current court.
It's effectively saying 'the existence of state laws that attempt to restrict a right, even ones which have been rule unconstitutional, is itself evidence that it's okay for states to impose restrictions on constitutional rights.'
Which seems like a very odd argument to make the day after striking down a 100 year old NY State law restricting gun carry rights on the basis that there's no evidence of a long tradition of such restrictions being passed by states.
I'm always surprised by how few people realize that the SCOTUS doesn't make laws for states. I'm also surprised at how deeply convinced the notion of "the federal government and SCOTUS supersede state laws" is ingrained into our culture.
The SCOTUS only provides opinions and jurisprudence on matters. They don't "make laws" and can't command anything with any sort of enforceable power. Abortion could have been abolished yesterday, last month or even last decade if any state wanted it to.
Any state level Supreme Court can run contrary to the judgements of the SCOTUS without having to fear enforceable retribution. We've seen this recently with the case of interstate "travel bans" during COVID, "Sanctuary Cities" during Trump's first couple months of presidency and the spotty legalization of marijuana in certain states.
Yet what we recently learned is what the supreme court decides is of little consequence. It's just the temporary whim of whatever political party happens to be in power. In 10, 20 or whatever years it takes to get a liberal court back, then roe v wade comes back and the court reinterprets a "well regulated militia" to mean, ah, a "well regulated militia".
First of all, what do you think a militia even is? It is a group of CITIZENS that form an ad-hoc fighting force.
Secondly, the amendment says "the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms".
It doesn't say "the right of the military". It doesn't say "the right of the militia". And it doesn't say "the right of peace officers."
When the Declaration of Independence was drafted, "We the People" did not mean "military".
Thirdly, the Bill of Rights explicitly grants rights to people, NOT the government and NOT the military. Yet somehow, conveniently, that is different for the 2A?
You might not like the 2A, but the meaning is clear and supported by history. This "well-regulated militia" nonsense is the climate-change-denial of the 2A.
If the supreme court cannot respect precedent or at least provide a very good reason why precedent should be overruled, then what we have is a country ruled by a set of god kings with zero accountability. When faith in the system crumbles as a result of extreme partisan decision making, what you get is balkanization.
Pages 47 through 74 of the court's decision, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf, provide their reasons for why precedent should be overruled.
"The 'militia' was the entire adult male citizenry, who were not simply allowed to keep their own arms, but affirmatively required to do so.… With slight variations, the different colonies imposed a duty to keep arms and to muster occasionally for drill upon virtually every able-bodied white man between the age of majority and a designated cut-off age. Moreover, the duty to keep arms applied to every household, not just to those containing persons subject to militia service. Thus the over-aged and seamen, who were exempt from militia service, were required to keep arms for law enforcement and for the defense of their homes."
This issue is that the States became lazy once the Feds got their standing military. All States should require citizens to muster for arms and disaster training at least twice a year.
Or how about, since we banded together in order to create a more perfect union, and so that I, as a citizen, can focus my time on pursuing happiness, rather than mustering every six months, we agree, through our democratically elected representatives, to just pay some money into a kitty and out of that fund a professional police force, fire department, and a state national guard. That way we get sufficient people trained in the use of arms to secure our liberty, and we don't have to act like we're a bunch of 18th century farmers any more.
Also, we've seen all the institutions you mention collapse in the face of disaster. It would be far better for the citizens to be responsible for themselves in a collation with larger bodies than be dependent upon those larger organizations. For example, in Florida it makes sense to have the community trained on preparation and local response. People need to know what to materials to gather and what is already stockpiled locally. In the face of a hurricane, the community guard, i.e. the people, would be responsible for triaging the situation until reinforcements arrive. As it stands, the people huddle together en-mass hoping that the Federal government, or even the State will come to their rescue.
But ignores Heller 2008 and McDonald 2010 which both, for a long time, have ruled that this word argument is complete nonsense. That regardless of what you want to believe, 2A is an individual right.
Heller v DC - It's an individual right to own a firearm. You can't ban handguns or anything else just because you say so.
McDonald v Chicago - You can't just not issue permits to carry. 2A includes the right to carry outside the home.
NYPRA v Bruen - You can't say you MIGHT issue a permit, you will if they meet the legal requirements established by your state.
Please stop with the intellectually void argument that 2A is how you see it because you think the first few words invalidate "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".
It's weak, and more importantly, it's over. It has been nail in the coffin settled for 12 years now.
The court's analysis that 'keep and bear arms' implies an individual right to carry a handgun (or a weapon 'in common use') for self defense purposes is exactly the kind of drawing of 'legislative-style' boundaries that the court railed against in today's ruling overturning Roe and Casey.
Can you point to a scotus case that has clarified or determined the text of the abortion amendment?
Basically, if the court had been told (i.e. someone had actually been present to argue, which your attorney won't do if you disappear and stuff) that an NFA weapon was of the kind used by the militia/military it should've come out differently. The court said:
"The Court cannot take judicial notice that a shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches long has today any reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, and therefore cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees to the citizen the right to keep and bear such a weapon."
Judicial notice is messy but given it was a criminal case, with a right to argue about everything that might be used to convict, a competent lawyer - hell, even an incompetent lawyer - should have challenged everything, and by that time "trench guns" from WW1 would have certainly, easily been identifiable as the kind of weapon suitable for militia use.
So whatever it is you are talking about does not apply like it does to CA, NY, NJ, HI, MD, and others being MAY ISSUE states.
In TN now, you need no permission to concealed carry, so unless prohibited by other laws or statutes anyone is free to do so, regardless of religion or what the local police think your rights should be.
In a plain reading, it makes sense in context for this to mean "well trained". It would be rather odd for it to both say, in a supporting clause, that it's subject to arbitrary Government control, and also in the main clause that the right "shall not be infringed".
Who has the right to food? A well balanced breakfast or the people?
The constitution is short and vague on many things. People read between the lines. That's just as true of abortion as it if of gun rights.
If you read the constitutions as written, there is no right for individuals to have guns. It's very clear, this is for organized militias. If you read the constitution as written most of what the federal government does today isn't allowed, it's all mostly approved by an incredibly wide reading of the commerce clause.
The Court is picking and choosing rights. They force Maine to give priority to their religion, they force California/NY/MA to give priority to their gun rights, they force everyone to abandon reproductive rights. That's a choice in how to interpret a very vague document.
>The Second Amendment is naturally divided into two parts: its prefatory clause (A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State) and its operative clause (the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed).
"Many historians agree that the primary reason for passing the Second Amendment was to prevent the need for the United States to have a professional standing army. At the time it was passed, it seems it was not intended to grant a right for private individuals to keep weapons for self-defense."
So no. Your quote is not what the 2nd amendment means at all! It is a modern twist reinterpreting it.
They force Maine to not discriminate against religious schools. Maine can choose to not pay private schools at all or Maine can choose to pay all private schools.
Maine is not allowed to say that the local Catholic school is bad but a non religious local school is good. That is, in effect government choosing that religion is bad.
> they force California/NY/MA to give priority to their gun rights They force CA/NY/MA to follow the guidelines the court has set around the 2nd amendment. Notably in this case, you can not require someone to prove they have a need to exercise a right.
The NY law stated that you had to prove you needed a gun in order to get a license. That is opposite of how a right works. Let's re-frame this as a 1st amendment issue.
There is a large amount of misinformation in the world, this is causing civil unrest and issues(i.e. vaccine, elections). When the constitution was written, the founders could not conceive the internet, radio and TV or even large scale printing presses. Therefor, in order for you to publish a book or post a comment on a site that has to possibility of receiving over 200 views, you need to submit an application to your city hall in order to do so.
We would call any such law absurd on it's face.
>they force everyone to abandon reproductive rights. They are doing the opposite of forcing. They are saying that each state has the ability to decide what rights their citizens have.
This is not in conflict with the earlier gun control decision as the 2nd amendment defines the gun rights at the federal level. The supreme court has not found any text that defines reproductive rights at the federal level.
To what end?
That's not a rhetorical question. How far do you want to go? P90s? RPGs? Stinger missiles?
What would the societal benefit be there?
To get some long lost rights back.
>How far do you want to go? P90s? RPGs? Stinger missiles?
Silencers/supressors are currently banned in the US (requires a tax stamp and long waiting period) but legal in other highly restrictive countries like England/UK. They're basically mufflers for guns and not like in the movies. Short barreled rifles would be nice too; we have those now but it's a "technicality," where anyone who owns them for recreational shooting can, on a whim of a bureaucrat, become a felon sentenced to decades of prison. That's not how a free society based on laws should work. Pot falls under the same category. It's still not legal at the federal level and if the DEA decides it wants to start raiding people's homes looking for pot, it certainly can, and people can be prosecuted for it.
>What would the societal benefit be there?
We're a society of individuals, not a society of Borg. Freedoms of the individual are the greatest benefit a society can have.
Which specific rights? Don't wax on the pseudo-libertarian bullshit, as you're communicating with an actual libertarian.
Please, do tell.
Reread what I wrote, I put them in there.
>pseudo-libertarian bullshit
Dunno where this came from, maybe time to tone it down a notch. You sound a little emotional.
Not emotional. I just don't suffer fools gladly. That'd be you, in case that escapes you.
Toodles!
It's pretty obvious you are trying to sound intelligent by claiming to be an "actual libertarian," (is there a certification for that by chance? Social or economic?) and using a cliché, but the content of your dialog is pretty thin.
Here's the summary: you asked a question, I answered, you went into a mindless rant and starting name calling. I'll bet you even started to type "LINO" then thought better of it. I don't even know what your position is, your dialog was so thin. Maybe take a deep breath and take time to collect your thoughts. Who's the one suffering fools again?
I'll give you the last word, make it count.
Those aren't rights.
Those are (whether you agree with them or not) laws.
Those are different things.
What you advocate is license (definition 3)[0], not liberty.
Those are wildly different concepts.
>We're a society of individuals, not a society of Borg. Freedoms of the individual are the greatest benefit a society can have.
That we are, but we still all need to live together. Unless, of course you want to move to the middle of the desert or atop a mountain, the rights of others must also be respected.
I'd point out that you never did answer my question: "To what end?"
I'll clarify, since a good faith reading of your response would make me think you didn't understand the question rather than ignoring it in favor of your trained-in prejudices.
What would be served (other than you being able to kill people with impunity) by removing restrictions on, say P90s or RPGs?
If your intent is to have the means (and the desire?) to kill lots of people, then I get your point.
But if you wish to live in a free, peaceful society based on the rule of law (rather than the rule of the gun), I don't see your point at all.
As a (small 'l') libertarian, I note that I can only exercise my liberties freely in a society governed by the rule of law.
Having folks around with the means and will to kill anyone they feel like in large numbers isn't a libertarian principle.
Rather, it's a delusional state fed by this idea that your whole life is only the result of your actions, when 200,000+ years of human existence shows us that liberty comes from collective action to protect those liberties.
Having a bazooka doesn't make you more free. Nor is it a "right" per se.
What gives us liberty is the actual work required to maintain a free society.
"I've got guns, so back off asshole!" isn't a libertarian idea. Rather, it's a backward, "might makes right" authoritarian idea.
If you want to be completely isolated from other humans, go ahead and do whatever you want. But if you're going to live in a society, you need to work with your fellow members of that society to maximize individual rights and liberty.
What you propose does none of those things and are more appropriate to a street gang or mafia. Or is that your desire?
New York* I believe.
You might disagree with the court, but that doesn't matter since any law similar to SB-8 related to guns would be handled by that court.
That said, I think CA/NY and others should absolutely do it. They should be super aggressive and start using the tactic created in SB-8 on all kinds of issues if for no other reason than the ridiculousness of relying on civilian enforcement of laws.
You know they won't just magically disappear right? They will still exist en masse. Guns are mostly banned in Mexico, but the cartels use them to control the government. Careful what you wish for.
I'd also note that the Sullivan Act[0] was put into law 111 years ago, and was perfectly fine until last week.
What has changed to make it unconstitutional now?
As has been pointed out by others the NY law was arbitrary. The local law man decided if you were worthy of getting a concealed permit. This would be like if the local law man decided if area women were worthy to be allowed an abortion.
The US would be better with fewer guns, but this was a badly written law.
Edit: Since HN is rate-limiting me. There have been proposals that try to either give a Red State advantage, in particular, the electoral college. However, California could reasonably be split into 7 states (2 Red, 5 Blue) that would still have greater populations than Utah, netting +3 sets of Senators.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(proposed_Pacific_st...
Jefferson will never ever happen because there's no mechanism for it to happen, and because it would be by far the poorest state with the absolute worst economy in the nation, so I'm not even sure why we should discuss it.
Oh and by the way the Jefferson plan specifically excludes the Emerald Triangle.
Would the federal government carpet bomb a state that tried? No. But there are other means to exert force and stop secession. Besides, the U.S. Government has no reason to ever willingly let California (or Texas, or really any state) leave the union, so why would they ever sit down at the negotiating table?
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-4/#ar...
More generally problematic, your view would let any state persecute a minority of voters in that state and bind the federal government from guaranteeing equal protection to all Americans. We’ve run this experiment and found a long history of enforcing slavery, segregation, and persecution of gay people. Minority rights need special protections from the local majorities in states, and the 14th amendment is in no small part representing the will of the majority recognizing the rights of minorities are vulnerable here. Restricting a women’s ability to get a medical procedure a heavily gerrymandered state legislature finds distasteful is the latest in the long line of states rights consequences here.
And abortion is not just a medical procedure, there is a third party involved: the baby. Now I find the religious view that a baby exists as soon the sperm touches the egg ridiculous. But I find equally ridiculous the dismissal of a viable baby's life implied by calling it just a "medial procedure".
The reality is that there is likely a broad consensus in the US for legalising abortion up to 12 weeks, the way it is in most of europe.
Yeah, that's true, but there's also been a broad consensus in the US for federally legalizing (or even just decriminalizing) cannabis for well over a decade, and we haven't even managed to get that done due to the minority party overwhelmingly blocking even the most popular legislation if it goes even remotely against their moneyed interests.
Just because there's broad support doesn't mean that it will happen. At this point the Rs are going to have to be thoroughly crushed in congressional elections for a while, like what happened in the 30s through 60s, if any popular legislation is going to be passed.
Where's the common sense stuff? Where's the stuff most people would vote for?
There is no federally enumerated power to ban substances. That should be a state issue according the the 10th ammendment.
Both abortion and schedule I drug prohibition/anti-prohibition require Constitutional ammendments legally.
""" hold thatRoe andCasey must be overruled. The Con-stitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such rightis implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, in-cluding the one on which the defenders ofRoe andCaseynow chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. ... is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue ofabortion to the people’s elected representatives. “The per-missibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are tobe resolved like most important questions in our democ-racy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and thenvoting. """ https://www.scribd.com/document/579588941/19-1392-6j37
That it's rooted in the court's idea that there is no inherent constitutional protection against abortion bans, and therefore lower tiers of law (including federal US code) instituting arbitrary bans. Currently it looks like a states' rights issue because the bans are only in state code at the moment. The door is left open for federal code to fully ban abortion however, and Republican leaders have been messaging that this is their next step. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/mitch-mcconnell-ackn...
I don’t think they went so far as to definitely say there is no federal right to an abortion under any circumstances. I think they’ve left open the possibility that the due process right to life entails a right to an abortion when necessary to save the life of the mother (and possibly even when necessary to prevent severe long-term harm to her health-such as if continuing with the pregnancy was highly likely to cause her to go blind, for example). I could certainly see a future ruling (even by the current SCOTUS majority) upholding a federal right to an abortion in those very restrictive circumstances. All it might (sadly) take, is for America to have its own Savita Halappanavar
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar
Additionally, regarding left or right federal legislation: this would very likely be struck down by the same court under the reasoning that the constitution does not grant the federal government the power to regulate abortion.
Any federal legislation would have to come in the form of an ammendment.
I think, if Congress enacted a narrow federal right to an abortion – such as the right to an abortion to save the life of the mother – the current SCOTUS majority would be likely to uphold it - the right to life (including that of the mother) is arguably "deeply rooted in the nation's history" – and "life" is even explicitly mentioned in the text – and so such Congressional legislation would arguably be a legitimate exercise of the Section 5 power to enforce Section 1. Plausibly, they might even uphold a statutory federal right to an abortion to save the mother's health, since the right to health has an obvious connection to the right to life.
On a closer reread I can’t tel what your actual point was. Though it’s not what I thought.
The point was that since carrying a pregnancy to term has a higher risk profile than having an organ removed, a pregnancy should be voluntary in the same way we wouldn't coerce someone into giving up their kidney for someone else.
That being said, I think it is perhaps noteworthy to say if women lose the bodily autonomy for carrying children, it is outrageous that dead people should retain the bodily autonomy to not be organ donors.
So? You wouldn't mandate mandatory kidney removals if we could mitigate the long term risk of not having one because that risk isn't the reason we don't unilaterally harvest organs from people against their will.
Regardless of where the risk is clustered (at the event or in the long tail following it), it is the harm to an individual via a non-consensually driven medical event.
I think it's fine. The cancer is not able to survive in it's own and has a significant negative impact on the person carrying it. To make medical removal illegal even in cases where continuing to carry the cancer threatens the life of the one carrying it displays reckless disregard for their safety.
Alas, none of that is true, and your remark can only win you a comfortable position in the mental gymnastics Olympics. And a 1st place in the moral bankruptcy competition, for comparing infants to a disease.
Yes.
>So, I should be forced to give blood if someone’s life is at risk and they need my blood (or, kidney)?
If that someone being in risk was the inevitable biological result of your actions, then yes. You should be forced to save him/her. Because you put him/her there.
Should men be required to donate organs to women they got pregnant, if indicated?
This is obviously very silly and not thought out. Banning abortion is just as silly.
Yes, if you can
1- Prove that I infected them
And,
2- Prove that no other solution would save the infected person, and organ donation would
>Should men be required to donate organs to women they got pregnant
Not if the impregnation was consensual. The person infected with Covid or hit by a car didn't consent to those actions, but a pregnant woman consented to impregnation unless she's raped, therefore she should accept responsibility for the associated risks. Rape is one of the very few reasons where abortion should be allowed. But it's something like 0.1% or so of abortion reasons, the vast majority of abortions are morally indefensible.
You know people can be raped right?
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/aug/19/republican-tod...
until just now, the courts have repeatedly confirmed for several decades that abortion was protected at a federal level through the constitution.
In many cases, like abortion until today, under the Supreme Court’s substantive due process jurisprudence, and in some cases building at least in part on Roe which was just overturned.
There is no way this can be upheld, right? How on earth can citizens of state 1 go after citizens of state 2 for something that's legal in state 2?
> More generally problematic, your view would let any state persecute a minority of voters in that state and bind the federal government from guaranteeing equal protection to all Americans.
Who decides when the will of a state's majority is "democracy at work" and when it's "persecution of the minority violating equal protection"?
As such, Texas is overstepping its jurisdiction. And sidestepping the law by making it civil cases... Which they can adjudicate.
So, states can get into their mess by staying civil cases, when do we see an escalation?
Yes, it’s insane. But I don’t have faith in our courts to not split this hair and allow it for abortion specifically because they are so clearly partisan on social issues here.
Even without the insanity of the Texas law though, it’s still a huge issue for poor women in red states.
> Who decides when the will of a state's majority is "democracy at work" and when it's "persecution of the minority violating equal protection"?
The federal government passes laws, or a constitutional convention passes amendments, and federal courts interpret them. The 14th amendment was interpreted to apply this protection before but now it is not.
I'd suggest reading about the run up to the civil war. "State's rights" in that context was the slave states demanding that the free states capture and return escaped slaves outside of the slave states. Put simply, they wanted to enforce their fugitive slave laws on states that were completely uninterested in enforcing those laws.
The idea that "state's rights" in US political discourse reflects some principled division, rather than just being another lever people in power used to fight other people in power, is fiction. This has and remains fundamentally about a minority asserting their views over the majority, including outside the borders of their state.
Interstate travel is specifically protected federally and incorporated against the states. Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion specifically says this is an easy question to answer and it would be presumably unconstitutional to prevent people from having abortions in other states. Suggesting otherwise at this point is fear-mongering in very bad faith.
> who decides
More like, what laws decide. If the majority is infringing on protections from federal or state constitutions or federal or state legislation, the majority doesn’t win. Otherwise they do. Majorities can affect the laws given enough time and sustained effort.
Sure, but if they throw someone seeking an abortion in jail or tie them up in the court system, it may be irrelevant whether is is legal because that person still can't travel. That of course assumes they have the money and resources to travel, and that the health care systems in those neighboring states is accessible.
I don't have the stats in front of me, but we already know there is going to be a flood of people from Idaho into WA seeking services and we have very few clinics east of the Cascades as it is.
I think you and cm2187 above are making similar arguments, but to my thinking it doesn't really matter: with the time and money it takes to rectify the situation, unconstitutional laws do serious damage regardless. I'm not a lawyer, but oh what I would give for legal review on the constitutionality of laws as a precursor to implementation rather than post-mortem.
As another person suggests below - these states don't care anyway, they are following the same game plan as 1859.
I'm pretty sure it will be seen as a violation of the constitution's interstate commerce clause, which gives that authority exclusively to the federal government. However, it is possible that a pro-life administration would institute an order that does make it illegal to cross state lines for an abortion, similar to how sex tourism is illegal.
States have no jurisdiction outside their borders. Just like, say, Wisconsin having a law on the books that makes it illegal to leave the state (while "intending" to continue living in the state) to get married elsewhere, where the marriage wouldn't be legal in Wisconsin (https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/document/statutes/765.04) is ridiculous, likewise claiming that you get to apply your law somewhere else that you have no legal jurisdiction is insane.
...not that that stops the US government from doing the same thing if a US citizen travels to another country with a lower age of consent to bang some 16-year-old. It's this magic "intent" which we don't know how they can possibly know - were you over 21 and did you go to France to fuck that 15-year-old you've been playing video games with, or did you just go to France and happen to fall for that 15-year-old that you've been playing video games with hard after they showed you the tourist sights you've always wanted to see, ...then fuck them?
Does it get prosecuted often? No. Is it another bullshit law, waiting to conveniently be used to make you guilty when the powers-that-be need a reason to make you guilty? Yes. Oh-so-yes.
Just like how the US federal government can go after non-US citizens for something that is legal in their non-US country? Perhaps?
Slavery and segregation were a sui generis issue because Black people are not only a minority, they are a discrete and insular minority. That is not true of gender and sexual orientation. Women and gay people are born into all families at predictable percentages. That drives social change as to those groups in a way that does not apply to a racial minority group.
The U.S. has a unique history with respect to slavery and segregation, but it does not with respect to women's rights or gay rights. Nearly every other developed country has left those issues to the democratic process. The European Court of Human Rights came to the exact opposite conclusion as Obergefell a year after that case, finding that the EU Convention on Human Right's marriage article did not apply to same-sex couples. Switzerland did not allow same-sex marriage nationwide until this year, and Italy still does not. Yet the EU continues to stand.
Your thesis seems to be "countries and states can oppress people and society won't totally collapse", which seems like a very weak position to take. I'd hope you don't think "not collapsing" should be our goal. We want life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all people, right? Not life, liberty, and happiness for some, and well, at least the government remains standing, for the rest.
Like, in some sense, an oppressive government standing is worse than it failing, right?
In the long run, it jeopardizes the possibility of ordered progress because people perceive it as a serious intrusion into society and culture by elites—which judges are—and will resist and eventually revolt. That’s exactly what you see happening in the US right now.
Time to abolish the states, perhaps, and move to a loose confederation of city-states + regional rump-states that encompass former rural areas, bound together by a Common Economic Protocol. Let the blue areas in Austin, downtown Houston, Miami, Pittsburgh & Philadelphia, etc. be blue, and the red areas surrounding them be red. Conversely, let the red areas in Jefferson (northern California + southern Oregon), eastern Washington, upstate NY, etc. be red, and the dominant metro areas in those states be blue.
It's reasonable to say that the purpose of the judiciary is to protect rights, even when doing so is unpopular. If the judiciary was consistent in how it did that (for example: providing equal deference to the rights created by Roe and Heller) we might see less revolt. The issue is not "elite intrusion" but inconsistency.
Society's "right to decide" does not impugn my right to life and liberty. And the court is deeply inconsistent about whose rights, lives, and liberties it protects.
> Taking away a society’s right to decide the scope of social institutions like marriage
What gives El Paso residents the right to decide what the scope of marriage is in Austin? Indeed, what gives the government the right to regulate the "scope of marriage" at all?
No, with the January 6 riots? we see a minority no longer interested in the democratic process now that they don’t feel they are winning anymore.
How can you look at this Supreme Court, where multiple appointments were the result of heavy lobbying by large wealthy conservative faith groups to a president who lost the popular vote, and parliamentary tricks to keep the seat open, and see it representing a return to majority rule from rule by elites.
Never mind the fact that not a single abortion will be stopped on account of this. What will change is that there won't be any safe abortions, essentially this will cause the same number of fetuses to be aborted, it will also result in the death or in complications with a fairly large percentage of the mothers. It may (will?) even result in suicides.
This is in my opinion the real tragedy, the 'pro life' (I use their moniker but I disagree with it) groups are essentially 'anti mom'.
That minority is now in jail, and according to the laws in the US, those people have also lost their ability to vote. The people who active participated in the riot is no longer even an minority vote, but outside the voting process altogether.
The European Court of Human Rights, and the Council of Europe under which it operates, are actually not EU institutions.
What needs to be fixed is the cap on the House. Remove that and the larger states get more power in the House. For example the Democrats could get a majority to push legislation to protect abortion at the national level.
People need to fix the issues in the system rather than relying on the courts to legislate for Congress.
Did the slave States like this compromise, yes. Is that the only reason for it? No.
"To the framers themselves, Madison explained that the Senate would be a "necessary fence" against the "fickleness and passion" that tended to influence the attitudes of the general public and members of the House of Representatives." - https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Senate_C...
I'd understand if "the left" was trying to take away some other person's right, but this is the opposite. They're trying to preserve rights.
A tyranny of the majority in conservative states is now restricting rights, it's going to cause death / suffering.
> For that reason, in future fases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold[1], Lawrence[2], and Obergefell[3].
The decision advocates for re-ruling on each of these cases. If these should be decided against their current status, expect states to outlaw contraception, gay relations, and same-sex marriage.
1. Ruled that contraception bans are unconstitutional https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/griswold_v_connecticut_%2819...
2. Ruled that sodomy bans are unconstitutional https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/lawrence_v._texas
3. Ruled that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/14-556
In other words, Thomas has always been crazy about this sort of thing but no one else on the court agrees.
Hence why nobody else signed on to this concurrence.
The thing that makes these discussions so frustrating is that people often seem to be completely deer-in-the-headlights ignorant of the other side's arguments.
The argument of pro-life people is that there are two human beings involved in the abortion: the mother, and the child. Making abortion legal gives the mother the right over her body by removing the right of the child to not have her life taken away. In the eyes of pro-life people, "taking away some other person's right" is exactly what "the left" are doing.
Now you might not agree that there is a child in this case; you might think that children begin existing and having rights once they pass through the birth canal and not before. Or you might think that even if there is a child that has rights, the mother's right to bodily autonomy trumps the child's right to life. But you can't say "I don't understand where they're coming from; 'the left' isn't trying to take away some other person's right" without being profoundly ignorant of the basic views of the people you're arguing against.
So they only kinda sorta care about the child in the womb but not about the mother or the child when they are born.
If folks are going to ban abortions they should at least expand child and mother care, in my opinion.
On the other hand, pre-Roe, the maximum tax rate was 70%, with 25 different tax brackets. I'm guessing that folks that support today's decision are probably okay with the tax increases and big government that will follow.
Put another way, the case several days ago that allows child school credit to be used for Catholic school ALSO allows the same credit to be used for the Church of Satan School of the Gifted. The unintended consequences of all the rulings during the past week are going to be an interesting things to observe.
Suppose for the sake of argument that you're a person who thinks health services for children and paid family leave are important; but you also think that abortion is the moral equivalent of murder. You can vote for:
* Team Blue, who will increase children's health services and advocate for paid family leave, but slaughter millions of innocent children [Remember, I'm not claiming this is true, I'm trying to put you in the mind of a hypothetical person who believes this way]
* Team Red, who will decrease children's health services and family leave, but restrict the slaughter of innocent children.
I mean, if that's what you actually believe, then it really has to be Team Red, doesn't it?
I don't pretend to know what politicians think; it seems pretty likely that a lot of them are cynically using abortion as a ploy to get people to vote for policies that favor their rich donors. But I can tell you that an awful lot of people who actually vote are genuine in their opposition to it. If you want people to vote differently, you have to understand where the voters are coming from, not where their politicians are coming from.
Personally, I believe anti-abortion is a double edged sword that I don’t know how to traverse. I respect everyone’s right to choose but I also understand how politicizing the issue is favorable for politicians as they can yank at the heart strings and at the same time effect specific class of citizens more than others. And that last part bothers me.
It’s not so much the belief but the use of that as a belief to disenfranchise communities who are most vulnerable. I don’t know how to reconcile that fact, internally.
Team Red is only opposed to abortions for other people.
"The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion": https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-...
...and states run by Team Blue tend to have fewer abortions, in part because of easier availability of contraception, but also in part because people are less desperate and feel more able to cope with unplanned pregnancies. (And the country as a whole has fewer abortions after seasons where Team Blue is in control than Team Red.) Many pro-life people who saw what a danger Trump was made exactly this case to their peers, both in 2016 and 2020.
Additionally, most Team Red people I talk to actually do believe in a social safety net; they just want to make sure it's not wasted on "lazy people". They don't have an accurate picture of exactly what it is that Team Blue and Team Red are both doing with the social safety net. (They don't even tend to have an accurate picture of what Team Blue and Team Red are doing in terms of abortion.)
Rather than slagging these people as regressive hateful backwards bigoted hypocrites, it's better to engage with them: Take their preferences into account, make sure they're informed of the actual situation on the ground. (Again, I'm talking about the individual voters, not politicians, who may well be hateful backwards bigoted hypocrites.)
However, the Red politicians are tugging at those heart strings for the votes but have interest of expanding child or maternal care.
The problem aren't the people, it's the POS politicians, in my opinion. Since 2008 or so, politicians have been driving a divide between the voters of the different teams, getting re-elected by showcasing their wedge, and constantly screwing the people on both teams. I believe empathy for voters is the path forward.
I still think about Ted Cruz waving good bye at the dude who was pissed that kids got killed and he's dining at a restaurant. That's the issue. That dude is probably Team Red, probably doesn't agree with me, but fuck me if I don't support him going after a POS politician for not doing their job.
Empathy for voters; Re-examination of our politicians. It's not Team Red or Team Blue. It's the politicians of both sides that failed everyone.
Or they’re more capitalist in their thinking and expect people to take care of themselves as opposed to leaving it up to the government.
Who is right and who is wrong comes down to opinion. But I don’t believe it’s as simple as “the other side doesn’t care as much as we do”
My proposal is as follows: Take the GDP, per capita, per state and compare expansion/contraction of before Roe and after Roe. We can measure % change in the 10 years pre Roe to 10 years post Roe. The hypothesis is that states never cared about children and as such, post Roe, GDP expansion in states that had abortion abolished experienced a much higher GDP, per capita growth than before.
Information can be sourced from St. Luis FED.
If you have another idea, please let me know. I'm personally curious about this and would like to explore so feel free to pick apart my post as it will just render a more thought out experiment.
Thanks.
edit: If someone is a data scientist that can comment on what is the correct methodology to take or what pitfalls to consider, I would highly appreciate it.
I think people want to make it about that, and that's fine. But should we force people to donate their livers, kidneys, bone marrow because someone will die otherwise? Oh, and the person you are donating to has Alzheimer's and you have to take care of them until either one of you die.
Forced birth is kinda/sorta/almost the same thing. The woman is forced to donate aspects of themselves that will affect them forever (more than just 'organs' in some ways), they may not even live through the event, and then take care of it for the rest of each others lives.
Long ago, I dated a woman who had broken her hip in such a way she could not have a child without losing the ability to walk for the rest of her life. She couldn't get her 'tubes tied' because she was too young. Think about that for a minute and the position she was in and now think about a position she might be in if she were in her early twenties today. She wouldn't be able to have a normal life and even back then, she never wanted to be unable to run with her child. IIRC, she's "tied" her tubes and her and her husband have adopted a child. But damn, it isn't always so black and white.
Well, from a moral perspective, it is about that. I'm not sure which of those two positions you take (not a person / mother's rights supersede children's rights), but if you're going to be honest you've got to figure out which it is and why.
And for the vast majority of people who vote pro-life (at least, all the ones that I know), that's what it's about too. And I note that you haven't really challenged the core logic I've put forward there, but rather on some of the sticky implications.
> Oh, and the person you are donating to has Alzheimer's and you have to take care of them until either one of you die. ...The woman is forced to... take care of it for the rest of each others lives.
And, here's again where there's a basic ignorance that a five-minute conversation with someone who's pro-life would clear up. Nobody who's pro-life would say that women should be forced to raise the children; they can be put up for adoption.
> But should we force people to donate their livers, kidneys, bone marrow because someone will die otherwise?
There's a difference between causing someone to die by action, and allowing someone to die by inaction. Pushing someone into a raging river is different than failing to dive in to rescue them.
> Forced birth is kinda/sorta/almost the same thing. The woman is forced to donate aspects of themselves that will affect them forever (more than just 'organs' in some ways), they may not even live through the event...
This is your strongest point. I mean, yeah, birth is crazy. And it would totally suck to go through it if it wasn't something you'd chosen to do. But it's not like the child was able to choose this either. It's a terrible situation for both people.
> Long ago, I dated a woman who had broken her hip in such a way she could not have a child without losing the ability to walk for the rest of her life.
So first of all, this sort of situation is quite uncommon; and while there are zealots who would take a hard line, lots of people would be willing to compromise in this sort of a case. Secondly, there are lots of people worldwide who are OK with abortion in the first trimester, but not the second and third. I think there are reasonable justifications for this.
But thinking about it from a moral perspective, let's try this scenario.
You're taking a tour of some tall factory with a bunch of people you don't know. While you're on a catwalk 4 stories up, something catastrophic happens, and at the end of it you're holding for dear life to a railing, and a stranger is dangling over the factory floor, holding for dear life to your legs.
You're not afraid of falling yourself; your arms are wrapped firmly around the railing, which you're pretty sure isn't going anywhere. But you have some sort of a degenerative joint disorder in your hips. You can already feel the tendons stretching from the stranger dangling below you; you're pretty sure that by the time help arrives to pull him up that enough damage will be done that you'll never walk again. You're also pretty sure that if you kick him hard enough right now, he'll let go and fall to his death, leaving your legs intact.
Is it moral for you to kill the stranger to save your legs? Should it be legal to kill the stranger to save your legs?
> Is it moral for you to kill the stranger to save your legs?
Is it moral? I think you might be mixing morality with ethics. Whether it is moral or not is highly dependent upon my culture and upbringing, whether it is ethical or not ... see the speeding trolley problem, because it is remarkably similar, where instead of "saving a bunch of people" I'm saving my future.
> Should it be legal to kill the stranger to save your legs?
How would a police officer know the difference between slipping and me kicking? I'd have to admit that it ever happened. Even if there are witnesses, it would be unreliable accounts. This gets into how Roe vs. Wade came about in the first place. I have some right to some privacy: the ability to keep my mouth shut, for one. You can say it is illegal all you want, but you also have to enforce it. Are police officers going to come give my wife random pregnancy tests to see if she stops being pregnant? How will they know the difference between a miscarriage and an abortion?
> I mean, yeah, birth is crazy. And it would totally suck to go through it if it wasn't something you'd chosen to do.
I venture you don't have at least one child? There is no way to explain having a child, and raising a child to someone who hasn't done so. There is life before ... and then there is life after. It is hard. I've been to boot camp, I've been to war, I've saved lives and ended them. And you know what ... having a child was initially, the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. It is quite sudden, even though you have some 7-8 months to prepare. I wouldn't wish those first few months on my worst enemy. If I were a single mom/dad, it would have devastated my career, especially because as a father, I had TWO DAYS of vacation after the birth. Hell, it did negatively affect my performance for years.
It was worth every second because I loved my child, especially because my first one died during childbirth. But if I resented my child, I can't imagine the psychological torture that child would have to live through.
> Nobody who's pro-life would say that women should be forced to raise the children; they can be put up for adoption.
And who the fuck is going to adopt them? The foster care system is already overrun and under-funded. So, good luck with that...
On the contrary, I do have a child, which I adopted. I know a little bit about the birth mother's situation; I'm pretty sure a lot of people would have recommended to her to have had an abortion. I'm very thankful that she didn't -- she chose to take a risk, and there's a beautiful precious life as a result.
I don't know the situation in the US at the moment, but I can tell you that in my country, there is absolutely no problem finding adoptive parents for healthy newborns. Obviously if there's significant risk of damage due to alcohol or drugs, or significant health issues or genetic abnormalities, it's more difficult; but the last time I looked into it, those cases represented a very small fraction of the total number of abortions done in the US.
Regarding raising children: apparently all 50 states in the US have "Safe-haven" laws [1], which allow parents to drop off infants at designated locations. There is absolutely no reason for anyone in the US to feel trapped into raising children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe-haven_law
None of that change the fact that pregnancy itself can be terrifying and even dangerous, of course.
> The foster care system is already overrun and under-funded.
Let's expand this argument a bit: "The foster care system is overrun and under-funded; we can help reduce pressure on the system by killing children who might go into it." I mean, if you're OK with killing children to reduce pressure on the foster care system, wouldn't it make more sense to kill the older children? Say, those who haven't been adopted by the age of 5?
If you're shocked / disgusted / horrified at the idea of killing innocent 5-year-olds, then you know how genuine pro-life people feel about the argument that we should use abortions to reduce pressure on the care system. You should 1) reflect on what moral justification you have for not feeling the same way; 2) have more respect for people who do feel that way.
Do they count in the census? Can I say they're a dependent?
Heck, why don't we make periods and ejaculation illegal. After all, those eggs and sperm are viable! Men shouldn't be allowed to pull out, wear condoms, or masturbate. Won't someone think of the children?! Oh, I almost forgot to ban sodomy too! Good heavens!
And what about contraception? That's coming next. What is your argument then?
The thing is, we have evidence based ways to reduce the need for unnecessary abortions, but the "right" isn't concerned about that. We know, for a fact, that access to contraception and sex education dramatically reduce abortion levels.
We know for a fact that making it illegal does not, it merely causes dangerous abortions to increase.
How do you square that? The "facts don't care about your feelings" crowd somehow can't grasp, or refuse to grasp, the consequences of their actions.
I'm also interested in how you feel about the rights of rape victims. Perhaps you'd like to carry the baby for them?
My understanding is that the number of US citizens who believe that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances is less than 15%.[0] Indeed, looking at this poll more than 75% of the people fell short of believing abortion should be illegal ("legal in only a few circumstances").
With the percentage so low, I find it hard to believe that the people in _any_ US state would like abortion to be banned. Again, it would be interesting if you had any data to back up this statement.
[0]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/393104/pro-choice-identificatio...
It's even more than that. In the council (where the governments of the member countries are present) you need majority based on number of citizens in the countries and also votes from a number of countries, so that few big countries can't overrule the small ones, but you always need support from small and big countries.
Texas, like most "conservative" states is gerrymandered to all hell. So it's very very simple how conservative minorities are enforcing their social views on the majority.
States rights? Ha. Hypocrisy and blatant power grabs by the Federalist Society .
Shameful and likely the downfall of America.
Such extreme power grabs continue to be railroaded through by an extreme right wing unconcerned with the 300 million living Americans whose rights they are stomping upon.
1) we must eliminate the filibuster.
2) we must eliminate the electoral college
3) we must impeach the seditious conspiracy and cut the head off the snake that spawned it. The federalist society must be investigated for installing Supreme Court judges and we must impeach every last one of these criminals. Clarence Thomas and Kavanaugh are also both subject to serious sexual crimes accusations that were steamrolled right over by the Republican juggernaut.
We cannot allow this theocracy-in-waiting gain absolute power, and to ignore their machinations to this end is no longer possible.
It only takes the support of 5.1% of US voters to filibuster a bill, 8.1% to appoint/block a supreme court nominee and 12% to defeat a filibuster:
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/2jnmbe/i_did_the_...
98% of black women voted for Clinton.
In 2016, 55% of voters were women, which trump won 47-44. By three points, which is a solid win in a presidential general election.
So Trump won the largest voting race+gender demographic.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/892859/women-support-ove...
For republican-leaning women (which will be white women based on the female black vote numbers), it is basically 50-50 in support/opposition for Roe V Wade. For Dem-leaning it is 85-15 roughly.
Roe V Wade is the most important women's right won in the courts in the last 50 years, and women voted to overturn it effectively.
Finally, this is the culmination of the liberal justices refusing to step down or retire. Ruth Baider Ginsburg is held up as a pinnacle of feminism, and yet her stubbornness to continue serving despite health problems and battles with cancer resulted in Trump getting a crucial third justice.
The most stalwart feminist justice handed the overturn of Roe V Wade to a president with a known record for sexual impropriety if not outright assault.
Obama sat on Merrick Garland.
The baby boomer generation ushered in sexual freedom when it was their time to be young and free, and then shut the door on it in their old age crapping over all the other generations.
What a world.
Roe v. Wade was the only thing preventing that.
That actually makes the problem worse. You can't undo this without changing the court. You can't change the court without the senate and you can't get the senate of team blue continues to isolate it self in a handful of states.
You're quoting stats for white women only, Trump lost the female vote 54/39.
Which makes this claim factually incorrect:
> Roe V Wade is the most important women's right won in the courts in the last 50 years, and women voted to overturn it effectively.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/08/09/an-examinati...
I'd imagine if you combined the age demographic information, the female vote that may actually be able to get pregnant and so be affected by this is going to swing even harder away from Trump.
The combined male and female vote swings 30% to the red between the 18-29 and 65+ demographics.
Provide the source and the question that was asked on it. The majority of Americans think it should be up to the states, whether the state is for or against
Gallup puts the number of legal under all cases at 35% of Americans and legal under some conditions at 50%.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
Trigger laws in places like Oklahoma make it illegal in basically all cases after fertilization. Texas law is going to let Texans sue people for providing or getting abortions out of state. Framing this as a states rights issue didn’t work for slavery, segregation, gay rights, etc and it won’t work for women’s reproductive rights either.
the poll said "completely overturned", which is the more radical position. roe v wade being completely overturned is not the same as "delegating to the states" per your original comment, because the federal protection could be weakened to only support specific cases or require an earlier termination which would leave more room for state laws.
You're framing the issue in a way that's misleading, because while the majority of americans oppose completely overturning roe, another majority could support weakening roe or limiting it to specific cases
This is the most polled issue in American politics and has been for half a century. We know with certainty that a large majority of the public supports abortion rights. We don't need to talk about what "another majority could support". That theory has been shot down thousands of times over the last 50 years.
You have those reversed.
One odd thing about this is that there is another case with the same 14th amendment reasoning which no one seems to be discussing: Loving v. Virginia (https://www.oyez.org/cases/1966/395).
I wonder if that's because Clarence and Ginni Thomas have been committing miscegenation for years?
Please, I'm eating. Besides, there's no evidence of this.
If you have a digesting problem with this, we may just call it nature but your comment is what could put many not at ease. That being said, I would at least guess we agree on the ruling that it gets us closer to nature and some commonly accepted ethic with regards to human life and procreation.
It's a reddit-level comment that doesn't add anything to the discussion.
That still makes it a rhetorical step up from Thomas's concurrence.
So I think he would be wholly unbothered making that distinction, knowing that _his_ rights are protected under a different clause. I guess it does show some of the fragility of judicial precedent, you could imagine an even more conservative justice who was not Thomas restricting the interpretation of this clause to mean only the narrow rights the majority of people in 1868 would have liked and not include miscegenation through some horribly tortured logic. But Thomas can draw the line before that and after himself.
It depends on how you define "this." Polls that ask "do you support Roe v. Wade are useless because it's a legal decision and the public doesn't necessarily understand its legal effect. More granular polls show that the public is on both sides of Roe. Most Americans support some sort of abortion right, but most Americans also think that right should be narrower than Roe: https://apnews.com/article/only-on-ap-us-supreme-court-abort.... In particular, 2/3s of Americans think that second trimester abortions should be generally illegal, but under Roe's trimester framework, there is a nationwide right to elective abortions in the second trimester.
> This ruling is disastrous and shows the capriciousness of the current court in interpreting precedent to mean whatever is popular with their party. The 14th can amendment be limited but the second cannot
The difference is not the Court's "capriciousness" but instead the text of the Second Amendment, which specifically addresses the "right to bear arms," versus the text of the 14th amendment, which says absolutely nothing about "privacy" or "abortion" or anything of the sort.
It's disingenuous beyond belief to try and make a false equivalency between an expressly enumerated right written into the Constitution 233 years ago, with one divined from "penumbras" and "emanations" of the Constitutional text in the mid-20th century.
None of this supports that the 14th amendment’s right to privacy under the due process clause doesn’t exist though?
> It's disingenuous beyond belief to try and make a false equivalency between an expressly enumerated right written into the Constitution 233 years ago, with one divined from "penumbras" and "emanations" of the Constitutional text in the mid-20th century.
Sure, we can ignore the well regulated militia clause as meaningless, everyone seems to. Then, to pick another example of capriciousness, my understanding is that this court ruled in Egbert v. Boule and that the explicit right against unreasonable search and seizure in the 4th amendment should actually be interpreted that there is no right to sue the government for redress of these violations, only the complaint processes that government agencies provide to decide the unreasonableness for themselves. There is another 233 year old amendment being so narrowly interpreted to slowly defang it while another “shall not be infringed”
Dobbs overturns both Roe and Casey, which replaced Roe's trimester framework with the undue burden standard [1]. Trimesters are completely irrelevant. Please learn this; I feel like half of your abortion comments push this in order to setup your 2/3s Gallup stat, which is also problematic.
> and something 2/3s of Americans oppose
We've also talked about this before. Here are some countervailing stats from the same poll [2]:
- Would you like to see the Supreme Court overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision concerning abortion, or not?: 53% No, not overturn
- If the Supreme Court were to overturn its 1973 Roe versus Wade decision concerning abortion, it would mean there is no constitutional protection for abortion rights and each state could set its own laws to allow, restrict or ban abortions. Do you think overturning Roe versus Wade would be a good thing or a bad thing?: 63% bad thing
- Do you favor or oppose [A ban on abortions after the 18th week of a pregnancy]?: 56% oppose
18 weeks is well into the 2nd trimester. Again as we've discussed before, polling on abortion is very difficult. Mostly they show Americans' ignorance of the issue, which you even acknowledge.
In particular, most Americans don't know that providing elective abortion access is crucial as so many things can go wrong--especially in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters [3]--and you really can't enumerate them all.
Why do people have second trimester abortions? Ironically, it's mostly an access issue [4], but there are other reasons [5] [6]:
- microcephaly and other fetal anomalies are typically only detectable in the 2nd trimester
- many people can't get the time off or can't get the funds (abortion is expensive for many people)
- waiting periods can force people into the 2nd trimester
- delayed recognition of pregnancy and delayed confirmation of pregnancy with a pregnancy test
- logistical delays occurred in arranging insurance to pay for the abortion
- problems locating a provider and time lost due to an inappropriate initial referral (abortion clinics are busy)
Your argument is that Dobbs moves the US closer to what Americans want by making "that right... narrower than Roe." But in truth, we already mostly have what Americans want [7]:
- 79.3% of abortions were performed at ≤9 weeks’ gestation
- nearly all (92.7%) were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation
And the other 7.3% aren't due to evil or cruelty, they're the result of the US' restrictive abortion regime and intense tragedy.
And what Dobbs does is not to preserve the right to abortion in the first trimester, but to give States the power to proscribe it. Here's what the dissent says [8]:
"Today, the Court discards that balance. It says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of. A State can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs."
This is plainly not what Americans want. If your argument against Roe is that it was out of step with public opinion, mustn't you also level that argument against Dobbs?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood_v._Casey
[2]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
[3]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10426234/
[4]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22176796/
[5]: https://www.self.com/story/why-people-get-second-trimester-a...
[6]: https://journals.openedition.org/eces/248
[7]: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/ss/ss7009a1.htm
[8]: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
This court will use its power however it wants. It recognizes absolutely no concept about "overstepping". It will do what it wants. That has been made abundantly clear.
Also, non-discrimination in public schooling, with mandatory integration (Brown) but even before integration was understood to be essential (Plessy, permitting “separate but equal” education.) Without substantive due process, state public education which is separate by race and makes no pretense of equality would be fine. Also, the incorporation of much of the Bill of Rights as applicable against the states, as a whole.
Substantive due process is enormous, and Thomas has explicitly stated that the entire jurisprudence in that domain should be uprooted in his concurrence on Dobbs.
(Ironically, this includes the applicability of the 2nd Amendment to the State.)
I'm unclear what definition of "minority" you are using here. That sounds like a majority to me.
Comparing with poll numbers is not an apples-to-apples comparison. A lot of polls are highly motivated to support a particular outcome, but when you look into the details and ask questions a number of different ways, you get a more complex picture.
For instance, if you ask "how long should elective abortions be legal?" you may get an answer that seems to contradict "do you support Roe?". And then if you start to define "elective" (or even use different words) you might get a different answer still. I'm not saying which one is the "right" question to ask, but I am saying that it's not reasonable to reject actual vote totals in a free and fair election.
It is a majority of a smaller area but the minority of the larger area. Majority of a gerrymandered district for state representation. Majority of a purple state senate race, or one that has winner take all electoral vote allocation, as most do.
And of course, majority in Texas when the views held there are a minority for the overall country but they still pass laws letting people bring charges in Texas courts for abortions, even performed outside of Texas by people without representation in Texas state legislature, though I have some hope that this is a bridge too far even for the current partisan 6-3 court. No reason they wouldn’t allow it here while saying it couldn’t be used as precedent as many members for the current court argued in Bush v Gore.
That's not true, only 26% of Americans support abortion in almost all cases. Most support some sort of restriction. This ruling forces the States to determine what those restrictions are.
This is an extremely complicated and nuanced cultural issue. The debate that's happening now is one that was cut short by Roe—one that the rest of the West has had. Few other countries allow abortion with "no restrictions". States should be allowed to decide, individually, where they want to draw the line.
I'll add that this is in no way an endorsement of an anti-choice position. But there's no way to view this as "a minority enforcing social views on the majority."
The primary civic problem in this country is the neutering of our State and Federal legislatures. The Courts should not be legislating. The Executive should not be legislating. Force our Representatives to do their damn jobs.
This is just another symptom of the disease of the disproportional representation everywhere in our systems, most importantly the senate. The senate confirmed (or in the case of Garland, refused to confirm) these justices, and the senate refuses to pass laws the majority of Americans want.
> But there's no way to view this as "a minority enforcing social views on the majority."
How can you interpret the Texas law as anything but? This decision and those laws are all the product of concerted and focused lobbying and maneuvering by conservative Christian groups that make up a minority of Americans.
The 2014 election shouldn't be ignored, because it explains why Garland wasn't confirmed and Trump's appointments were. That year, Republicans won the popular vote by a margin of almost 6%, and won 9 seats in the Senate.
That election gave them control of the Senate until 2020, and that outcome was representative of the popular vote.
Hard disagree. Those issues have absolutely nothing to do with one another. Legislators have learned that the best way to guarantee re-election is to loudly wring your hands and ask "won't somebody do something" every election season. If they actually do their jobs, people might hold them accountable. It has zero to do with "disproportional representation".
> ...the senate refuses to pass laws the majority of Americans want.
This is by design. That's literally what a Senate is designed to do. Preventing the mob from ruling the country by popular decree.
> How can you interpret the Texas law... that make up a minority of Americans.
Because a majority of TEXANS support it: only 28% of the state thinks abortion should be legal in all or most cases [1]. You can't look at nationwide polls and make statements about local politics.
1: https://news.gallup.com/poll/355034/texas-aligned-red-states...
That kind of suggests that the states are the right place to handle the issue.
Literally appointed by minority governments.
Can you clarify what social view is being enforced on the majority?
The same can not be said about the Republican Party. This is not a both sides issue. Polarization is happening on the right wing in the American Party system, and the right wing alone.
That's before we get to other design flaws like "winner takes all", which of course neither possible winner out of a guaranteed 2 is ever going to change.
> States rights has always been a double edged sword. You can't have your cake and eat it too. The same state rights that allow gun control and homosexuality to be locally legalized before national concensus; also now lead to abortion legislation being a state issue.
You're a day too late to hold this position, the supreme court struck down New York's attempt to regulate open carry yesterday.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/us/supreme-court-ny-open-...
The Supreme Court did not strike down New York‘s ability to regulate open carry at all.
They struck down the states ability to withhold concealed carry permits to anyone who does not provide a sufficient reason for application.
Turns out you don’t actually need to provide a reason for civil rights.
The NYPD since being sued over this has been found guilty in corruption cases of withholding permits to people who weren’t donors, connected, celebrities, elite.
No one reasonable should think you need to prove to the NYPD why you need your rights.
“May Issue” is now dead. “Shall Issue” is still fine, and open carry laws have not changed at all.
It should be noted, that New York had at least three opportunities in court to not appeal decisions they lost, and prevent it from going to the Supreme Court. Back when this case started the state of New York had assumed that Hillary would win and going all the way up to supreme court would be fine. When they lost the second circuit, they had offered the NYRPA concessions, they were reject, and had to appeal the decision making it go to supreme court. This was ALL the state of New York’s arrogance. And now NJ, MD, HI and others are surely pissed.
As to “needs” and “rights”. Hawaii since 2016 has issued approximately four concealed carry permits to citizens. They must be renewed every year. and you cannot leave your home county with the gun. This has been an obvious violation of rights and is soon to change.
I personally believe that Constitutional/permitless carry is the only way it should be, but getting rid of May Issue is a great step in the right direction.
Like I agree with the NY ruling but it’s explicitly limiting the power of the state.
The supreme court does not recognize a right to an abortion in the constitution so the issue is kicked back to the states per the 10th amendment.
States rights only apply when things are not recognized as constitutional rights.
No, “states rights”, in the US, has only ever been invoked for state-sanctioned repression. There is no other edge.
(Both sides of the tighter/looser federalism argument can be viewed as double-edged, but “states rights” has a very particular history.)
It goes both ways. There is nothing intrinsically good nor bad with it. It's part of how the system is designed to operate.
No, it wasn’t. “States rights” is a later pro-slavery slogan. It is not and never has been the same thing as loose federalism.
And there were, in fact, slaves in the North until it was abolished nationally (in more states at the time of the Revolution than at the time of the Civil War, and even fewer at the end of the Civil War, but the last three states where slavery existed until terminated by the 13th Amendment were Kentucky, Delaware, and New Jersey.)
The reason that states existed at all in the north - despite states having laws forbidding it - was because of the supreme court.
Even Abraham Lincoln had declared himself as a non-abolitionist until the Gettysburg Address. He campaigned, and started his governing as a status-quo politician. The main thing that southern politicians railed against him was that he wanted to keep the compromise and have the "new territories" (areas that were not yet states) be kept non-slave territories.
There is nuance here, but basically the Confederacy pissed him off so much that he changed his mind and decided that he would push for the abolition of slavery, starting by ending it by force in the Confederacy. He moderated after the war somewhat, and his death (at the hands of a Southern conspiracy to re-start the war and bring back slavery) almost got us to full equality, but wound up in a compromise that got us the Jim Crow laws.
I had always believed that Kentucky was neutral in the Civil War. Both Lincoln and Jefferson Davis (President of the Confederate States) were born in Kentucky.
Reading the wikipedia article[0], it seems like it's really complicated but it still looks mostly correct to me that Kentucky was more neutral than not.
[0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_in_the_American_Civil...)
The national guard is controlled by the government, it's not a militia. The last 20+ years or so it's pretty much regular army.
Along a similar line, do you think a free press would be free if the government was the one who decided who was press and who wasn't?
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246
In fact the first weapon ban to hit SCOTUS, US v Miller, hinged on the fact that sawed off shotguns had no military application, which was legal basis allowing them to be banned. The court at the time considered bans of military weapons unconstitutional.
A well balanced breakfast, being necessary to a healthy diet, the right of the people to grow and eat food, shall not be infringed.
Who has the right to grow and eat food?
A) The people (with no other condition)
B) The people (after a waiting period and background check)
C) A well balanced breakfast
D) A healthy diet
E) The police
"A well-educated electorate, being necessary for the endurance of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed."
Clearly you couldn't expect the right to keep and read books to only apply to the well-educated electorate.
SECOND: Abortion is seen as a fundamental right for womens' health, and there are many documented reasons for getting abortion that are not merely "convenience". There are things which should not be prohibited by the democratic process, since they are human rights.
THIRD: There is no scientific basis for restricting abortion; I would place a large bet that more than 95% of people who are against abortion rights base their opinion on faith-based teachings.
FOURTH: We need to abolish the two party system via *ballot reform* and move to Ranked-Choice or approval voting. This will weaken the two parties, allow citizens to vote /for/ someone rather than against, and will be a more accurate gauge of popular sentiment.
Also most anti-abortion people I talk to have more developed views than just faith based. There is actually no scientific argument for abortion
For example, IVF would create and then kill dozens of children for every successful birth. But IVF is extremely popular.
It is unclear to me why 30% of the country gets to impose their morals on 70% of the country. It is clearly a moral argument either way, there are compelling moral issues about removing bodily autonomy and consent from women even beyond the medically preventable fatalities which will occur. Then there are the moral issues with rape and incest victims, being required to give birth, etc.
Do the 30% have a far superior moral compass than the 70% who have examined the same complicated issue and come to a different conclusion?
I just also think it's worth trying to actual meet people where they are, most genuinely think we're killing babies and want to stop that, and to be fair we have no idea when a human life starts. I'm just really over the villainization of people who are just concerned.
To be clear I'm pro abortion when its medically needed, I just think people give the other side too bad of a wrap and act like this is settled science.
Also worth noting that overturning Roe v Wade would reduce the loss of life if you believe a fetus is a person. Most abortions are not medically needed, meaning we are killing millions of people
Yes please. The current system is completely dysfunctional.
Abortion is a case where there is genuine disagreement among the public and at its core exists a genuine moral question. Most partisans talk past each other, but the core of it is about the rights of the unborn and at which point that becomes relevant.
It's different because of this from gay rights and contraception which don't have this other element in question (for contraception specifically those against abortion because of rights of the fetus should be in favor of easier access). It's also why European laws around this are more strict, Denmark allows abortion without cause up to 12 weeks and with cause after.[0]
It's better for these questions to be decided by states and democratic process than SCOTUS - the latter which we've seen cause extreme polarization. If you hold the view that the fetus at some point is a life with rights than the political activism here is consistent. Where this occurs I think is a legitimate question (big difference between zygote and day before birth).
There is a lot of bad faith, sloppy reasoning, and motivated reasoning arguing here from partisans across the board.
There are also real tradeoffs and young women will be the most harmed in states with bans because they have the least autonomy, but I can at least understand the strongest arguments from the other side [1]. Something like the laws in Denmark being passed at the congressional level is probably the desirable compromise outcome. At the moment at least SCOTUS thinks states cannot ban the ability to travel to a different state for abortions, the ability to exit is important.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Denmark
[1]: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/3ELrPerFTSo75WnrH/p/PeSzc9JTBxha...
Germany has roughly the same laws as Denmark, and now after this decision many states will continue to have the same abortion laws they have had for the last 50 years, many will have on par with Europe, and some will outright ban.
There is no making everyone happy, but 50 options that are easier to change seem like a compromise to a binary split that will always be under attack.
The overturning of Roe comes just days after another ruling by the same Supreme Court in which they took away states' rights to regulate the possession of guns. States rights has always been a rhetorical tactic used by conservatives as a convenient ruse to achieve their aims. When the argument from states rights is helpful to their political aims, they rely on it. When it's harmful, they ignore it.
Hopefully the arguments in there are correct and this isn't likely to expand.
You do not at all seem to understand the NYRPA vs Bruen ruling or topic. It makes me question the rest of your reasoning.
Overturning Roe comes one day after a Supreme Court ruling that ends the process of New York's MAY ISSUE (if you are wealthy, make a donation, are connected) a concealed carry permit practice. It turns out the state doesn't get to require you to prove a need before you have your rights.
There is no right besides 2A that ever faces this level of scrutiny and abuse. It doesn't help that the NYPD has multiple times since that lawsuit initially started been found guilty of corruption by the state's own investigators, when they initially withhold completely appropriate requests but favored "others".
You do not understand the topic you referenced.
We can only guess and hypothesize. But one has to wonder if the pro-choice movement would’ve been better off without row, and with the passage of time.
I disagree with a lot of her positions, but this one seems well reasoned.
The 7 justices that decided Roe really did think they were ending conflict by siding as they did, that I believe did not, at all.
“Ok. We’re telling you what’s up; now play nice.”
Roe was just a bad decision for so many reasons (not discussing the actual rule it created).
Don't want an abortion? Don't get one. Care about fetus rights? Start help centers for pregnant women, engage in education and activism, provide social nets for new mothers and children. It's not like we have mandatory abortions.
To me, the abortions is similar to the right to chose to end your own life, ultimately, you can't outlaw killing yourself.
If you hold that at some point the fetus has rights of its own then this becomes more difficult.
I think that’s the fundamental question and what makes this issue challenging.
For a provocative example, we don’t allow infanticide to be left up to the individuals moral decision, and then suggest those that care about it engage to help stop infanticide. We decide at that point the infant has rights and we care about suffering.
I think for societal pragmatic reasons women should retain the right to terminate pregnancy even though it does result in ending a life and in some cases suffering of the unborn (depending on stage). But I don’t pretend that tradeoff isn’t a real thing, I just think that’s the best outcome on net.
I also think contraception should be widely and easily available to reduce the likelihood of this happening generally.
I can understand how a reasonable person could disagree and have stronger views about when the fetus’ individual rights should kick in.
Theoretically yeah, but the stats [0] pretty much moot it. Some quick clips:
- 79.3% of abortions were performed at ≤9 weeks’ gestation
- nearly all (92.7%) were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation
The point here is that "nearly all" abortions occur very early in development. It's hard to imagine that something the size of a chocolate chip has "individual rights", especially when balanced against the rights of the pregnant person.
This is important because as you move through the trimesters, cases become crushingly tragic [1]. We're talking things like "we probably thought your fetus was abnormal in the 2nd trimester but you couldn't bring yourself to do it until the 3rd", cancer, fetal death, etc.
There's this myth that it's like Celebrity Deathmatch out there: women vs. babies, but the stats are clear: nearly all abortions happen in the 1st trimester, and then when they don't it's typically scheduling or something very tragic happened.
All of which should force us to ask: what's the urgent need for regulation on this?
Clearly it is not hard for a lot of people in the US to imagine this, since that is what they believe.
Well if they do, they're not acting like it. For example, miscarriages are pretty rampant. If there were a disease that affected people the same way miscarriages affect embryos and fetuses, it would be a bonkers plague that reduced our population to a a fraction of what it is. I imagine people would be acting differently than they are if we really equated humans with fetuses on this level.
Or we can go full personhood. How do we discern the will of a 14 week old fetus? What constitutes child abuse? When do child support payments start? Can fetuses sue for damages? What do their free worship rights look like? Do fetuses have a right to medical care? Can a fetus earn income and pay taxes? Do fetuses count towards population for apportionment?
I don't doubt the sincerity of people's held positions on abortion. What I do doubt is the rationality, and the more I dig into it, the more I find tons of ignorance about women, fetuses, and pregnancy.
I think fossuser got it exactly correct: there is a good-faith disagreement here. The disagreement is "when does a citizen come into existence?". This is what lawmakers are supposed to decide - we elect them to draw a line in the sand. Denmark's line seems extremely reasonable.
Fair! Well, a couple things.
First, many abortions are not chosen. We can go a little further and say many conceptions are not chosen (assault), but it's a little irrelevant, so I'm just noting.
Second I'm not comparing abortions to miscarriages. I'm comparing miscarriage (a thing that affects embryos and fetuses) to a disease that affects born people. In doing so, I note the different reactions people have to miscarriage (it's natural and unavoidable) to the reactions people have to a disease that statistically killed as many born people as miscarriage kills embryos and fetuses (the vast majority of us die, it's very very bad).
To me, this is strong evidence that we value embryos and fetuses differently than born people.
How many? There is a survey floating around the Internet that asked ~2000 women in 2003 about abortion reasons, and about 80% or so said what amounted to "Pregnancy was too inconvenient". Was that updated ?
>many conceptions are not chosen
Again, how many? That same 2003 survey had 0.1% as the percentage of women who reported rape as the reason they aborted. People are arguing against the common case, the common case I'm seeing is celebrities and middle class women writing op-eds about how without abortion they would have never gotten that raise and pregnancy demolished their career.
>I'm comparing miscarriage (a thing that affects embryos and fetuses) to a disease that affects born people.
I think pro abortion folks have this common failure mode where they notice the non-linearity of the brain's moral response on abortion, and think that it points to a deeper hypocrisy or contradiction somewhere in the anti abortion stance.
Here is a couple of examples of things where people believe something but "don't act like it" :
- Vegetarians and Vegans (I'm one of them btw) believe that hundreds of millions of sentient, moral-consideration-worthy persons are murdered in the most brutal and cowardly fashion each year, and that doesn't turn them catastrophically mad or into genocidal terrorists.
- Climate Change believers (I'm one of them btw) believe that our (in)actions now is setting the stage for the death of tens of million and the suffering of hundreds of millions of human and non-human animals, as well as uncountable billions of damage in material resources. They don't seem to be doing much except shouting, just like standard politics.
- Believers in the harm of smoking (I'm... Ah screw it) think that 1.1 billion people are actively killing themselves by poisoning, and slowly poisoning those around them, 7 million people are killed each year due to this mass voluntary poisoning, more than 1/10 of WW2. And yet, I don't see any crusades (except the usual advocacy).
The point is, what you're describing isn't new. It's what I called the brain's "Non Linear Moral Response" above, your brain saturates. One death makes you cry, two deaths make you scream, 3 make you want to gouge your own eyes off, but 10 just make you numb. And beyond 50 or so its just meaningless data. Your brain isn't equipped to respond meaningfully to tragedies at scale. That's probably for your own good.
I'd love it if you can link it, until then I'm gonna ignore it.
> Here is a couple of examples of things where people believe something but "don't act like it" :
I'm actually sympathetic to this! Humans are pretty great at tolerating outrageous things. The effective altruism movement is essentially all about this, or yeah, like your last paragraph.
My point isn't simply "they don't act like it". My point is that there are lots of other, easier things pro-life advocates could do to reduce abortion rates, but they focus on controlling women. My hypothesis here is that the pro-life movement is fundamentally misogynistic, and wholly uninterested in measures that would reduce abortion rates while allowing women to be 1st class Americans. The point is to make women 2nd class Americans again.
I couldn't find what I had in mind, but here's a visualisation of a 1998 meta study[1], where the reasons for abortion are broken down. In the US, abortion due to fears about the mother's health is (eyeballing it) less than 2%, fetus defects? less than 2%, "other" (which presumably include rape)? Less than 1% and that's being generous.
So, the 3 reasons where I support, grudgingly as the lesser evil, abortion account for about 5% of total abortions. 1/20. 19 out of every 20 abortion is because abortion defenders have made baby killing an acceptable contraceptive solution. More than 60% of the cases is one variant or the other of "Baby is too inconvenient", the rest is slightly more defensible versions of it ("mother was too immature", "partner was not ready"). You're, essentially, killing something extremely, dangerously, close to a human, because the very people who brought it to life changed their mind. Why, why did they bring it to life in the first place?
>My point is that there are lots of other, easier things pro-life advocates could do to reduce abortion rates
You don't have the right to tell people how they should fight for their principles. An animal rights activist might choose to educate, or save street animals, or campaign against raising cattle, or blow themselves up in a slaughterhouse. People enact their principles in a variety of ways, you just notice those who choose the methods you find most reprehensible. But this doesn't mean other people aren't doing other things.
>My hypothesis here is that the pro-life movement is fundamentally misogynistic
I'm trying to be charitable here but you're making it extremely difficult, so here are some facts
1- I'm not American, but I can be described to have moderately pro life views, in that I think abortion should be always banned, except for the 3 reasons I listed above, which (after proof) would bypass the ban at any moment in the pregnancy.
2- It's not misogyny to hold women accountable for their actions. Pregnancy is the direct result of the women's actions, it is fair for the woman to bear responsibility for it. Indeed, countless contraceptive variants (male variants soon to exist in mass production) have decoupled pregnancy and consequences of women's actions to a very high degree, so it's even less defensible or justifiable to get pregnant then change your mind. As Progressives are extremely fond of saying in other contexts, "Freedom Doesn't Mean Freedom From Consequences", irresponsible women are as free and as first-class as anyone, they are just not allowed to kill babies for their convenience, especially when they had every chance to prevent that baby from being born in the first place, or wait months and abandon it to someone else.
3-50% or so of women are against abortion in the United States, and men are divided roughly equally, so its remarkable that hating women is this diverse of a position, you would think that it would be more male-skewed than this.
4- Abortion is philosophically complex and a morally treacherous. A big part of my pro life bias is as a counter reaction to the obnoxious moral certainty of the progressive variant of abortion defenders, those who find it morally okay to "shout their abortion" and compare babies to cancer and parasites. I, quite frankly, want to punish those people. If I detect any kind of moral uncertainty or recognition of the fundamental evil you're flirting with when you argue for more permissive abortion, I'm usually inclined to show some moral uncertainty of my own.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion#/media/File%3AAGIAb...
Is your pro-life position such that you only allow an exception for the life/health of the pregnant person, even in the 1st trimester? That's pretty radical.
> You don't have the right to tell people how they should fight for their principles.
Society has the right to balance people's interests. People who can become pregnant have (I think obviously) a huge vested interest in bodily autonomy, as does every free person. The state has to balance that interest--indeed that right--against others' pro-life positions. My argument is that there are lots of compromise measures that actually work to reduce abortion bans without doing things like increasing the death rate of pregnant people [0]. 70% of people who have an abortion are within 2x of the poverty line. It seems like a simple thing we could do is to help these people out financially. It seems like a dumb thing we could do is force these people to give birth and try to raise a child in poverty.
> I'm not American, but I can be described to have moderately pro life views, in that I think abortion should be always banned, except for the 3 reasons I listed above, which (after proof) would bypass the ban at any moment in the pregnancy.
Just to be clear, your views are not moderate, they are extreme. The vast majority of people support unrestricted abortion in the 1st trimester. Further your position--again--leaves no room for problems that occur during pregnancy that require an abortion: fetal abnormalities, the pregnant person gets cancer, fetal death, etc.
> Pregnancy is the direct result of the women's actions
Again you are ignoring assault and problems that occur during pregnancy.
> ...irresponsible women...
Ah, here we are. This is misogyny. Birth control fails. People are assaulted. Some people are in abusive relationships where they're unable to use birth control yet forced to have sex. Please learn about this issue before you start impugning others.
> 3-50% or so of women are against abortion in the United States, and men are divided roughly equally...
This is wrong, or at least wildly unnuanced [1].
> A big part of my pro life bias is as a counter reaction to the obnoxious moral certainty of the progressive variant of abortion defenders, those who find it morally okay to "shout their abortion" and compare babies to cancer and parasites.
I get this. But I think you're taking out your frustration on the wrong people here. There were nearly a million abortions in the US in 2020. Practically none of those people are taking to Twitter and doing the kinds of things you're talking about. They're just people trying to do the right thing in incredibly difficult circumstances. People who seek abortion need our help and care, not our scorn.
> I, quite frankly, want to punish those people.
This is misogyny too.
[0]: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/abortion-restrict...
[1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/244097/legality-abortion-2018-d...
Plus fetus defects and rape/incest/whatever. Those are the only 3 reasons someone may be allowed to kill the future human they brought in my book.
>That's pretty radical.
And that's okay, radicalism is a good thing when the mainstream is morally bankrupt. I also think people shouldn't kill insects unless harmed by them and that animal cruelty's (by adults) punishment is jail and\or death. Those are radical positions, but they are only so because the mainstream doesn't recognize the fundamental evil they are allowing, not because I'm deliberately being a troll or an extremist who go out of my way to become a radical. The simple principle "If something can feel pain, it deserves not to feel pain" can lead you to astonishing mismatches with people and their accepted morality.
>People who can become pregnant...
Women.
>... have a huge vested interest in bodily autonomy
Which they have, right until it affects another person. Nobody is legislating to force women to be pregnant, just that if they do become pregnant, then that's a life over there, and a life that they brought into existence as a result of their actions on top of that (Rape is an explicit exception, I don't have to say this one more time), they don't get to have "Autonomy" over a body that isn't theirs. "But that body is inside theirs" well my friend they put it there, they have to wait till it get out on its own, or until it threatens their own life. Nothing else is acceptable.
>increasing the death rate of pregnant people
Again, they are called women, and my position above (and the vast majority of others) would make sure that their life is never threatened. And the decision we're discussing never said anything about banning abortion in general.
>70% of [Women] who have an abortion are within 2x of the poverty line. It seems like a simple thing we could do is to help these people out financially
And most violent murders is done by poor people to poor people. What should we do first : criminalize murder or help people out of poverty? I would like if we can do both, and if it was up to me I would try the second as hard as I can for as long as I can before the first. But the first has to be done, and now is as good a time as ever.
>It seems like a dumb thing we could do is force these people to give birth and try to raise a child in poverty
As an anti-natalist, there is nothing I would like more than people to stop having children, especially children they will drag into poverty. But the solution is not to legalize killing proto babies, this argument will lead you to "We should bomb children in Afghanistan and Syria, since they have a vastly lower quality of life waiting for them", and who knows, maybe that's correct, but even I, moral radical as I'm, am not yet ready to accept that.
Acceptable solutions can be
- Widespread popular education and contraceptive availability
- Societal shame around having children when you're poor
- Adoption
>your position leaves no room for problems that occur during pregnancy that require an abortion: fetal abnormalities, the pregnant person gets cancer, fetal death, etc.
>you are ignoring assault and problems that occur during pregnancy.
I don't know why you keep saying that when I have repeatedly said that all those should be exceptions to any abortion ban. Every single one of those things is one of the 3 (and only 3) reasons I think abortion should be allowed, *at any time in the 9 months*.
>This is misogyny.
Very well then, so let it be. I'm a misogynist.
>Birth control fails
Not in 99.9% of the cases when you use it correctly, responsibly and redundantly, and the rest is an acceptable risk that you bear the consequences of when you accept it.
>People are assaulted. >Some people are in abusive relationship
So rape? It's a good thing then that this is one of the very important exceptions, as I said about 3 or 4 times now.
>They're just people trying to do the right thing in incredibly difficult circumstances. People who seek abortion need our help and care, not our scorn.
And we help them by, among countless other things, making it illegal to do the wrong thing. Nobody decent benefits from convenience abortion.
>> I, quite frankly, want to punish those people. >This is misogyny too.
Thank you, I will wear it proudly. It's my utmost pride and pleasure to hate people who don't respect life, life that they're the reason it exists in the first place. If hating the subset of women who are like that is misogyny, then misogyny is a moral duty.
I think the position that the zygote is where the rights start is bad. I concede it is where life starts, but life is just not a very good designation for that. If anything it should be about suffering or a nervous system - something beyond just replicating cells.
Since vast majority of abortions happen in the early stages anyway, often the late stage ones are particularly tragic situations where the mother wanted to carry the baby to term, but can't for health reasons. It's why I'm in favor of broad rights and think that despite the fact it is ending a life, we're better off on net for women to retain that capability (the state shouldn't be getting involved).
I can understand a reasonable person disagreeing and thinking at some point the fetus is developed enough and shouldn't be terminated without cause (basically the law in Denmark, France, etc.). I think that's why it's probably healthy to have this fought out democratically rather than legislated via the courts.
There isn't a constitutional right, there's a good-faith disagreement, and the finding of a constitutional right in Roe was always a bit tortured [0] and the blow back from this has been unhealthy for our democracy (imo).
This is a nuanced position that doesn't fit well into partisan politics, it's also a third rail topic - but it's where I've ultimately landed (for now).
- people are forced to give birth against their will
- people are not
Saying this is a State issue or that it should be decided legislatively ignores that this is a fundamental human rights issue for people who can become pregnant. No legislative regime should be able to force someone to give birth against their will.
There's a "but what about the rights of the fetus" argument, but here again you're faced with two unsatisfying possibilities:
- you allow exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the pregnant person, thus subsuming the right of life of the fetus to the rights of the pregnant person to self-determination based on circumstance, which is wildly inconsistent
- you allow no exceptions, which is wildly extreme
So again, granting individual rights to a fetus is a radical position that our society largely won't accept. It moots the conception of "when does life begin", or, I would actually argue that society has pretty much decided this already:
- Society does not support killing children
- Society supports abortion in the case of rape, incest, or to save the life of the pregnant person
- Society agrees abortion does not kill a child
(again see here that deciding that a fetus is a child if it was not the result of rape/incest, or its carrier will survive the pregnancy is wholly irrational)
I'd actually push back on this - I don't think it's that inconsistent. There's obviously a real different between a fetus at various stages of development and a child, but that doesn't mean it has to be binary yes or no. It's possible to try to have policy that understands the tradeoffs here and tries to get the best outcome we can despite them even though it's messy. It's why I think "life" isn't the right determinant.
So it's not about deciding if the fetus is a child or not, it's about considering the utilitarian tradeoffs when you take into account its development, suffering, and the suffering and developments of the mother.
That said, again my personal position is it's better on net for society to allow women full discretion here - but I don't think these kinds of casual constraints are irrational or inconsistent.
Oh, I personally believe that and I think most people do. Sorry, maybe we've lost the plot on this a little:
> The critical difference is the individual rights of the fetus.
I argue that society has already decided this. Nearly all abortions occur in the 1st trimester, and nearly all abortions occurring afterward are in tragic circumstances. This is all squarely within what Americans support.
> I think that's why it's probably healthy to have this fought out democratically rather than legislated via the courts.
I argue that the constitutional rights of the embryo/fetus (such as they are) do not outweigh the constitutional rights of the pregnant person. If someone thinks an embryo/fetus has rights, they have to contend with a bunch of unpalatable things [0] (criminalizing many popular forms of birth control, IVF, the morning after pill, miscarriages, stillbirths, etc.). At the most extreme end--personhood--they have to either defend a brutal no exceptions regime, or an inconsistent exceptions regime where you're deciding whether or not an embryo/fetus is alive based on some irrelevant circumstances.
> So it's not about deciding if the fetus is a child or not, it's about considering the utilitarian tradeoffs when you take into account its development, suffering, and the suffering and developments of the mother.
But again, I also argue that society has already decided this. We actually agree with the current regime: nearly all abortions occur in the 1st trimester, and nearly all abortions occurring afterward are in tragic circumstances. Why do we need to punt this to the States? Why are States rushing to put stricter and stricter controls on abortion?
The answer is that Republicans fomented a moral panic in the 70s in order to pull evangelical votes. They proceeded to push misinformation into the public about abortion, the kind of people who get abortions, and why they get abortions. This distorted the public view. Again, in reality the state of abortion is what the vast majority of Americans support. There's no need for this to be an issue anywhere. It's a wedge issue pushed by a craven political party in order to gain power. That's literally the beginning and end of it.
[0]: https://harvardcrcl.org/the-many-problems-of-personhood/
Birth is caused by pregnancy. Pregnancy is caused by sex.
There’s a simple way to avoid being “forced” to carry a pregnancy to term: either don’t have sex, or use one of the many contraceptive methods - use two if you are really worried!
Yes this doesn’t work in all cases, in cases of rape for instance - but that is why abortion laws often make exceptions for rape, fetal abnormality, risk to life of the mother, etc. Abortion is not the binary black-and-white issue that is presented in American politics, most countries have quite some nuance in their law on abortion.
Returning to the case of merely undesired pregnancies, restricting those abortions does not force anybody to do anything, it commits them to the logical consequence of their action that resulted in the creation of a new human.
Balancing the rights of the mother and the rights of the unborn is the responsibility of the law. It is not satisfactory to cede all rights to the mother, nor to cede all rights to the unborn child, as the two extremist positions in the US seem to want to do.
Roe and Casey actually both balanced the state's interest in fetal life with the mothers liberty, Roe with the trimester framework and Casey with the viability line. I urge you to actually read them.
It might also surprise you that these laws tend to be strongly supported by Republicans. For example, this bill cosponsored by all Rs that (failed) to make it enforced Federally: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/116/s3236
At which point a fetus is a person? We do kind of have an answer to this, when it's viable outside of the mother's body.
If we keep going down the rabbit hole of fetus rights, it gets real ugly. Is contraception murder? Is plan b murder? Does having a miscarriage warrant an investigation? Should we prosecute a fetus that absorbed it's twin in-utero? What about IVF and thousands of embryos that are thrown out? What about stem cells?
That said, I don't think a constitutional right exists and the Roe decision that found one was somewhat tortured (even RBG said as much early in her career iirc).
Given that this should be argued democratically and via policy. I'm in favor of federal protections that raise the minimum bar to what Europe has and prevents states from enacting all-out bans. I also can see reasonable disagreement about later stage abortion rights for the reasons I mentioned above.
It's a messy issue, it's not the job of SCOTUS to legislate these kinds of issues and I think having done so here has ultimately led to a more polarized situation where we're worse off. Fighting this out democratically is probably healthier for our democracy.
For those that don't want to click:
> "Abortion in Denmark was fully legalized on 1 October 1973,[1] allowing the procedure to be done on-demand if a woman's pregnancy has not exceeded its 12th week. Under Danish law, the patient must be over the age of 18 to decide on an abortion alone; parental consent is required for minors, except in special circumstances. An abortion can be performed after 12 weeks if the woman's life or health are in danger. A woman may also be granted an authorization to abort after 12 weeks if certain circumstances are proved to be present (such as poor socioeconomic condition of the woman, risk of birth defects in the baby, the pregnancy being the result of rape, or mental health risk to mother)."
That's a lot more restrictive than the US was prior to this recent decision.
There is no right to abortion in the constitution, Roe argued a path to one but it was fairly weak (https://overcast.fm/+vpWZx2bsc).
It was overturned because it's not the court's job to legislate policy beyond that.
Part of the reason for that is it creates policy which cannot be reverted by democratic means (except by the kind of extremes we've seen recently) - that's why it's better on net if it's narrow in scope and tied to constitutional rights (imo).
IANAL so this is at the edge of my knowledge, but that's my understanding. There is a path to adding things to the constitution, but that power lies with congress.
States could impose restrictions on how and when abortion is performed. I agree with you, that third trimester on-demand abortions are ludicrous btw.
I however do not have that rosy of a perspective that this was overturned due to technicality and that in fact women's rights are about to be stripped the fuck away.
I think broad access to abortion for women is important, but I think Roe finding that this protection exists as a constitutional right just isn't correct. If we want there to be a constitutional protection there needs to be an amendment. Short of that we need to pass legislation federally.
Otherwise it's up to states and constituents within those states to fight it out democratically.
I was happy with the outcome from Roe because it protected a lot of vulnerable women who will now unfairly suffer consequences, but I still intellectually think it was wrongly decided. Now we're suffering the consequences of that.
Had Roe not been decided this way maybe there wouldn't have been as extreme a push to get Trump in office at all costs? It would reduce the political nature of SCOTUS and allow for relief valves - people can fight out the issues democratically. Obviously this can't happen in cases where constitutional rights are legitimately infringed, but again the finding of a constitutional right to abortion was tenuous at best.
We need to get into law the things we care about - that's how the system is supposed to work.
But I do think that leaving abortion rights up to states will work out terribly. It's kind of like letting states decide if women should be allowed to vote
If this is your concern, shouldn't you be furious that Roe v Wade stood in the way of 50 years of progress in preventing that? The democratic process could have been improving women's rights for all that time. This is exactly what happened with LGBT rights in that time - much less than that time, in fact. Instead this judicial block was in place which was like clamping down the lid on the democratic pressure cooker, preventing any kind of progress by preventing dialogue.
Maybe I'm missing the point, but what "progress" do we need to be making? Women had access to reproductive care for the past 50 years, and now they won't. Doesn't sound like progress to me
That doesn't sound like facts to me.
When one side of the debate does nothing but spew nonsensical falsehoods, it's really easy to pick a side even when it seemed morally ambiguous before. Even easier when I'm agreeing with RBG.
Second, Denmark citizens have universal healthcare making it easier to access procedures, pregnancy testing, etc.
Third, prior to the ruling some states only had 1 abortion center state-wide. As well as rules requiring day long waiting periods, anti-abortion counseling, etc.
Imagine how access looks different when you must save up for months, travel 3 hours to visit a clinic, rent a motel for the night for the waiting period, and all while trying to not miss any days at work.
Hope that helps convey that rather dry comparisons of the weeks of various international statutes is a far cry from determining whether one system is “a lot more restrictive” than another.
I never understood this argument. There is no baby that is "viable" (able to survive on their own) (well, to be honest, most adults aren't either), and parents are required to care for them (and criminally liable if they fail to do so).
What I am sayin here is that if there was a process by which we could take an unwanted fetus and implant it into someone else / allow that child to exist outside of the physical body of a person that doesn't want it, then sure, that is possibly a better alternative to abortion. Short of that, people should not be forcing other people to give births against their will.
Babies are viable when they can survive with help from any adult. Before some fetal age, they are completely dependent on the body of the mother - if they are removed from it, no matter how gently, they will die (perhaps there is some way to make a fetal transplant, but that wouldn't necessarily change the equation so much).
Once past some age (and especially after birth), they just need someone to take care of them, it doesn't have to be their mother.
Wouldn't it then make more sense to require the mother to take care for the fetus/baby before the age of viability (as she's the only one who can), not after that (and/or after birth) when anyone can? Right now, it's the reverse.
Now, the viability standard is important because it is very hard to consider a non-viable entity "a person" in any serious sense. If it can't even perform the basic functions of its organism, how can it be considered to have rights, and has never been able to do so, how can it be considered a person?
Reproductive rights are fundamental to women's liberty and equality. They should be protected by the courts like many other fundamental rights, not subject to the whims of political majorities.
I know the argument gets overplayed, but there is something to be said about the fact that Roe was decided by nine white men.
As a result abortion is a very minor political issue. Some people want more or less restrictions, and occasionally rules get adjusted.
If the Supreme Court hadn't suddenly decided to commandeer this issue in 1973, I think the US could also have been like that, and hopefully after a few dramatic years we can get there.
That is not true, at all. It is a small minority that want abortion to be illegal. And of course it's a moral question. What isn't? Quit legitimatizing these minority political groups, as if they have ever considered a moral position in their life or can even describe what morality is.
The U.S. is not a democracy by definition, and certainly not one in practice. The problem with people hiding behind this as a "democratic process decision" is that that they are ignoring the fact that the Republicans absolutely refuse to participate in democratic proceedings and work to pass a law in Congress giving people the rights they deserve. Republicans, with the support of a minority in this country, are holding the U.S. hostage. What's insane, is that the Republicans make life harder for this very minority and blame it on everyone else.
Abortion is actually not a complex issue. It is a tough issue but not a complex issue.
The U.S. is reaching Middle East versions of extremism.
You're free to argue it's an immoral or unjust opinion, or argue it's an opinion that is not internally consistent with their other political opinions....
But to downplay the size of the cohort to diminish the opinion is unproductive in reaching an amenable outcome.
So, I don't think it's myself who is out of touch. I came from rural America. I went to high school with people and my extended family who all are still there. I would consider rural America out of touch with basically anyone else in the world. They want to drag down America with nostalgia for a dream that never existed while they vote for the very people who put and keep them in the predicaments they are in. They and the Republicans are as un-American as it gets. Nothing they stand for is inline with the constitution or America's principles.
But even then, up to 12 weeks, no questions asked, 12 - 18 weeks under very specific circumstances (incest, rape and such) and afterwards pretty much limited to if the mothers life is at risk (altough, preferably a C-section or something similar) seems like a good compromise.
The repeal of RvW allows states to implement no questions asked abortions for up to birth, along with allowing states to ban it altogether, rather than the previous state of the law.
The vast majority (~80%) are within the first 12 weeks anyway, the later ones usually have extenuating circumstances and third trimester was already banned (without cause) in most cases anyway.
I'm pretty sure polling also shows most Americans have some nuanced view on this that sits somewhere in this range.
People, in general, usually have pretty nuanced views. Altough, I personally have seen quite a few cases where people became more hardlined on certain issues after seeing the "oppositions" behaviour on it. (Anti gun people being more hardlined after seeing that pro gun ones go to the range with their kids, for example.)
1. Resolve to both-sideism
2. Think we need more moderates (lol)
3. Think progress is the default if you just give it enough time
The United States is a Republic not a democracy.
These are not mutually exclusive. The US is a republic and a democracy.
The United States is substantively an oligarchic republic that has the superficial form of a rather distorted democratic republic (and representative democracy) and which likes to rhetorically appeal to democratic ideology, particularly as the entire justification for the government having any legitimate authority at all.
So, it isn’t a democracy, but it is entirely fair to criticize its failure to be one and insist that it ought to fix that proble, since its entire claim to legitimacy rests on it being a democracy as well as a republic.
Yes, it is a _representative_ democracy, as are most democracies around the world. We could be talking about the means to achieve such representation, and the legitimacy of such means, but by definition, it is still a republic _and_ a democracy, flawed or not.
Except in the US where it is the rule of the minority:
* https://www.vox.com/2018/9/12/17850980/democracy-tyranny-min...
* https://harpers.org/archive/2017/03/tyranny-of-the-minority/
* https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/guest-commentary/os-...
* https://www.politico.com/story/2009/03/the-tyranny-of-the-mi...
No, not this "democracy." The supermajority of supreme court justices were mostly seated by presidents who lost the popular vote. This ruling is incredibly unpopular among citizens of the US, but the court is also pro-gerrymandering, so the unpopularity is unlikely to have any real impact on elections. The country is rapidly hurtling towards religious authoritarianism, and the checks and balances to prevent that have largely been dismantled.
See the redistricting of North Carolina
> so the unpopularity is unlikely to have any real impact on elections
Or maybe it isn't as unpopular as you think?
> The country is rapidly hurtling towards religious authoritarianism, and the checks and balances to prevent that have largely been dismantled.
Yes of course, because religious authoritarianism == allowing democratically elected state officials to determine their own state laws
If anything is authoritarian, it's the insistence on the court creating federal "laws" where there is no majority in congress. If you want abortion protection, pass it through congress
Except when the same court in the same week strikes down a state law that makes it marginally more effort to carry a concealed weapon in public.
Did the law actually require connections, or was the law being applied unfairly? If the latter, the correct solution would be to force the law be applied fairly, not just throw out the entire law. Of course, the people who complain about "activist judges" are fine with judges legislating from the bench as long when it's in a way that furthers their agenda...
That's essentially what Bruen decided.
NYC required arbitrary permission from a person rather than just meeting the requirements and following a written process. It also required a special need, distinguishable from the general public; where "special" was left to interpretation.
In one county in California, it was even worse, where it was widely known that the way to get permits was to donate to the sheriff's campaign or furnish the sheriff's office with cool tech and perks.
After Bruen, there still can be a licensing process, but it must be written, and available to everyone who follows the process. Maybe it will be a two-hour safety seminar and some fingerprinting, or maybe it will be a 3 week tactical training course and a blood sample.
Frankly, the decision itself to strike the law was correct, regardless of your political affiliation. It's also fairly low impact... no mass shooter or gangster bothers with a permit anyway (certainly not the racist Buffalo shooter, who wasn't deterred by lack of a permit). Other problems like suicide are entirely unaffected.
The impact comes from the opinion, which sets precedent for how all other firearm laws will be evaluated. If you believe that government should really be in charge of guns, then you aren't going to like it.
To summarize:
- We need those babies to offset huge demographic changes in the US population. Not enough babies are being born to offset the aging population.
- Women having abortions earlier in life, and having babies later, is negatively affecting the health of the next generation. Autism, Downs and other diseases are all linked to the age of the mother.
- Abortion advocates do themselves no favours by advocating for abortion almost up to the moment of brith. Its about public opinion, and the opinion on when a baby becomes viable has shift due to science. Babies can survive outside the womb much earlier.
-Abortion takes out about 600,000+ babies per year in the US. About 40% of all US abortions are from African American communities. Whether you think this is good or bad, depends if you view abortion to be a good or bad thing. A lot of racists eugenists are hating this decision. So they're not happy with this either. So abortion can be viewed as racist policy because its end effect is killing so many black babies.
And abortion has absolutely had significant impacts on racism - but that racism pre-dates abortion.
- Remove fear of healthcare costs. All children can use Medicare. Cover pregnancy too.
- Stop worries about schools. Bring all schools up to an acceptable level. Hire teachers at underperforming schools until the number of adults is high enough to handle extreme bad behavior and give every child a shot at a decent classroom experience.
- Paid leave. Make it feasible to have a kid in your 20s without tanking your career. Have it come from social security, so you don't have to plan your pregnancy around which company you want to work for.
- Fix housing costs. Make it easy to afford a nice house in your 20s, so having a kid doesn't feel like adding to an ongoing disaster.
The list of things you could do to encourage having kids goes on and on. Of course you could just force pregnancies on the unwilling instead, if that's the kind of person you want to be.
- Who is going to pay for this, when the glut of your most productive workers (tax base) is about to retire. US demographics don't support a larger tax base, but a smaller into the near future.
- People don't have babies because they live in cities. And cities are expensive to live, and space is at a premium. US already has near the highest standard of living in the world. Yet it can't overcome cities being expensive places to live. This is kind of universal.
- We are facing a period where Globalization is coming under sever strain. This points to lower standards of living in the future not higher. Look at the price of energy in Europe for instance. All the things you propose would require more people to pay more taxes, at a time when inflation and cost of living is going up.
I do believe that the birth rate will go up, but that might be if the supply chains break apart due to conflicts around the world. Then more people will be forced to move out to country just to survive. And having more space would lead to more babies being born, since kids are useful on farms.
If we're reducing this to money, who will pay for the ongoing costs of unwanted children and the results of the risk factors they'll be exposed to?
As you said, the Judiciary is the least democratic, the nominations came from Presidents whom were elected by a minority of voters and confirmed by the Senate, using a minority of the voting populace of the country (because, slavery essentially)
It's awful all around.
I’m sorry but this feels entirely divorced from reality. The nature of the senate, the continued erosion of voting rights… we’re not going to see democratic traction in a system that actively opposes it.
Framers likely would have claimed that private citizens should be able to own working tanks (gun and all). They believed in a monopoly of violence solely predicated on the ability to muster an army, not on bans of certain types of weapons.
But maybe we shouldn't give a fk about framers intent. That's where the real debate should be on...
Suppose I come along and assault you, you defend yourself, and then someone comes along and tells you that you are as much to blame as the person who assaulted you. Are they accurate, or just squeamish?
Moderates generally lack any firm convictions or anchoring principles beyond maintaining equanimity, and so contribute mightily to shifting of overton windows and ethical drift, where increasingly flawed outcomes are excused in the name of avoiding controversy. Consider the the atrocities perpetrated pursuant to the Iraq war, for which nobody but the very lowest ranks (and only a few of them) have ever been held accountable.
I respect my ideological enemies more than this panglossian excuse-making. At least those people stand for something.
That's one way to put it. Here's another to think about: moderates lack rigid principles and avoid ideological convictions.
People on the extremes of both sides have a tendency to "paint." They paint the opposing view as monsters, and they paint people with independent views as "lacking convictions."
It is not accurate.
Moderates are simply conflict averse and don't consider that there is anything worth fighting for, ever. Unscrupulous extremists rely on them as a strategic buffer, because they are easy to manipulate. Neville Chamberlain was a moderate.
You're successfully proving my point from the comment above: you're painting folks who don't share your views. This does you a disservice as you can't possibly understand the arguments. There are many, many ways in which a person can be a Moderate or a particular topic can have a moderate viewpoint.
The cure for this affliction (of imagining your opponents and creating personifications in your head) is to diversify your conversational and reading sources.
Nice attempt at well-poisoning. You'll excuse me if I don't engage with the sophistry that follows.
Perhaps it's you who should broaden your reading sources, as people's behavior is much more amenable to objective analysis than you seem to be aware of. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451
"Moderate is an ideological category which designates a rejection of radical or extreme views, especially in regard to politics and religion.[1][2] A moderate is considered someone occupying any mainstream position avoiding extreme views and major social change. In United States politics, a moderate is considered someone occupying a centre position on the left–right political spectrum."
Very uncontroversial take by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_moderate
The pinning of subjective elements and personality traits to your political opponents is as dangerous as it is unscientific (and people both on the right and the left do this).
Idk about this. Maybe they just think things are currently pretty good, and that the other options would be worse. I think democrats are largely on the right track. Just enough regulation to ensure market failures are fixed, broad social policy to do what you like as long as it doesn't harm others, a safety net that helps those who are down while encouraging everyone to work hard for the better of society.
Moderates also tend to run as independent candidates. Ross Perot is probably best known in the US.
It is difficult to successfully invest resources contra the two party system in the US, though. I think it’s a legitimate pragmatic decision to try to influence from within one of the two parties.
I think it’s a legitimate pragmatic decision to try to influence from within one of the two parties.
So, sit in the middle and say 'both parties are too extreme' while bargaining with both for concessions and refusing to organize outside that framework, even though moderates/swing voters consider themselves to be the largest political bloc. That seems like perpetuating the system you complain about for profit, which is exactly what I complained about in the first place - a lack of any identifiable principle. You mention 'principles that the extremes of the parties don't prioritize.' What are they? Where are your red lines?
Moderates also tend to run as independent candidates. Ross Perot is probably best known in the US.
Ross Perot ran 30 years ago, since when we have been through two major wars, a huge financial crisis (and multiple smaller recessions), a pandemic, and a constitutional crisis. No outside candidate has mounted a serious challenge since then. Plus he was only able to do that because he was independently very wealthy.
I have posted this article about polarization here many times since it was published and all I ever hear from moderates is how bad it is, so bad that nobody can do anything about it. Moderates' unwillingness to anchor themselves to anything is a major contributor to the problem of polarization. https://www.vox.com/2015/4/23/8485443/polarization-congress-...
I do see specific suggestions from moderates. A lot of them have to do with campaign finance reform. Others have to do with alternate voting systems, like ranked choice. Ranked choice can be advantageous to extreme parties, of course, but they also make 2-3 more self-aware middle parties possible because they can stay in power as the #2 or #3 choice without having to engage in tug-of-war.
I agree that personal wealth is an unfortunate limitation to anyone seeking to run as whatever is in vogue D or R. I only mentioned Ross Perot to remind you of a well-known independent candidate. The 90s were a long time ago, yes!
Both of the proposals you mention are valuable and would do a lot to improve politics, narrow as they are. It would be great if there were an identifiable group clearly advocating for those approaches, whether within or outside existing party lines.
Think about a situation where your race was being genocided in a neighboring country. The fastest way to stop it would be to engage in war. Now if you lose, genocide goes on, you have no recourse and your country is vulnerable to exploitation.
Instead, you can use economic levers. Maybe wait for your armed forces to be strong enough to go to war. Wait for winter and destroy food reserves. Maybe strike a deal to have your race only be 'persecuted' instead of genocided. Maybe fund militia instead.
All of these are suboptimal moderate outcomes. All of these lead to some loss of life or huge losses of freedom.for the people you want to save. But it avoids the worst case outcome. Majority of your race stil lives.
Moderates aren't spineless. Rathe, they understand that their agency is limited and you pull levers that are within said agency. If you try to climb a mountain that's too tall, it will lead to your demise.
Idealists want to be olympic gymnasts at 30. Moderates make peace with being a Yoga teacher. That's not spinelessness, that's wisdom.
the point of being a moderate is picking and choosing which policies from which party you support and which ones you don't. The insistence that everyone decide between one of two party lines is what's driving this country towards civil war
By contrast a centrist always takes the middling, compromising position at the middle of that Overton window. It's centrists that contribute to ethical drift.
Hopefully that won't possibly happen. But we'll see in 2024.
I'm reading this comment, and many others, and I am in awe, just how utterly heartless and soulless people are on Hacker News.
I’m not sure why I clicked this thread, these responses were predictably awful.
This ruling in particular has be viewed through a wider scope, and not just the narrow lens of "people are divisive".
Their recent ruling interfering with New York states own policy on concealed carries best represents the courts hypocrisy - if a state makes a ruling and has a certain level of autonomy and power to do so, why is the SC overruling them here when its nearly just as divisive as abortion?
Additionally - the ruling is made within a very narrow scope, against common scientific and healthcare advice. It's also likely the ruling was made with strong bias and in bad favor as many of the justices themselves are not duly qualified to sit on the bench which they sit, and the ruling subsequently falls in line with a serious of previously strongly conservative rulings that defy prior precedent and the SC's own interpretation of autonomy, law, and previous rulings.
There is really no way to justify their ruling.
Polarization is a bit of mysterious character because we see a very strong, radical right wing forcing changes down to the county level in terms of gerrymandering, up to the level of presidential cabinet where federal crimes were committed without any consequence.
We don't hear of Democrats who, after losing a race complain of fraud and refuse to accept the results. That's a very Republican thing to do.
So, polarization is mysterious because there is a fast growing anti-intellectual, religious radicalism spirit and a fairly unchanged "populist" left wing. I.e. the left is mostly unchanged from 20 years ago, whereas the right has gone through a sharp and dramatic change in the same period.
Thomas Paine, an example of a radical leftists in his own time by the standards of his day, is extremely well regarded today despite dying in relative obscurity and relative poverty.
It's the radical right wing that history will take a dim view on. The left can be secure in their control of posterity.
I don't know much about Paine, but trends are pretty clear.
(Right-wing populists have a similarly spotty record, but that just proves my point of a dim view of both sides in this era)
That is naive, given that we've already seen over the past several years that this has already been shown to be true. When the GOP is in power, new justices are appointed solely based on political appointment. Their qualifications as judges seem to be irrelevant, as long as they support the party platform. When the GOP controls the Senate, they invent "rules" around which president gets to earn confirmation, and then break their own "rules" when it suits them.
> The same state rights that allow gun control [...] to be locally legalized before national concensus
Look again: SCOTUS is getting more brazen in overturning state gun control laws. This is just a consequence of what I've said above: the politically-appointed justices loudly cry "states' rights!" when it suits their platform, and quietly ignore state sovereignty when it suits them. Consider also that the GOP has been even more loudly talking about legislation for a nationwide abortion ban. Same playbook: claim the removal of a federal law is a victory for states' rights, but then turn around and try to enact the opposite law at the federal level in order to block the states from making their own choice.
> Now, the rural republican votes counting for more in the senate is a huge issue and threat to democracy that the US needs to figure out if it ever wants to represent the views of the people.
This is the key issue. The US government will never reflect the will of the people as long as the Senate is composed as it is. Procedural garbage like the filibuster make the body even more ineffective and useless. My prediction here is that as soon as the GOP regains control of the Senate, once they get another taste of obstruction, they'll hypocritically kill the filibuster, despite all their current rhetoric around how it's essential to the Senate.
> The jaded side of me says: vote in more moderates that are willing to strike compromises.
The issue here is that what you are calling "hyperprogressive activists" are not really all that "hyper" anything when you consider the rest of the democratic world. A US "moderate" would be considered fairly conservative in many other Western democracies. When I talk to friends who are members of various minority groups about this, they dismiss more "center-left" candidates immediately: none of these candidates have the courage (or desire) to work on civil rights and equality.
I absolutely agree with you that political polarization is at an all-time high, and most far-left/right politicians seem to be more interested in stoking outrage and provoking their opponents than in actually creating positive outcomes.
I don't really know what the solution is. It's hard to just tell everyone, en masse, to just calm the fuck down and stop assuming anyone on the other side of the aisle is an evil demon who wants to destroy the others' way of life. I'm guilty of this sometimes myself, but I'm really trying to understand where some of these people are coming from. It's hard. It's really hard.
> In the long run, history will have a dim view of this era of global polarization with all political sides to blame.
I understand the sentiment here, and what drives it, but I think it's bad to ignore that there are differences between how the two sides act. They're both terrible, and have many terrible policy platforms, but I think it's worth considering that one party seems more interested in taking people's rights and equal treatment away (or denying "new" rights that should have been rights all along) than the other.
I feel like people have this view today that whatever the majority says is how things should be. That is not justice.
There is some irony to this statement as the Supreme Court just the other day released a ruling that denied a state this ability with regards to gun control laws.
This opinion is about as uninformed as it can be. Currently the US is run by "moderate" Democrats, and extremist Republicans; the Right cries wolf every time the moderates do anything, and the moderates capitulate. If we look at American politics through your lens it makes zero sense.
We no longer live in a democracy and haven't really since 1978 with Buckley v. Valeo; increased by the recent supreme court decision in favor of Senator Cruz. There's a strong disconnect between what voters want and what happens in the halls of power, and it is increasing. The reality is that if you can donate to a senator enough you get "democracy".
Not to be too hyperbolic, but for the average person we really do live in a plutocracy.
Promoting the both-sides falsehood could help bring the sides together, but it amounts to letting the looters keep their loot to stop the rioting.
EDIT: As expected, my centrist and realist take that advocates for both sides coming together gets a downvote. I wonder which side that came from :)
Speaking as an outsider on American politics, it seems to me that it won't be figured out democratically. If it was done democratically, on a nationwide vote, abortion would easily stay legal.
What will actually happen is that the decision will be referred to states, where government is elected on small turnouts, in gerrymandered divisions, heavily influenced by untrue TV propaganda funded by billionaires, and in many cases elected based on supposed economic reasons, not any moral ones.
The effective result is that vulnerable young women will be forced to carry unwanted babies to term at the cost of great suffering to themselves and the resultant children.
> with all political sides to blame.
I can only see one side to blame here.
> If it was done democratically, on a nationwide vote, abortion would easily stay legal.
Direct democracy is not the only form of democracy. It has many problems.
1. legislative lines for the state and federal areas look like a kindergardner drawing squigglies
2. When many states do everything they can to find reasons to disqualify valid voters
3. When felons are not legally able to vote, even after their time is served
4. When massive amounts of money come in from republican businesses to significantly sway elections
5. When massive lies and half-truths are put out in the media thanks to the massive money
That just doesn't look like a democracy. What it is? I don't know.
This weakening of civil rights at the Federal level allows those Americans who are sexist to enact sexist laws where they have concentrated power within State boundaries.
Welcome to "The Divided States"
Having said that, I think national legislation is probably not the most effective way forward for the pro-choice movement. All that will do is continue to galvanize the pro life side.
Please cite the Constitutional power authorizing this, restricting it to powers that will hold up under the present Court against a state asserting the absence of Constitutional federal authority and infringement of powers reserved under the 10th Amendment.
It can't be the power to enforce the 14th Amendment, because abortion as a right within that has been ruled out.
A hyperexpansive view of the Commerce Clause?
No, codification is a fools errand.
"On the question of abortion, the Constitution is therefore neither pro-life nor pro-choice. The Constitution is neutral and leaves the issue for the people and their elected representatives to resolve through the democratic process in the States or Congress — like the numerous other difficult questions of American social and economic policy that the Constitution does not address".
...
"After today’s decision, the nine Members of this Court will no longer decide the basic legality of pre-viability abortion for all 330 million Americans. That issue will be resolved by the people and their representatives in the democratic process in the States or Congress."
If you think there is a basis in the Constitution for Congressional authority to protect abortion against state prohibition that this Court would uphold against a State challenge, please present the specific Constitutional grant of authority.
80 years ago in Wickard the Court said Congress could regulate a Guy growing an acre of wheat for his family because, if everyone did it, it would affect interstate commerce.
Abortion affects population, which affects interstate commerce.
Nobody in power is trying to put an end to it. In fact, media and institutions are trying to push the anger and divide further. I think most people realize this and this is why there are so many conspiracies out there as to why things have gotten this bad.
In my opinion, it's too late. Corruption of society of this level CANNOT be fixed. In a perfect world, everyone would chill out and realize they are fighting over what is essentially first world problems. But people have become trained to the point of abandoning reasoning, common sense, and good faith to prop up their tribes. We now have an entire generation that thinks this is all normal. It won't end well and this is exactly what our enemies wanted.
sigh...
one side is calling the other side pedophile child groomers sex trafficking children in the basement of pizza parlours....
No, the Constitution is an affirmative powers document first and foremost; it enumerates all the things the federal government can do. The amendments (and a very few provisions of the base Constitution) include some negative rights as well, some directly applicable against the federal government, some against the State governments (and some of the former have been found to be implicitly included in some of the latter, though that is fairly explicitly under attack right now.)
How do you compromise on issues like same sex marriage? It's pretty binary: gay people have the same rights as straight people, or they don't. With Justice Thomas's suggestion to relitigate Obergefell, this is exactly where we stand.
The problem with this reasoning is that the democratic process has been successfully gerrymandered in many states to a point where "the voting majority " is longer in a position to truly decide.
I get the foundational point you're trying to make (about states' rights having value), at least as a concept. But if you're of the belief that "if the voting majority truly cares" then over time the situation will mostly right itself -- and millions of women of all income levels (not just the poor) will not have to suffer the direst of consequences, while you sit back and wait for your prediction to come true -- you are very tragically mistaken.
But, the Supreme Court should not be responsible for managing dysfunction in other branches of govt.
Simply put, you are imputing a motive to the 1973 Court that wasn't there. The 1973 decision was made on foundational grounds (having to do with a certain constitutional amendment which, something tells me, you also believe very strongly in the value of), and in view of competing interests.
You can question the wisdom of the decision all you like, but the idea that it was handed down to "manage the dysfunction of other branches of govt" is supported neither by the factual history of the case -- nor by the Court's own writings at the time the decision was made.
Our country is based on rule of law. And a lot of that body of law is established by a body of past precedent. These precedents extend back nearly 1000 years, and are part of a web of what is called Common Law. The Supreme Court's unique authority and main job is continuing to add to and clarify that precedent.
What the Supreme Court is doing now is overturning long-established precedent. Originalism can be used to overturn virtually any past precedent you don't like. It is hard to overstate how much. Let me quote one of the current supreme court justices on the topic (see https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi for the full context):
Adherence to originalism arguably requires, for example, the dismantling of the administrative state, the invalidation of paper money, and the reversal of Brown v. Board of Education. Originalists have been pressed to either acknowledge that their theory could generate major disruption or identify a principled exception to their insistence that judges are bound to enforce the Constitution’s original public meaning.
Her solution to this is:
No one is likely to ask the Supreme Court to rethink arguably nonoriginalist decisions like the constitutionality of the Social Security Administration, paper money, or segregated public schools—and if anyone did ask, the Court would deny certiorari.
In other words, the limit on how much of the fabric of current law the current court can dismantle is to be found in the restraint of the justices in being willing to avoid hard questions, and not in the reasoning process that they apply to their decisions. But these things tend to be a slippery slope. The more of our rule of law that they undermine, the more that they will come to see it as reasonable to undermine more rule of law. And the more chaos that they create, the less willing everyone else will be to go along with what they said.
Did the Devil somehow run out of enthusiastic advocates?
Because it doesn’t seem that way, on this issue or more generally.
The Republicans have successfully infiltrated state legislatures, gerrymandered and some states now are effectively under one-party rule. Take Wisconsin [1] as an example:
> Back in 2018, Republicans lost the popular vote in the state Senate races by 52.3 percent to 46.9 percent, yet gained two seats for a 19-14 majority. In the state Assembly, they lost the popular vote 53.0 to 44.8, yet lost only one seat to retain a 63-36 supermajority
This gerymandering also affects Congressional maps. And the Senate [2]?
> ... the Senate will be split 50-50, but the Democratic half will represent 41,549,808 more people than the Republican half.
In the wake of 2020, red states have passed laws like Arizona [3] that will allow the legislature or appointed officgials to overturn election results.
And on top of all that one side conspired to "steal" the Supreme Court by sitting on Obama's nomination for almost a year and then later rushing their own replacement in the last month before an election.
And every Supreme Court justice appointed in the last 10 years has said on the record that Roe v. Wade was a super-precedent. And today they voted to overturn. They lied. They all lied.
This isn't a "both sides" issue. This is the rise of white Christian fascism vs the feckless controlled opposition party. "Bothsidesing" is both a logical fallacy and intellectually lazy (if not outright dishonest). It's like looking at Kristallnacht and saying "well both sides are at fault".
There is no "both sides" here. The myth of the "far left" just shows how normalized right-wing propaganda has become. There are lilke maybe 4 progressive members of Congress while on the other side Nazi propaganda is openly pushed [4] and QAnon conspiracies are rampant in the Republican party, which may go as far as including Clarence Thomas and his wife who may well have conspired to overthrow the government.
When people say "far left" or "hyperprogressive" they really means "trans rights". Not wanting to murder trans people doesn't make you a radical leftist.
Please open your eyes and stop this nonsense about bothsidesing and polarization.
[1]: https://theweek.com/republicans/1008820/wisconsins-1-party-r...
[2]: https://www.vox.com/2020/11/6/21550979/senate-malapportionme...
[3]: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/591597-arizona-bill...
[4]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/us/tucker-carlson-gop-rep...
This take is completely divorced from reality. "Moderates" are the roadblocks. "Moderates" already have the system they want and love re-litigating culture war issues like this, because it makes it easier to continue roadblocking. Give me one example of a "hyperprogressive activists" blocking something that needed to get done, and I will give you a laundry list of "moderates" actors blocking ensuring no progress gets made in this country. Progressives don't even say "deplorables" that came from "moderate" HRC. "Crazed jesus Republicans" I would say this classification bisects several groups with in the republicans, however they seems to be affective at driving change given the post we are commenting on.
By that logic it would be good to get rid of the bill of rights, the other constitutional amendments, and most of the rest of the constitution.
Still sound good to you?
Actually I’m not sure this is 100% true. One option is to, say, only appoint SCOTUS judges that have an extremely broad reading of the Constitution on things you like, and a very narrow, textual reading on things you don’t.
Hypothetically, of course.
They do [0]. We haven't.
'Own the libs, fuck the deplorables', no compromise.
I'm tired of this false equivalence.
Let's not forget that each of the recently appointed justices that voted down Roe V Wade lied to congress before they were approved for the supreme court, saying that they wouldn't. How can one truly compromise with people who aren't honest in the first place? What is even the compromise here? Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others? The vast majority of Dems are the moderates and have acted in good faith, as you're suggesting, for decades and have nothing to show for it. The Overton window has been moving right for what seems like my entire lifetime.
0 - https://news.gallup.com/poll/393275/steady-americans-not-roe...
If you see these things as equal, you should try to put the snark aside and engage the world in an honest way.
You don't get to claim you're potentially naive, you're outright ignoring what they've publicly declared they intend to do. This isn't a group of well reasoned individuals removing power from the court, they're just doing whatever they hell they want to make the laws reflect their own religious beliefs.
Fuck this country, the only thing we're the best at is pretending we're the best.
If democrats elect moderates into such an environment, the center is hopelessly pulled to the right. If Republicans vote in a moderate, they still get pulled into voting with the majority. If you are a democrat, increasingly your only option is to vote in your own set of hardliners who will take all or nothing stances - as getting nothing done is better than the alternative.
The anger in this decision is partially a sign of what's to come. The Supreme court is now vastly out of sync with the national population center - or their own precedent for the last ~70 years. Barring court reform, I'd expect that we're on the way to a constitutional crises where a state decides to overrule the supreme court's decision.
It is a shame that the USA hasn't been able to enact federal legislation on abortion in the past 50 years.
There is zero chance that any elected or appointed official in Massachusetts blocks an abortion in Mass for any person regardless of residency.
The court is now firmly playing in political topics which it is Ill-equipped to handle.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/24/supreme-cou...
It's part of a long term disenfranchisement of groups of individuals in a way which secures GOP electoral college votes. As you say, the power of rural Republican votes is significant and depopulating those areas of democratic votes is a significant part of the GOP strategy.
> Ofc, my support for this change assumes that this Supreme Court will show restraint towards political activism (in either direction) in general. Call it naive, but I'll wait and see.
Your comment seems naive. It should be pretty obvious the us Supreme (Being) court is not going to show restraint towards political activism, they literally destroyed 50 years of American bodily freedom and struck up a massive victory for the gun lobby in a day.
> The sad part of democracy is that it aims to represent the views of the voting majority. If the voting majority truly cares about access to abortion then we will hopefully see enough democratic traction to give them the mandate needed.
American democracy doesn't represent the majority as gerrymandering has stolen the voice of our people, and guess what issue this court absolutely won't be addressing: voters rights. Because it should be absolutely clear right now that this court wants only one thing: to execute their political agenda without care or thought to the consequence of their actions. And the consequence will be dire indeed, American is already divided and this will be the final push to forever sever the left from the right, affecting creating two separate countries, not in law perhaps (yet) but certainly in spirit. In one stroke, the court has done more damage to our country than our enemies ever could.
Actually, in the long run, history takes a dim view of the people in the center.
People on one "extreme" side are vindicated. And everybody else gets flagged as supporting the wrong position.
As I put it to one friend: "When the issue was Catholics marrying Lutherans, your church and everybody in the "middle" were on the wrong side of the decision. When the issue was racial intermarriage, your church and everybody in the "middle" were on the wrong side of the decision. Now that the issue is gay marriage, why do you believe your church and everybody in the middle are on the correct side of the decision this time?"
The truth lies in the middle is, in fact, generally wrong.
The devil already has 6 seats on the supreme court, he doesn't need you to advocate for him
This is the only statement in your take that I disagree with. In the checks and balances system, the supreme court is exactly supposed to protect the balance between federal, state, and individual rights.
One consistent court might have protected gun rights and abortion rights this week. Another might have permitted restrictions on both. Instead we got gun rights and body control. The apolitical ship has sailed.
In a better system it shouldn't be, in the system we have really should be but isn't.
I have little doubt Clarence is only a little less crazy than his wife. Republicans put these people into positions of immense power. They might not have known how much power at the time, but they put shitty people in power for shitty reasons and they can now totally own that failure.
>Crazed jesus Republicans and hyperprogressive activists are terrible people to put into national office.
Got some enlightened centrism at work here. I'm willing to entertain that the left is way too woke, but they aren't sending crazy people to congress my dude.
And I’m not sure you don’t know that. I’m not sure that this ain’t a ploy. “States rights!” You say. “Solve it in the legislative!” You say. And when those efforts fail because the systems for choosing those representatives is rigged, what will you say? You will blame the voters. And all the whole more and more goes away and all the while you blame the voters.
Isn't it the whole purpose of its existence?
Hard disagree here. The Supreme Court acting as a vehicle for rights the majority of the population thinks should be enshrined, but can’t due to Senate dysfunction, is what is preventing the USA from sliding into another civil war. The Constitution is an extremely buggy first draft and originalism is a sick joke. Abortion isn’t in the Constition? Of course not, it was written by men in the 1700s. Judicial review isn’t in the Constitution either.
This is the same court that, just a few days ago, also denied New York's right to decide their own gun laws. Devolution might be great in theory if done consistently. What we actually have is a supreme court that will step in when it suits one minority faction and step out likewise, in both cases ignoring sound (often their own earlier selves') legal reasoning. That's not healthy.
You also seem to be ignoring the fact that "leave it to the states" is a bit of a sham when states that want to ban abortion seek to punish those who travel out of state for it. (Much like the way that states with lax gun laws undermine the efforts of neighboring states that have voted and legislated otherwise.) The actual availability of abortion services to women in Texas, for example, is practically zero for many. Like it or not, the US is supposed to be one nation, but "full faith and credit" has - like supreme court decisions - become a one-way street favoring the minority. Wyoming ideology is affecting Colorado much more than vice versa, contrary to what the majority position is across the two, and that's starkly un-democratic.
"Democracy is the wishful notion that more then half of the population supports better than average opinions more than half of the time."
We’re in uncharted waters here. I can’t think of a parallel in our short history where SCOTUS has shown such complete disregard for anything but their own political and religious beliefs. I think what’s getting lost in this is that Roe doesn’t just apply to abortion but the broader right to privacy. Others have pointed out the logical implications of what the government can and will do with these powers.
A few years later, we were blessed with a child who is doing well. I would have neither if not for Roe v. Wade.
This isn't about abortion, it's about denying healthcare!
A constitutional amendment would be ideal, but seems very unlikely.
I don't see why the Congress couldn't write laws guaranteeing access to abortion, though. We have laws in that vein, like the ADA.
The constitution limits how the government can infringe on the rights of the people. If the courts say that a right to abortion is not in the constitution, then amend the constitution to add it.
Until that point, it is up to the representatives of the people (i.e. the legislature at the state or federal level) to make laws.
Shouldn’t decisions generally be considered durable unless there’s some kind of obvious injustice being perpetrated?
There’s a reason overturning this particular law is so bad. It’s a cultural flashpoint and SCOTUS has just lit the match and blown up any semblance of them being an apolitical body. Not just with this one decision but the gun control case too. Another commenter pointed it out. This particular bench is picking and choosing fairly inconsistently and extremely ideologically about how they want to rule and then trying to find some justification for it. Consider this. All the evidence to date suggests that abortions (generally) are extremely rare, extremely safe, and generally difficult choices. This is the government getting involved in YOUR healthcare which is very much a privacy issue so dismissing it as “it’s not constitutional” is tone deaf because the argument had been made that it is and been the law of the land for half a decade.
Another example was when they didn’t sustain the lawsuit against Texas’ abortion law. Wanna bet they’ll ban any similar legislation aimed at gun seller and manufacturers? Why does the 14th amendment warrant less protection than the 2nd? Not to mention that the 2nd at no point was about personal gun ownership. Well-regulated militia is about states being able to regulate their own armed forces outside of federal control, not implicitly deputizing every citizen of a state as part of a militia the state can’t regulate (one of the rare cases where textualism and living document should be in agreement and they’re not).
SCOTUS does not concern itself with the angered mob (paraphrasing Dobbs and a few other cases). It exists to read and interpret the law. Do you want a Court that bends its rulings to the "match and blow up"? I certainly don't.
This is literally the first time the court has taken away a right after it’s granted. It sets seriously damaging precedent to the fabric of US society. Heck, even if SCOTUS had moved slower but this is literally the first chance they took. Even Robertson didn’t think they should have overturned it that fast. Robertson is one of the most conservative SCOTUSes ever. He’s who they put up after the embarrassment of Bush’s personal lawyer embarrassment (or genius political maneuvering because he knew Dems would blow their wads on Hanrietta Meyers).
This is the justification for SCOTUS to be packed hyper partisan going forward. In the past when it got this unbalanced justices would bend back to the center to mediate the court. That mediation instinct is now totally gone. Watch for court expansion to be much more seriously discussed for the first time in more than 100 years. This is a serious crises for their legitimacy (something which didn’t happen once they actually passed Roe v Wade).
The conservatives are 100% right that the original reasoning was totally bullshit about when the right to an abortion ends. It was meant to strike a political balance to not cause too much social strife while expanding a basic right of women. The only data driven position on abortion is abortion without any government restriction (modulo making it a safe process, mediating access control so the offices could only be credible, etc). The reason is that late term abortions basically only happen when the only business the state has is to shield the privacy and dignity of the people involved. People don’t take them on a whim at all. Rich people can provide this for their families but poor people need the government’s protection here. Abortion equalized Women’s healthcare access in a way never before or since. The failure to come to a compromise of any kind this time around on a socially hot topic where all the science supports the opposite conclusion that the courts came to, yes this is quite shocking.
Well first of all, SCOTUS doesn't have the power to do that. So in your scenario some state would have had to pass a law that says "all personal ownership of guns is banned", and then the challenge would have to make it's way to SCOTUS. I'm going to ignore for a moment that your characterization of 2A is wrong, and that it's been understood to confer a right to individual ownership since forever. But, going forward with your hypothetical there's a couple problems. First is, again, your belief that SCOTUS has the power to unilaterally ban gun ownership. It does not, and never did, have that power. Second, you're also assuming there's a sufficient amount of people that want to ban private gun ownership. Is there? Certainly doesn't seem like there is outside of extreme left-wing enclaves, and even then revealed preferences suggests that even if they want to ban guns for the plebeians they'd still like to retain the right for themselves. Roberts (not Robertson) is an incrementalist and his opinions do insist on this, yes, so that would give you another problem. Unless you are talking about expanding the court, which would indeed be the political Rubicon where the crossing of which would render the Court permanently compromised.
>This is the justification for SCOTUS to be packed hyper partisan going forward. In the past when it got this unbalanced justices would bend back to the center to mediate the court.
Huh? This isn't an accurate description of the Court's history at all. Is there some body of Opinions you're relying on to make this claim? Because if you've read enough of these things it doesn't seem that the Justices pay attention to the political bent of the opinions they write just to make sure they stay "balanced" (whatever that means).
>The only data driven position on abortion is abortion without any government restriction (modulo making it a safe process, mediating access control so the offices could only be credible, etc)...
>Abortion equalized Women’s healthcare access in a way never before or since. The failure to come to a compromise of any kind this time around on a socially hot topic where all the science supports the opposite conclusion that the courts came to, yes this is quite shocking.
That you believe what you wrote in your final paragraph is indicative of how Americans' opinions on this subject have been severely warped by how this issue is actually covered in media. Most of Europe has more restrictive abortion laws than the law at issue in Dobbs. Is healthcare in Europe for women somehow unequal? And given that this is a socially hot topic, doesn't it make sense to return the legal making power to the people and their elected representatives? This is literally what they wrote in the case. It's a fraught topic, emotionally charged, but it should be law makers and voters that get into the nitty gritty of the regulation of a medical procedure where a fetus is destroyed - not the Court.
The elephant in the room here that I'm detecting is that the political forces in favor of abortion are actually pretty disinterested in a legislating the issue. It's either too gross and fraught so they don't want to do it, or it's just too lucrative for fundraising to actually codify a right to abortion in the law.
Straw man interpretation. Overturning Roe v Wade doesn’t “ban” abortion but effectively it actually does in half the country. Gun control is very similar afaik.
> Second, you're also assuming there's a sufficient amount of people that want to ban private gun ownership. Is there? Certainly doesn't seem like there is outside of extreme left-wing enclaves, and even then revealed preferences suggests that even if they want to ban guns for the plebeians they'd still like to retain the right for themselves
This argument applies verbatim to abortion. The only solution is to look at where the body of scientific knowledge suggests we should go. To my knowledge that’s the absolute right to abortion and a total ban on gun ownership. The more telling thing is that your counter argument to “how would you feel if the court was packed to reinterpret the 2nd amendment to not include personal ownership” was “that won’t happen” and “there’s no public support for that”. These are exactly the same arguments that left moderates would say to the more activist left about not pushing the issue too hard and here we are.
> Is healthcare in Europe for women somehow unequal?
Which countries? Europe has a lot of them. Let’s look at some:
France: Veil Law is unlimited abortion after the first trimester provided two doctor’s sign off that the health of the mother is at risk. There’s sufficient nuance and weasel language that I imagine this isn’t really a big obstacle.
Britain: kind of complicated but effectively abortion is legal on demand at any point (98% of them are done under the “maternal mental health” carve out, likely to avoid having any legal issues come up / simplifies paperwork).
Northern Ireland: similar to Britain
Germany: a bit stricter but afaict still an absolute right with mandated counseling prior to the abortion.
Iceland: legal until the end of 22 weeks
Netherlands: 24 weeks
Estonia: up to 11 weeks if no reason, up to 21 weeks for pretextual reasons.
Poland: the strictest with the only carve out being maternal health.
Ukraine: up to 28 weeks (effectively)
Dobbs banned it at 15 weeks so citation needed about the claim that Europe is more regressive than Dobbs.
I’m sure there might be some that are worse, but very few that are as regressive as what women are now facing in half of the US states with the overturning of Roe v Wade (some states have absolute bans).
> This isn't an accurate description of the Court's history at all. Is there some body of Opinions you're relying on to make this claim?
From Wikipedia cause I’m too lazy to cite the actual text:
> The Court also held that the right to abortion is not absolute and must be balanced against the government's interests in protecting women's health and prenatal life.[5][6] The Court resolved these competing interests by announcing a pregnancy trimester timetable to govern all abortion regulations in the United States
You can’t simultaneously have the right to privacy and have government interest in a pregnancy. Does the government have the right to go after you if you drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes during a pregnancy? What about using illicit drugs during a pregnancy? Does that mean you can go after people with drug issues who get pregnant (and now can’t even get an abortion) for endangering the life of a potential child? What happens if the women naturally miscarries because of drinking/drugs? What if the mother didn’t take her prenatal vitamins? This kind of reasoning really is ridiculous and misogynistic but it’s acceptable because the right to privacy principle in Roe v Wade actually extends in a very meaningful and common sense way. Roe v Wade was 100% a compromise to try to recognize that the government doesn’t actually have any any interest in the pregnancy (the recognition of that was slowly expanding).
> Blackmun recognized that life begins at some point for the fetus, but he felt it was not for the judiciary “at this point in the development of man’s knowledge” to speculate on what that point was.
Overall Roe v Wade was an incremental improvement for women’s rights but it was incomplete. The right to abortion should indeed be almost entirely absolute (with medical counseling to make sure the mother is OK before and afterward). In fact, overturning Roe v Wade now brings questions of whether IVF bans are now legal. After all, there’s potential life being kept in a freezer and most of it is destroyed (expect to see this come up). Neither state nor federal government should be involved in healthcare decisions themselves, only in legislating the process of how those decisions get made (to protect the patient / and or regulate commerce).
> Unless you are talking about expanding the court, which would indeed be the political Rubicon where the crossing of which would render the Court permanently compromised.
Technically the size of SCOTUS has changed over time and nothing came of it. We got 9 in 1869 but it has varied as I’m sure you’re aware. I think you’re assessment is correct though just because the country is so politically divided. A not insubstantial number of people (myself included) would argue it’s already compromised (McConnell’s political shrewdness/shadiness to give Obama’s SCOTUS nomination to Trump and Trump packing the court intentionally with anti abortion ideologues), so then it’s just a matter of degrees. This almost happened before with Roosevelt. I imagine Row v Wade is a lot more unifying of Democrats than the New Deal was.
> And given that this is a socially hot topic, doesn't it make sense to return the legal making power to the people and their elected representatives? This is literally what they wrote in the case. It's a fraught topic, emotionally charged, but it should be law makers and voters that get into the nitty gritty of the regulation of a medical procedure where a fetus is destroyed - not the Court.
Fantastic. Gun control can be described in very similar terms. We should similarly regulate it back to the states based on that principle.
> Roberts (not Robertson)
Autocorrect is annoying.
They did not.
For instance, the Mississippi law which was the impetus of the recent SCOTUS ruling has the following language:
“[e]xcept in a medical emergency or in the case of a severe fetal abnormality, a person shall not intentionally or knowingly perform . . . or induce an abortion"
There are issues with the ICD10 codes related to D&C procedures as they reference or include the word 'abortion'. This should be resolved by the AMA.
SB 612[0] in Oklahoma made abortions a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. I'm not sure how many doctors will feel comfortable making that call.
...Especially considering HB 4327 then empowers citizens to stage witch hunts against those providers. Imagine developing a reputation for performing abortions in that situation.
[0] Which defined a "medical emergency" as "a condition which cannot be remedied by delivery of the child in which an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of a pregnant woman whose life is endangered" – a high bar to clear. https://legiscan.com/OK/text/SB612/id/2564710
Full text of "emergency": “Medical emergency” means a condition which cannot be remedied by delivery of the child in which an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of a pregnant woman whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness or physical injury including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself."
This is very clear a covers all possible situations where the pregnant woman's life would be in danger.
This is very straight forward. If however, you mean to say it restricts abortions too far, you are arguing a different point.
> covers all possible situations where the pregnant woman's life would be in danger
The woman’s life being in danger is the second clause. The first is that an abortion is necessary to address it.
It is a mighty task to prove that an abortion was necessary, and empowered citizens can frivolously bring lawsuits.
People SAY they want to move to Canada, but it turns out that's not actually that simple.
Moving is a lot harder than folks realize - Internationally especially, but even amongst states.
And it's completely not an option for someone underage.
It’s like there’s no consideration for the fact that they have families and communities they are a part of, or that they may lack the means to easily relocate.
When someone foots the bill for these people I’ll stop calling the solution dishonest and hypocritical. Until then, I suggest people who repeat it stop acting like it’s such an obvious, easy solution.
This also ignores the fact that states like Missouri are attempting to criminalize going to other states for them, which means even if you have the means to travel to another state for one without wholesale moving you can’t even do that. Should my home state be able to prosecute me for smoking weed in Colorado?
And most of the non-western world will rejoice at the idea of the greatest country on earth forfeiting its hegemony over its inability to control religion when it should have.
Religion is the scourge of the earth, eternally at war against civilisation, education and reason; promoting war and hatred against the « barbarians » wherever it holds some ground.
Article discussing this chilling effect.
Getting rid of roe v wade kicks the issues to legislatures.
I may be the only hopeful one - but removing this from unelected, lifetime judges who seem to forget that a democracy is no place for kings and queens may ultimately result in abortion returning to the path it was on before roe v wade - a non-controversial issue decided by elected officials.
If anything, this will force conservatives to solidify and clarify their views on abortion which will allow voters to decide where they land on the spectrum of abortion rights. Whereas before, conservatives just deferred to "abortion bad. look at supreme court decision".
Also, is it not the case that most Americans support some abortion rights? Thus, this could force conservatives to move center on the abortion spectrum in order to appease their constituents.
> The seven to two judgment in Roe v. Wade declared “violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” a Texas criminal abortion statute that intolerably shackled a woman’s autonomy; the Texas law “except[ed] from criminality only a life-saving procedure on behalf of the [pregnant woman].” Suppose the Court had stopped there, rightly declaring unconstitutional the most extreme brand of law in the nation, and had not gone on, as the Court did in Roe, to fashion a regime blanketing the subject, a set of rules that displaced virtually every state law then in force. Would there have been the twenty-year controversy we have witnessed[?]
[1] https://time.com/5354490/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade/
(edited to add forgotten source)
> I can think of one person who said that:
congratulations, really pushing the boundaries of what is possible here.
Most Americans support some form of universal access to health care as well - some variation of single payer, or public option, or similar. That is nowhere reflected in state-level policy in many many states.
Stop educating people on biology (and in the post genome sequencing world), stop women from having reproductive control, stop LGBTQ folks from participating without fear, stop the free thinking people, stop it all in the name of that olde time religion (which itself is mostly a modern nostalgic reconstruction).
Very harmful to our ability to focus and succeed on technological transformation.
While today is certainly a dark day for the US, that paints an inaccurately rosy picture of the past to make us look even worse than we are today.
Our literacy rate has never been higher, belief in evolution is at an all time high, more people have college degrees, and access to accurate information has never been easier. We are in a short-term downswing on many axes, but the long term trends are towards science and education.
You are absolutely correct that we are more polarized than we have been since the Civil War.
Also, due to having to argue basic shit like the value of a pluralistic educated democracy when we have the physical problem of climate change bearing down and really wanting our attention. I marched for Roe v Wade in 1988 the first time, protested against stupid wars in 1986, helped build what I thought would tie humanity together in an enlighten network of discourse in the 90s as a programmer, had kids in the 2000#, and now back to Roe v Wade. Meanwhile the CO2 is 420 ppm and we haven’t got a damn Mars 100 picked out yet (Sci fi reference there). I want Red Mars with more realistic population distribution, not Parable of the Sower.
22 years of downhill might be short term for a nation but it’s not for people
And yet, without knowing it, ahead of you was the Civil Rights Act, the women's liberation movement, the environmental movement and the Clean Air Act, increased support for interacial relationships, gay rights.
In the midst of that dark time, it would have been hard to believe any of those could be ahead of you. Who knows what could be ahead of us now?
I have elementary age kids and it is fascinating seeing how that generation is growing up. They are so much more community oriented and caring that my generation was. They seem to understand that there are hard problems to be solved and that they won't be solved alone.
I'm filled with sorrow at the world they are inheriting, but I have a lot of optimism that they will do a better job with it than we have.
There's nothing metaphysical about observing that we have imperfect knowledge of the future and some potentialities are positive.
> I've already discounted the idea.
That's a personal choice of attitude and perspective, not an objective property of the universe. You're welcome to it, of course, but it's probably not accomplishing much for you.
> Everything ends eventually.
All the more reason to make the most of it and find the joy we can while it lasts. If it's going to end either way, why obsess about it?
13 states have trigger laws going into effect with this. It’s not going to move the needle at all. The red states will ban it. Blue won’t. And it’ll still be a hot button topic in the reversed states. Red candidates in blue states will want to outlaw it. Blue candidates in red states will want to allow it.
One would hope, but they have only been veering further to the right on this issue. In the past year, multiple states have passed the most extreme abortion laws this country has seen over half a century. Texas will literally throw women in jail if they are caught leaving the state to get an abortion.
But those evil Democrats want to teach kids that there is nothing wrong with being gay, so I guess it equals out?
I do not know how any sane person can still support the GOP, especially after the Jan. 6 insurrection and this SC ruling.
The distribution of Americans who support the right to abortion is also not even.
In States where the distribution of "anti" outweighs "pro" all citizens will lose the right. So human rights are lessened in the United States.
It is a tragic day.
The GOP just plays politics better though, so now they're a dog who caught the car they were chasing. The dems have a chance to make that backfire on the GOP in the midterms, but they're awful at getting or wielding power, so I'm skeptical they will.
It's a sleazy move, and I'm not sure why they think people don't see what they are doing.
0%. Democrats did not in fact have a "perfect vehicle" nor did they have a chance to enshrine abortion into the law of the land.
It seems very unlikely that the ACA could have been passed if it enshrined abortion rights.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupak%E2%80%93Pitts_Amendment
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31484169
In short, this is not true. There was a brief window where they might have had 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster, but it's unlikely for a divisive partisan issue like this one. And they didn't have a 60% majority in the House anyway.
To put it very bluntly, the lack of action we've seen from Democratic Party majorities in recent history is very likely because they knew they couldn't pass legislation over Republican opposition. Sure, you can frame it as 'they declined', but that's an uncharitable oversimplification.
No, it’s because they couldn't pass it over Democratic opposition (whether it's actually one or two Senators, or whether those two are pretextual is a matter of debate.)
Republican opposition isn't an excuse with a trifecta. (And, no, the filibuster doesn't change this, since it only takes a majority to change it.)
It used to be the filibuster was rarely used and the Senate actually compromised to create legislation. There is effectively no chance the filibuster would have been removed to pass an abortion bill. It would have been political suicide.
Even if it had, a federal abortion ban would have been passed the next time the GOP held a trifecta. Not opening Pandora’s box was a smart move.
It was with the current majority, and explicitly rejected by key Democrats.
> Even if it had, a federal abortion ban would have been passed the next time the GOP held a trifecta.
It still will.
Because I think this one probably does. With how divided we are today, and this issue in particular, I don't think you can rely on a 50%+1 majority to pass a law one way or the other. That is like a coin flip. It seems guaranteed to lead to chaos, as each new majority rushes to redress the 'mistakes' of the preceding Congress.
And to be pedantic, the Democratic party does not have a current majority in the Senate. It's 50/48/2 Republican; Sanders and King caucus with the Democrats but King in particular is very centrist, endorsed the Republican Collins for her reelection bid, and votes with the Republicans most of the time. Maybe you think that is just nitpicking, but I wonder what you think about a 50/50 Senate depending on the VP to break ties. To remove the filibuster. To pass a nationwide abortion law.
Come on.
No, I don't think it's nitpicking I think it is factually wrong (except that, yes, Sanders and King are Independents). Not only does King vote with the Dems on most important votes, he's not even the most centrist or least loyal to the caucus member of the Democratic Caucus; In the current session, on key issues, if the caucus fails to gather the majority it needs (which usually means there is no vote: Schumer is pretty consistent about that), it is usually Manchin (D-WV) and /or Sinema (D-AZ) — more often the former — that is the problem. (And both of them are to King’s right by both current session and career voting history.)
I believe this is the kind of issue where you'd have to overcome the filibuster, not remove it. This isn't something Democrats were realistically able to do in 2008-2010, and they definitely can't do it now.
I think this issue is one where we can safely say one side is not interested in compromise. We had compromise with Roe, and they fought. We had compromise with Casey, and they still fought. We've now witnessed the culmination of a 30+ year campaign to place a particular style of justice on the supreme court, complete with abuse of process to manipulate nominations and nominees being misleading or (arguably) lying about this specific issue to get confirmed. None of this is indicative of a willingness to compromise, to me.
Especially at a time when the country is more polarized than ever. This is just horribly timed and will further split this country apart. This will be our century's dredd scott - the court "thought" this would settle the issue. But it won't:
"Although Taney and several other justices hoped the decision would permanently settle the slavery controversy, which was increasingly dividing the American public, the decision's effect was the opposite."
THOMAS, J., concurring
“For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”
More generally griswold was one of the landmark decisions at the core of finding a (non-enumerated) constitutional right to privacy.
Obergefell and Lawrence rested more strongly on Griswold directly (or through other non-Roe cases) than on any innovation from Roe, as I recall.
(Note that Thomas’ explicit attack on “all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents” strikes much more deeply, though, than just the Griswold line of privacy-related cases; the incorporation of the Bill of Rights as applicable against the States is substantive due process, and even the application of even the rational basis test requiring some connection to some legitimate public purpose for any legal distinction, are all part of the substantive due process precedent of the Court. I guess, if this Court wasn’t nakedly partisan and selective in its logic, this could be a hopeful sign for Dems on state gun control, since if there were a serious reconsideration of that precedent the incorporation of the second Amendment – the only Amendment with a purpose clause explicitly stating that it is for the benefit of the states – against the States would be on the weakest ground of any of it.)
>The Court today declines to disturb substantive due process jurisprudence generally or the doctrine’s application in other, specific contexts. Cases like Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965) (right of married persons to obtain contraceptives)*; Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U. S. 558 (2003) (right to engage in private, consensual sexual acts); and Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U. S. 644 (2015) (right to same-sex marriage), are not at issue. The Court’s abortion cases are unique, see ante, at 31–32, 66, 71–72, and no party has asked us to decide “whether our entire Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence must be preserved or revised,” McDonald, 561 U. S., at 813 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). Thus, I agree that “[n]othing in [the Court’s] opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.” Ante, at 66.
>For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is “demonstrably erroneous,” Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 7), we have a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents, Gamble v. United States, 587 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (THOMAS, J., concurring) (slip op., at 9). After overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions guarantee the myriad rights that our substantive due process cases have generated. For example, we could consider whether any of the rights announced in this Court’s substantive due process cases are “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
>To answer that question, we would need to decide important antecedent questions, including whether the Privileges or Immunities Clause protects any rights that are not enumerated in the Constitution and, if so, how to identify those rights. See id., at 854. That said, even if the Clause does protect unenumerated rights, the Court conclusively demonstrates that abortion is not one of them under any plausible interpretive approach. See ante, at 15, n. 22.
This is actually in important and interesting legal question, because the Court has largely side stepped determining a mechanism for how to identify those rights, and did so in Roe.
But he isn't particularly interested in that, because he is a political hack.
Thankfully, he is at least wrong about Obergefell, which was decided on different, and much firmer, grounds than the right-to-privacy cases. But carrying out the logic from this decision to others does indeed threaten Griswold and Lawrence, and especially Griswold, which was basically the direct precedential precursor to Roe.
He did not concur with overturning Roe - that was decided 5-4.
Your point is well made - this is going to be catastrophic for our country. No good can come if it. But it can’t be the position of the court to do what’s expedient over what is constitutionally correct. Or should it be? What does it profit a country to uphold the constitution and lose its democracy.
Note that a man is not required to donate blood to save an adult human, even if there is no risk to him. The equal protection clause extends that right to your own body to women, and that is fairly sound constitutional reasoning.
The constitution doesn’t mention a million specific things, but it protects our freedoms anyways.
A democracy is a place to gradually expand equal protection of the laws to all people. Each change seems radical to the people accustomed to undemocractic flaws, but the outcome has been very successful these last few hundred years.
Why did Roe v Wade rely on an unwritten right to privacy rather than the equal protection clause then?
Something to do with some bad uses of substantive due process stuff in early 1900s.
Just one comment away from implying that this case is straightforward, and you're bringing up esoteric case law from 100 years ago. I don't point this out to denigrate you, but to highlight just how complicated law can be, particularly when it comes to landmark SCOTUS decisions. I thought I heard on the news that the majority opinion was 90 pages long, but I can't find a reference. However detailed it was, for the next month, literally millions of people will be on Twitter making 280-character-limited reductio ad absurdum comments about it.
The draft is also a temporary measure. As with other wartime restrictions of civil liberties, like curfews or rationing, it would not be tolerated if continued outside the context of a war.
Do you have a historical example of that in the roughly 300 year history of the US? Do you anticipate on recent Supreme Court rulings that they will expand the idea of equality and not reinforce traditional Christian gender roles?
Gradual expansion of equal protection only makes sense if:
1. you are already protected
2. you benefit from unequal protection.
3. You want to appear "nice"
If you have a plan for full equality, sign me up. I have seen some calls for a general strike on Twitter today, but I am unpersuaded that will happen this week.
Here on ycombinator even getting people to understand that the value of their labor is being taken and their orgs are racist and sexist is not an easy sell.
The Senate allows a minority to stop the majority from tweaking the laws in an iterative process, and holds the society back from doing things that require laws, like carbon tax or cap n trade, or even fixing clear bugs in ACA. We don’t have much internet relevant laws passed in the last twenty years, yet the internet and its conflicts have changed quite a lot since Napster. We can’t change the law to let people rebuild flood destroyed buildings on higher ground. All we do is tweak the budget numbers and appoint judges. It makes prospective solutions extremely tilted compared to even a good compromise of a law.
Until people find the middle ground or convince the other side, being stalled is not the worst solution. Dictatorship, civil war, and most other alternatives are worst than stalling legislation.
Take carbon tax as an example. I myself believe human action is destroying the environment and I want to reverse it. But I do not think carbon tax is the way, and I know many moderates on the same position as I am. How about removing all incentives first before imposing punishment? How about triple the nuclear plants, that are safer than never with newer tech, and make it impossible financially to justify carbon based electricity generation? There are dozens of ways to take the first steps without punishing people and getting more money in the government hands. Carbon tax is just shifting money from one hand to the other, and other bad actors will do something bad with it. I prefer to fix this with less money and less power to governments. And there you go. Better stalled than move forward in the wrong direction.
If two wolves and a sheep are deciding on lunch would the sheep consider only having two legs eaten a better deal for everyone?
The rulings underpinning several of these are called out as "up next" by Thomas' concurring opinion.
It’s worth mentioning that the constitutionality of such a law seems highly questionable based on the current leanings of SCOTUS. States’ rights work both ways, and (not a lawyer) I would assume an incredibly broad interpretation of interstate commerce would be needed to hold up a federal ban on abortions.
They just overruled the NYC gun ban. They will pick and choose whatever they want
There is no analogous constitutional right for abortion. Roe v. Wade inferred it from a "right to privacy", which also does not exist in the text.
They have become openly partisan and will pick and choose whatever suits their political leanings. Once they got a majority on the court they no longer need to play ball with the other side
The legal theory almost explicitly allows for a federal ban in addition to the state bans that tieggered today.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Carhart#Concurrenc...
No it doesn't
Here's the clause:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; 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."
Where is a guaranteed right to abortion in this? You said Roe "is fairly sound constitutional reasoning", but I don't see you reading a Roe from this without some serious mental gymnastics
Also:
> Note that a man is not required to donate blood to save an adult human, even if there is no risk to him. The equal protection clause extends that right to your own body to women, and that is fairly sound constitutional reasoning.
Donating blood != killing a fetus
If you consider equating the two "fairly sound constitutional reasoning" then that speaks for itself
I don't think that's the argument the earlier post is making. They are arguing that you cannot be compelled to do something to save some else's life even if it won't harm you, and doubly so without due process.
However, I think viewing someone's body as their own property is a better way to frame this. If you decide a fetus is trespassing in your body, where should the state intervene? The state couldn't force you to harbor someone in your home during a winter storm, even if you left your door unlocked and kicking them out would surely result in them freezing to death. If you believe that a fetus has adverse rights against the body it's growing inside of, then you need to make that case.
Choosing not to kill a fetus != saving someone else's life
Using the two interchangeably is like building a house on top of sand
Just as you have the right to defend your home with lethal force, you also have the right to evict by lethal force a fetus.
I don't think it does us any good to shy aways from the uncomfortable aspects of t he free exercise of these rights.
Moreover, there are a lot of places where we morally and legally permit people to kill, that doesn't mean that we like killing or condone it in general.
I think I remember the UN Charter on the Rights of the Child stating that (1) children are not the property of their parents and (2) parents have a responsibility for its well-being.
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1990/09/19900902%2003-1...
A couple of comments on this:
1. The Convention document doesn't expressly address it, but instructs in several places that the rights enumerated exist for children 'from birth', implying they do not apply to a potential child before it's born.
2. The United States is a signatory, but did not ratify this, and is not subject to it.
(Obviously the conferring the status of personhood on the unborn is a subject of debate).
In 1992 Republicans ran on abortion and lost badly. In 1994 they ran on everything-but-abortion and won big. So there is precedent for them to lose badly if they overplay their hand now.
Republicans lost in 92 because of the "economy stupid" and, after sixteen years of incumbency, the pendulum swung to "throw the bums out." They were trotting out "Family Values" when people had actual concerns about their material conditions as we were in a relatively minor recession.
Next up on the chopping block will be voting rights. SCOTUS will act to ensure that disenfranchisement is perfectly legal and that attempts to help disenfranchised people vote are illegal.
We are currently in a recession that will likely turn into a depression of epic proportions. Republicans are going to walk away with the midterms and next presidency. They will use the food/stability crisis we are as justification for further attacking blue states and attempting to bend them.
That's assuming they don't just impeach Biden then throw him and his staff in prison once they have control of the Senate and House.
Reproductive rights are essential to women's liberty and equality, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. The unborn child has a competing right to life that is also guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Roe/Casey balanced these competing interests well, and today's decision blows that up and eliminates any notion of reproductive rights for women.
Rights are not supposed to be subject to the whims of political majorities.
They kind of are, when they're controversial and as weakly justified as Roe was.
The Democrats really botched this, when they put all their efforts into puffing up Roe than creating other supports.
The smart move for the pro-choice movement, would be to get some state constitutional amendments on the books.
The problem with this sentiment is that the issue was kicked to the legislatures decades ago. Congress has had decades to take care of this, and they haven't. So now all of the sudden it's a whole "but the Supreme Court overstepped". Well yea, because Congress refused and still refuses to do their damn job. It's easy: pass a law that gives people their appropriate rights and move on.
If most people agree that it should be a constitutional right, no one stops the legislature from adding the required amendment. And if most people can't agree on that, well, adding that wouldn't be democratic.
Also, you need to ask yourself: is this about abortion? Or is it really about literally keeping the people poor, stupid and uneducated?
Think about it: if you're not poor this is not an issue. If you have 5 kids instead of 1, good luck getting them the proper education. But it's cool...we can use all that almost free labor to drive our corporate empires forward.
Because it was poorly reasoned judicial activism and always has been. The amount of time that a decision stands should have no bearing on how good of a decision it is.
One of the dissents in Casey v Planned Parenthood in 92 also wanted to overturn Roe, for the same reasons that the current court did.
Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg thought that Roe v Wade was poorly reasoned.
They could have applied their logic uniformly but bizarrely singled out an abortion case.
They intentionally chose to go for the contradictory choice of singling out abortion while not attacking the root -- which suggests to me think this is more about judicial activism than upholding the constitution.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg made it her career to overturn precedents around women's rights that had been around far longer than 50 years.
Please answer the same question, but for slavery.
Setting aside political posturing: Who cannot get an abortion today? Even in deep red states, if you're wealthy the same rules do not apply to you.
Are you saying we're going to have a second civil war over abortion?
I'm not sure what the civil war has to do with applying logic consistently to see how it is fallacious.
The more I see, the more I believe a civil war is not off the table. In fact it's becoming more and more likely each day. We have 2 camps today and people are more and more divided. There used to be a time when you could... talk about the issue and use logic and arguments around facts. Not anymore. Abortion will not lead to a civil war - not on its own - but it does add extra pressure to a pressure cooker that's about to blow up.
What makes you think that this has no effect on the millions of people capable of giving birth in the US? What makes you think that this will have no effect on their partner, or the overall well-being of the child, once birthed?
Personally I think the root cause is an alliance between people with hateful beliefs and people that want the government not to tax or regulate large companies and rich families. Fine, slut shame people because they had sex and got pregnant (no matter the circumstances) and let us keep sponsoring fake research that carbon burn is good. Be openly racist again and lower those taxes even at the cost of not educating the young.
Just my theory tho. Hard to know.
Do you imagine, if the Republicans control all three branches of government, that they would not create a federal law that bans abortions everywhere?
All signals point to that, and the overturning of Roe vs. Wade is there to remove friction to get there.
As the pendulum swings, so does policy. It would be more difficult IMHO if there were more than two parties.
If the voting public of the US shifts to where it adopts a view you disagree with then of course the democratic institution would continue to reflect the public.
But we have good reason to believe this will never happen. Polling shows that most individuals support a woman's right to abortion. And even if the Republican party gained control of all 3 branches, they aren't a monolithic and unified block when it comes to policy. "States rights" is a HUGE motivation for most Republicans, and a federal policy banning abortion would be a big stumbling block for getting the votes to pass such legislation even with a Republican majority.
Also consider what the Texas GOP has said about gays and gay marriage over the last week.
People agree on that. Adding it to the constitution hasn’t happened because politics.
While that will not be true, access to abortion will be very limited everywhere. With 26 states limiting it seriously and no constitutional protections on getting abortions in a different state, you could see a vast majority of population not have access to abortions.
Even if everyone starts traveling for abortions, a huge amount of the population won’t be able to travel. And the ones who travel will stress the medical facilities to the extent that people living in states that have legal abortion access, will still have it’s populations access to abortions severely limited.
It doesn’t matter if 2/3 Americans don’t know what it actually means. What matters is 2/3 Americans want access to abortions, and that access will be severely limited regardless of whether it’s legal in your state.
This is surely not true. Forty percent of the US population lives in states with laws protecting access to abortion. The AP is reporting that 20 states have heavy restrictions/bans, and the remainder are to-be-determined. [1]
I've seen the 26 state reference floating around on social media and wonder which states are included, beyond what news outlets are reporting. I'm open to the possibility that the AP has this wrong — the reason I'd like to know the source of the 26 figure is to compare it to the mostly-trusted sources that are giving lower numbers.
To be clear, I'm not weighing in on whether today's decision is good or bad. I just wanted to clear up some of the statistics that people hear a lot, since they are sometimes based on misunderstandings of the law (which are reasonable since the case was decided a long time ago, and until recently most people thought it would not be overturned anytime soon, if ever).
1: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-supreme-court-decision-8...
I'm not sure what the exact right number is, but it probably comes down to the details and how you classify them.
cf. Gerrymandering.
and no matter what, you're dealing with laws regarding the bodily autonomy of 50% of the populace. if that can't be considered a fundamental right, what really can?
Punishing the poor and economically disadvantaged in red and blue states as political reprisal is the stupidest idea I've read all day.
What are you accomplishing besides making yourself feel good at the literal expense of the most vulnerable?
What you're suggesting also affects anyone that votes blue in red states, including business owners and workers that are trying to change their state laws.
Changing the law is harder when you're calling to economically punish those businesses and they have to layoff workers or close. So instead of campaigning on the weekend and persuading people to vote to change the state law, workers will be looking a new job. This maintains the status quo rather than help garner support to change it.
What you're suggesting is regressive and hurts the pro-choice movement in red states.
This isn't a codebase refactor, this is people's lives. Pulling this ruling before you have "what the people want" in place is like deleting a feature you plan on rebuilding later before you actually rebuild it.
Nobody in their right mind thinks that's a good idea in any other context, so why would it make sense here?
I do NOT share that viewpoint. But we are a republic. And the Supreme Court doesn’t issue law, that’s Congress’s responsibility.
What this represents is not a code refactor but a Change to a comment in the code base on what a function does.
The Supreme Court didn't issue a law here, they changed their interpretation of a decision they had made 50 years prior, for no reason at all except that the composition of the court had changed.
That's like hiring a new guy and his first action is to remove an entire technology that was propping up your infrastructure, because it wasn't being stored in the "correct" VCS.
In that case would you want the court to instead state, well a decision 50 years ago was made. So we wont change it. The US Congress needs to pass a law explicitly granting woman the right to vote. Such-as with say Minor v. Happersett, "Court held that, while women are no less citizens than men are, citizenship does not confer a right to vote, and therefore state laws barring women from voting are constitutionally valid"
A good court in a Democratic government must be objective in interpretation of law . And the system is such that it is the US Congress's responsibility to pass law.
There is zero legitimate reason for this to be reversed now, compared to after it’s been codified in the legislature.
But all of this is a silly distraction. The real reason has nothing at all to do with what the court’s role should be, and everything to do with the religion of the people currently serving on the court.
To keep the tech analogies going, it’s like a new tech lead deleting the web app code because be doesn’t believe in monorepos, but saying it’s a security issue.
You’re inferring that the court made it’s decision on a religious reason, and you’re entitled to your inference.
So here’s my inference, as an atheist conservative. No the Supreme Court did not overturn the case for religious reasons. They overturned it exactly for the reasons they stated:
“The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives”
The legitimate reason it is reversed _now_ is that it is _now_ when the matter is before them in the court of law that conflicts with Roe in a way that is hard to reconcile against precedent.
If your complaint is that it hasn't been codified into law by the legislature since 1973 (and you're right -- it hasn't) that is not the fault of the judicial branch, rather the legislative.
To borrow from your analogy, it's more like a repository deprecating its code, watching everybody for years claim that "they're going to delete this any minute now" and nobody stepping to the plate to take over as maintainer.
When your action is the proximate cause of the revocation of freedom from 165m people, it's definitely 'your fault'."
This may not have been a great way to keep women safe forever, but today was not the day it needed fixing.
It is not the job of the Supreme Court to care for the reproductive health of the American people. Of the federal government, that would either be the job of the executive or the legislature, depending on your preferred view of the executive branch.
If the Supreme Court cannot do this, it should not exist.
It exists to referee the non-violent resolution of a subset of emotionally charged disputes through a functioning legal system. It does not exist to ensure that one side or the other wins.
At least four sitting justices were put on the court specifically to ensure this ruling occurred.
Those things are only useful if they help people. The root purpose of any system of government to exist is to provide for the health and happiness of the governed.
If any system of government fails to do that, it is broken, and the fact that you've lost sight of the entire purpose of government is both sad and entirely predictable.
And cool it with the personal attacks. That kind of behavior is inappropriate.
And it's in the court now because this is the first time in 50 years that we've had a court regressive enough to vote it down.
It hadn't been codified in law because there wasn't a need because the court's had settled the issue.
To follow your analogy it's like finally removing that deprecated code after 50 years and seeing side-effects across the code base that are hugely disruptive to a tiny percent of users and anger inducing to a majority, while also making a minority of users feel smug about it finally being removed.
This is silly. It's basically always in the courts. This particular case has been ongoing since 2018 IIRC. Before that it was June Medical. Before that it was Whole Women's Health v Hellerstedt.
> It hadn't been codified in law because there wasn't a need because the court's had settled the issue
Except it had not legislatively, and it needed to have been. At the same time as Ruth Bader Ginsburg was lamenting the flaws of Roe halting legislative process that she knew still needed to happen, Joe Biden was proposing amendments to overturn Roe v Wade so that abortion could be outlawed.
It is and always has been balanced on the head of a pin. Both sides have of course been using it more as a platform for fund-raising than doing anything legislatively, while warning that the other side was moments away from winning. Please donate $5, $10, or $50 to the cause.
The boundaries of Roe v Wade have been debated for a looong time, especially as new medical technology have come out but this case only existed because conservatives believed they had a good chance of overturning Roe.
That isn't a good analogy. A better analogy is the security team modifying ACLs that allow them push changes. It may be a destructive change, but it's outside of scope of the security team.
Shouldn't have been in the CS datacenter, so screw the customers and the business as a whole who relied on that system, right?
Except the vast majority do support abortion. I really don't care what "a large portion" of America thinks, the majority thinks it should be a right but due to the way we cast votes for presidents we have the minority picking supreme court seats and thus giving us this decision.
That is not true, they are a very loud minority. Most polling puts people who really care about banning abortion (in the ways it is being done right now) at below 20%.
The reason it is not passing legislation is because the Senate (which is required) is not a democratic institution. A state like Wyoming has 65x more voting power than a state like California. Current the Senate sits at 50/50 yet one side represents 40M more citizens than the other.
Is this backed up by data or your personal view? Because every piece of data that I've seen is that only ~30% of americans support a ban of abortion, while the large majority are in favor for it being legal.
30% is a “large portion of America”, is it not? It may not be a majority, but it’s enough to be a majority in some states.
Within the bounds of what is permitted by the Constitution. If you believe that bodily autonomy is a fundamental right guaranteed in the Constitution, then laws are irrelevant, as this is outside the bounds of what law is permitted to be written.
Body autonomy means I don't have to catch a disease because other people are too selfish to get a vaccine that is only experimental in the same way air and water is experimental.
I never said they were. But if you're going to make an argument about bodily autonomy then how you can you be OK with forcing people getting a medical treatment they do not want?
Vaccination protects you from the disease. Vaccinating a 3rd party does not, we've been over this already.
The COVID vaccine was in fact experimental and it only received an "Emergency Use Authorization" by the FDA. How about you check some basic facts before you respond?
The Republicans fought tooth and nail against even simple mask mandates but now want to legislate what happens in a woman's uterus in the name of "protecting life"? What a joke.
Yes, it was also hilarious to see Democrat politicians vacationing in Florida maskless while their constituents had to follow illogical mask rules back home. Heck, in some cases they don't even pretend to care about these rules themselves (see MET gala and the countless of "parties" these politicians went to maskless).
> now want to legislate what happens in a woman's uterus in the name of "protecting life"? What a joke.
The supreme court did not ban abortion, so your argument is moot here. I'm personally OK with abortion in the early stages. But I'd argue that there's a line where a woman's "bodily autonomy" ends and a prenate's bodily autonomy begins where abortion becomes more than the equivalent of removing an appendix.
65% of the USA currently says that Roe v. Wade shouldn't be overturned.
We should give some deference to precedent, but the rule of law is paramount. Consider what the opposite of the rule of law really entails, or how hard won that victory was.
What is legal != what is just, ethical, or moral.
Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. We can't organize society to run on what is just, ethical, or moral. We can only make laws based on our understanding of those things. Our understanding of morality changes over time. Where the law is unjust, we should change the law. Abandoning the rule law ends badly.
I am willing to empathize with the denial of service but thats it.
Congress was the more appropriate federal authority to be a legislature, and failed to do so. In the absence of a federal law passed by Congress, state ones are the only ones that matter.
The topic of how long the ruling lasted is a complete red herring, as this is not out of character for the court at all.
I don’t feel like the convenience of having the court being so hard to overrule is a good enough reason for it to act as a superlegislature when convenient.
I am the same way on this regarding all topics. On this specific topic, in the past I had tried to point out how odd Roe v Wade was with the court acting as a superlegislature but I quickly learned this was not a conversation people were willing to have as they couldnt separate the “camps” from the case(s) so I stopped bringing it up. I’m glad that this case forces the conversation.
Are you really going to pretend not to understand why this ruling came now, when the religious right just so happened to be in charge of the Supreme Court, and not at any other time in the past 50 years?
I completely understand that only one party is willing to make that interpretation on this topic. I think it is noteworthy that “the religious right” did not act as a superlegislature itself, given the opportunity, and simply removed it back to Congress or the states when in the absence of a law from Congress.
I observe that there are or were other ways to reach the outcome that the other party wants, that party has bungled all of those ways, and will likely continue to do so.
Not caring about the people for whom the system is designed for is exactly what makes this such a monumental problem. If the system doesn't work for the people it's designed to work for, it the outcomes don't reflect their will, then it's a broken system.
If this is the "correct" way, then the system might need to be torn down and rebuilt, possibly violently. Consider that as you avoid empathizing with those affected.
Possibly less so to their loved ones, some of whom may act violently in response to a system that killed a person they care about.
I doubt they're going to care meaningfully about which legal mechanism it was that would have been most appropriate to use to allow their loved one to live.
Contact your state and Congressional representations and find legislative candidates that are as passionate on this topic as you are, if there arent other causes you are more passionate about that different candidates care about of course.
It is accurate that several judges lied to Congress during their nomination process and we do not have remedies or sanctions for that. (That are deemed politically rational)
Paradoxically, the Roe decision created the division that has far extremes. A false dilemma of which there are many other possibilities. Also something those two justices agreed on.
Congress avoided the topic for 50 straight years, masquerading the ruling as good enough, now it continues to lack consensus for anything else, its up to the people to attempt something else. If consensus cannot be reached then consensus cannot be reached, which is something I empathize with, people need to optimize their use more effectively and conform it to the consensus mechanisms of this country. Generate proposals that are more inspired and would have broader consensus, of which I do have a few.
Meanwhile bunch of states will make abortions illegal. I think Texas already has with some technicalities but correct me if I am wrong.
Additional states will follow soon, but there is no "meanwhile" for a lot of the country. It's already done.
Eg France bans abortion after 14 weeks; Norway bans it after 12 weeks.
Florida will not be a state where abortions happen soon enough.
The issue is that we're forced into a two party system. If someone thinks "I want abortion rights, but the culture wars are more important to me" they vote republican. A large block of the republican base is single issue religious voters, so even if a majority of the republican voters want abortion rights they will never pass because the religious voters will primary anyone who supports abortion.
First off, It was a momentous decision. It did not "merely" decide anything.
Second, a right does not need to be explicitly spelled out in the constitution to be a constitutionally protected right. The right to an abortion is a clear and rational outgrowth of the constitutional protections of privacy and bodily autonomy (IE, the right to not have the government mess with our shit for no good reason).
Making decisions intuitively can be useful. It is not necessarily wrong. It does have the benefit of being energy-efficient. :) See "Thinking Fast and Slow".
In any case, I hope we can move beyond rationalizing, particularly as a deceptive technique.
I'm probably overthinking a throwaway internet comment.
One of those things is not like the others.
That's a fallacious argument. No one threatened me with jail for not getting vaccinated and no one threatened the medical folks who gave me my vaccines with jail either.
There are millions of people who may go to prison for providing a private, personal medical procedure. That's wrong.
I'd note that Mississippi and Missouri have both charged women who had miscarriages with capital murder.
Like I said, no one threatened me (or anyone else, for that matter) with jail for getting (or not getting) vaccinated, did they?
Nor was anyone threatened with jail for refusing to vaccinate people.
Whereas, many state laws threaten prison (and even face the death penalty) for those who have or provide abortions.
Go to Prison != Folks don't want to be around you if you're more likely to get them sick with a potentially deadly disease.
So, no. It's not the same thing at all.
If you can't see the difference, nothing I say will mean anything to you.
I wish you the best.
Yes, the covid vaccine has been used as a condition of probation, and for reduced sentences[0].
>Folks don't want to be around you if you're more likely to get them sick
That does not supersede someone's bodily autonomy. If you are scared of being around unvaccinated people, don't go out in public.
0. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/us/ohio-judge-covid-vacci...
It's a also comparing a response to an acute global crisis to laws dealing with a routine medical issue (pregnancy) that ~50% of the population will experience in their lifetime.
"We have held that the “established method of substantive-due-process analysis” requires that an unenumerated right be “‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’” before it can be recognized as a component of the “liberty” protected in the Due Process Clause. Glucksberg, 521 U. S., at 721; cf. Timbs, 586 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7)."
There is a lengthy appendix to the ruling that goes through the list of prior state laws that criminalized abortion and shows that a right to abortion is not, in fact, "deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition".
edit: i was wrong about the trigger laws having exceptions for life endangering pregnancies - its the new laws the same people are passing that remove the exceptions. I still stand by my statement, because the "completely correct" ruling allows those exceptions to be removed.
Their claims about history and tradition so far have been historically inaccurate, or limited to only arch-conservative Christian traditions.
None of this is to mention a deeper fundamental problem with only looking at history and tradition in such a literal way: for women or men who are not white straight Christians, they haven't actually had equal rights for all that long. Arguably, the right to marry is a pretty fundamental Natural Right and has only been recognized starting in 2004.
These are master orators who no longer care about perceived legitimacy or stare decisis. They will continue to do whatever they want because they can, and make up the justification as they go along.
I think there is a simple way to interpret that: a lot of people thought that Roe v. Wade meant that they didn't have to think about abortion. And they liked that, even if they didn't think it was the ideal way to resolve the issue. They simply cared more about other issues, like the PPACA subsidy gaps, environmental sustainability, gun rights, taxes, drugs, et cetera, ad nauseam. Even during the Barrett and Kavanaugh nominations, there were plenty of people, including the nominally pro-choice (e.g. a certain Senator from Maine), who argued that Roe v. Wade was not in danger, which was most likely wishful thinking.
So your idea doesn't work, and in fact nothing works. The era when a voter or politician can (effectively) ignore abortion as a substantive political issue is over, and it isn't coming back.
Which means that New York, California, Massachusetts will retain abortion access. And Texas, Indiana, will remove abortion access.
This sounds like States rights is actually working.
But the media is distorting the overturning of Roe vs Wade with the sensational claim that “Abortion is banned in the US”.
No, it’s not banned. This just means Texas and New York have differing policies with regards to abortion access. Yes, 46 million women living in conservative states will lose access to abortion, but not all of those women are liberal quite frankly. Moreover, those states are exactly that: conservative. And the Conservative Majority of that state isn’t required to accommodate the views of the Liberal minority of that state.
Just like the Liberal Majority of California isn’t required to accommodate their Conservative Minorities.
That’s the nature of how US Democratic institutions were built.
Sounds fair to me and the Supreme Court made the correct decision by returning that authority back to the states.
The Supreme Court includes multiple justices put there in no small part due to lobbying by conservative faith groups, and as part of their lobbying plan, several states have trigger laws on the books that immediately make abortion legal in many states. The Supreme Court’s decision is the immediate cause of these “trigger laws” going into effect. It’s a part of a larger concerted effort, so this is a distinction with little difference for anyone living in these states or who may find themselves sued in Texas for providing abortions to a Texan who crossed into their state.
She describes Roe as a “breathtaking” decision and as interrupting a process already underway. Her discussion starts on page 1198 in this PDF which is a rewarding read if you have the time.
I’m not advocating either way - I merely hope to present Justice Ginsbergs eloquent views (in 1992) on the matter for further discussion here.
https://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/ECM_PRO_059254.p...
because of the states' rights issue, plus moral "conservatism", roe V wade was an easy target and i'm not surprised it was reversed.
fwiw, i'm a lefty and think that this is a terrible decision w/consequences that won't take long to be felt around the country
Want to know how you know the US will backslide? I Said it a decade ago - when R's are willing to pull the trigger on Roe, it will be because they are going for everything.
If it happens, and it's because of this decision, I don't think it'll be felt for a while. Certainly I don't expect any backlash this election cycle, and probably no real consequences from this in 2024. I suspect that, to the extent negative effects are felt from this, there will be years of blaming those effects on 'liberal policies' and demonizing democrats some more. I'm pessimistic, but think we'll have a generation before there's any real backlash against the Republican Party over this issue (and by then, the party largely won't look the same as it does today anyway).
Edit: It was also frequently stated that "no, they wont" when people were worried about the conservatives overturning roe v wade, but here we are!
Unlikely.
cf.:
https://www.cesifo.org/en/node/60300
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/13/least-thr...
If its not a 14th Amendment right, what is the Constitutional basis for codification? An expansive view of the Commerce Clause? That’s…not going to fly with the same politico-judicial faction that would hold it isn’t protected by the 14th Amendment.
Codification is a sideshow.
"On the question of abortion, the Constitution is therefore neither pro-life nor pro-choice. The Constitution is neutral and leaves the issue for the people and their elected representatives to resolve through the democratic process in the States or Congress — like the numerous other difficult questions of American social and economic policy that the Constitution does not address".
...
"After today’s decision, the nine Members of this Court will no longer decide the basic legality of pre-viability abortion for all 330 million Americans. That issue will be resolved by the people and their representatives in the democratic process in the States or Congress."
I'm an independent and I share many views with both R's and D's. However I can say that at the extremes of each party - they're fucking it all up for all of us.
Who knows what her real reasoning may have been, but that's my interpretation.
Of course, it must be remembered that almost no-one actually expected Trump to win 2016. So perhaps she didn't feel like there was actually much risk of her being replaced by a conservative, so it was safe to stay on.
In your hypothetical, Roe would still be the law of the land today.
a number of state have laws that the automatically make abortion illegal as soon as Roe was overturned, those are now enacted. furthermore, the case behind this ruling was dealing with a state law the effectively outlawed abortions, despite previous precedent ruling against it. this rule is simply enabling such behavior indirectly. this allows gives the green light for abortion to be targeted at the federal level, something which Republicans will be happy to do ASAP
to ignore the context of the surrounding case, and political motivations / backgrounds of the ruling justices is just ignorant. something like half of all states have now effectively illegal abortion
“The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives”
See the section in my comment about "states rights". I read the decision in its entirety and it was full of flaws from my perspective (I am not a lawyer). It's clear however that this is an ideological ruling. Also, I'm skeptical of the intellectual consistency of anyone's arguments when they mention "the libs".
I support first trimester abortions. Now go pass those laws in the states via the legislative process where it belongs.
Also that's before even getting into the structure of our federal system and explaining how "states rights" have almost always been a tool for upholding regressive legislature that is unpopular at the national level, due to the fact that a filibuster-proof supermajority is required to reign in the states, meanwhile a dissenting minority within the states has no similar recourse. Why do you think most of the progress in civil rights post-1964 has been accomplished through the Supreme Court? It's because southern and rural states are impossible to reign in with congress. This is why the Federalist Society went through the Supreme Court, because it's technically legal and technically how our government is supposed to work. But the end result is them harming people just like you and me.
How do you explain that?
The Supreme Court returned the question to the legislative branch. That’s it.
I happen to think abortion should be legal.
I also think it’s pretty clear that, when one side believes abortion to be a totally unrestricted right despite never appearing in the constitution, while simultaneously arguing for severely restricting and even eliminating a specifically enumerated right to bear arms, that they’re operating in complete bad faith, and don’t really care about the constitution except when convenient.
Change needs to be secured by convincing others of its necessity, not by appealing to authority to force others to behave or believe what you think they should.
The courts have been abused as an end-run around democratic change for too long now. I’m glad to see a serious bit of legislation from the bench rolled back.
This will force people to talk to each other. To convince each other. To work together. That’s ultimately a healthier outcome, even if things are a little worse while we figure things out.
Bud there’s a whole amendment about how if it’s not mentioned in the constitution it’s assumed you have the right.
> This will force people to talk to each other. To convince each other. To work together. That’s ultimately a healthier outcome, even if things are a little worse while we figure things out.
What part of this ruling makes that outcome happen?
That is not what the 9th amendment says. It just says that the Constitution and Bill of Rights specifically laying out some rights does not mean that you lack all rights not laid out explicitly.
So no, it is not assumed that you have a right if it is not mentioned in the Constitution. It is just explicitly stated that you may have that right.
The 10th amendment then kicks all of those rights to the states rather than the federal government.
You are interpreting it in complete contradiction to the text. You are literally construing the fact that some rights are enumerated and abortion isn't as a reason why you don't have a right to an abortion
>The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
This just means that the absence of an enumerated right doesn't imply that the right is totally absent. I.e. the fact that the Constitution doesn't outline a right to sell heroin doesn't mean that heroin is by default illegal; it's just left to the States (and the people) to decide what to do with it.
But importantly, just because the Constitution doesn't outline a right to sell heroin, one does not have a Constitutional right to sell heroin — that's absurd. It's still something that can be decided upon by the legislatures.
The Supreme Court ruling on the Constitutionality of laws isn’t in the Constitution.
You’re describing a judicial philosophy (textualism) as if it were law, or some sacred edict from above. It’s not.
You’re pretending the “democratic process” isn’t broken. It is.
Remember: the legislature could have banned abortion outright, at any time. We didn’t need the courts to do that. It would just take an amendment to the Constitution.
Remember: a majority of people in the US want abortion to be legal. The court overruled that based on its own fetish for textualism.
It’s great that you want people to talk to each other. In the mean time, women will die.
What new legislation is required beyond the 4th and 9th amendments? Along with decades of legal precedent, these ALREADY protect US citizen's medical rights sufficiently. Yet the court saw fit to ignore them, effectively saying that a) we are no longer secure in our persons from unreasonable search if the state says so and b) rights retained by the people (but not explicitly in the constitution) can be denied by any legislature. This is a radical departure from our current legal structure, a complete re-interpretation of the constitution undertaken by activist judges behind closed doors in direct opposition to precedent and their public oaths - "That's it" doesn't begin to cover it.
The simple answer is if you don’t want an abortion, don’t get one. Leave the health and safety of the rest of the population up to themselves.
Greater progress requires building upon smaller progress, a settled foundation. If the foundation is constantly under churn you can reasonably expect constant regression.
It would be so much more honest.
Stare decisis is neutral as to the content of court decisions. It can be used to sustain rightly and badly decided rulings for decades. And the court can ultimately overturn its past decisions rightly and wrongly. They can fail in the past, they can fail in the present, and they can fail in the future.
Sounds ridiculous but look at gun rights - Scalia said Second Amendment applies to individuals, but the decision would not affect other gun safety regulations. Now we have the SCOTUS expanding gun rights at the expense of states' rights and their safety regulations.
Could Congress maybe make a law stating precedents will not be overturned unless there is unanimous assent? That might make some things somewhat better for the foreseeable future.
And I think the point here was that RvW was not on strong settled foundations.
It occurred to me that all of this must have been carefully planned at the highest levels of both the church and political/financial benefactors that support it. A long and patient process put in motion years ago. I realize This is somewhat anecdotal but speaks to perhaps the planning that culminated in todays decision. This is about power and control operating under the auspices of religion. SCOTUS are just run-of-the-mill sycophants playing along.
You are incorrect, but this is also a specious argument. The list of religious that were anti-slavery was short at the outset of the 19th century and a mile long by the outset of the 20th. Church doctrine is not immune to influence by popular sentiment.
What's surprising is the American Catholic priesthood tends to go after pro-choice politicians, but not pro-death-penalty ones, despite the church seeing both as similarly objectionable. The political bent is fairly new.
The Pope has messaged that he'd rather they butt out. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/world/europe/pope-francis...
[EDIT: This first paragraph is incorrect as is pointed out in a response; it is left unchanged for context of the discussion.]
They are not viewed as “similarly objectionable”. The death penalty is viewed as being within the legitimate power of government doctrinally, but the present leadership of the Church views prudentially that the conditions which allow it do not occur in the modern world. Direct abortion is viewed as doctrinally prohibited. This is an important theological distinction because the Church heirarchy is viewed (borrowing some language from law) as having binding authority on doctrine, but only (very strongly) persuasive authority on prudential application of doctrine to particular material contexts.
That being said, you are correct that the political actions of the American Catholic heirarchy (more the bishops than the priesthood, and not all of them) are rather unbalanced (and not just on this pair of issues) in a way which is not easily explained by any coherent appeal to the actual social teaching of the Catholic Church.
Respectfully, no. The catechism reads, "the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person"[0]. This is a recent revision, and what you say reflects what was officially taught until 2017.
[0]: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2018/01/20/capital-punis...
If one views the argument that the prior teachings were infallibly proclaimed as incorrect, than there is no need to reconcile them; the prior teachings were simply in error.
Unsurprisingly, Francis has not only identified the previous approach as in error, he has both explained where the error is and provided an (unnecessary) explanation of what led people to make the error.
> there is considerable confusion about this change throughout the church and Pope Francis has not really offered any clarification
No one is confused or has any need of clarification. “It is per se contrary to the Gospel” isn’t the kind of statement that leaves a whole lot of room for different readings.
What there is is disagreement.
Arguably, the most these writings about what has been implicitly infallibly taught and therefore cannot be changed by a Pope despite the absence of an explicit dogma tell you is what the author is very concerned that there is an insufficient commitment to among the heirarchy and probably a risk of imminent change by a Pope, which the author is lobbying against.
(Or, as in this case, what has recently been actually changed by a Pope that the author wishes everyone to pretend has not.)
Why they focus so much on abortion is suspect indeed.
In that way, the pro-life crowd has at least a closer framing of the issue. The pro-choice crowd is talking about religion, privacy, social safety nets, etc. But that's all beside the point. If the fetus is a life, none of this stuff matters. We should all try and at least agree upon the framing of the issue and argue from there or we'll never get anywhere.
You can't find a middle ground with religious extremism.
What does this have to do with religion?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/29/us/30abortion...
There's no compromise available on the table.
The reality is that what we consider a "life" is graduated, and the fetus progresses along that continuum during gestation. Most people know this intuitively, which is why popular opinion generally falls where it does. (See, for example, the Pew polls on the subject of abortion and trimesters.)
We struggle to draw a bright-line to say, "this is where life begins," because there is not really a point where life "begins," merely a long series of points where it shifts by degree from "no life" to "life."
As a society though we still are tasked with drawing this line and it is an arbitrary line. But it is illogical for it to begin at the very start of the continuum, or at the very end. The beginning because it is silly and unscientific to pretend as though some tiny clump of cells has any more life than a wart, and it comes at great cost to women's autonomy; the end because it is illogical to believe that a baby the moment prior to birth is a fundamentally different being than at the moment after. To believe that the moment is at either end is thoughtless dogmatism.
Where should the line be? Pick a point. Give the woman enough time to be able to know that she is pregnant, to plan and provide for her bodily autonomy to make her own life choices, and to deal with lead times at clinics. And then draw a line where the choice has been made. Most people believe that line is somewhere around the end of the first trimester or early part of the second.
But in your own words, isn't it similarly illogical to believe that a baby the moment prior to that point is a fundamentally different being than at the moment after.
Moreover, whatever your opinion of abortion rights, Roe vs Wade was not based on solid legal reasoning and it was foolish for liberals to depend on it over the last half century instead of explicitly codifying it into law or the Constitution.
This is the blue dress vs gold dress of politics. There is no communication because the two sides see the world in fundamentally different ways.
After that, I switch to a much more consistent version of "pro-life" which includes a moral imperitive not to cause undue (frivolous, even) suffering or harm to any living thing.
This is the general case on most topics. Accepting the other side's framing is tantamount to "losing the argument" to most people. Often that framing defines the other side as essentially evil and thus not worth listening to or reasoning with. There are precious few places where actual debates where primary arguments are understood and rebutted by mutually respecting parties.
Neither can you with liberal extremists, we have people in this thread who literally advocate for abortion less than 24 hours before delivery.
Unless you are going to pretend that there is no such thing as liberal extremists, in which case I am not sure how to respond.
I also think you're dismissing privacy too quickly. How much privacy would you give up in the name of saving lives?
In regards to bodily autonomy, again if the fetus is a life, you have to be a good steward of the life. I don't think you have a (moral) right to harm your body to the detriment of the life, much like you don't have a right to drive off a cliff with someone inside your car with you. And if someone assaults you and results in you losing your baby, I don't think that's the same as a regular assault.
The same people who (falsely) screamed about vaccine mandates being a HIPAA violation sure don't give a fuck about that now.
> The same people who (falsely) screamed about vaccine mandates being a HIPAA violation sure don't give a fuck about that now.
If you're going to make the argument that privacy requirements protect abortion procedures, then that would also mean that vaccine mandates are not allowed for the same reason. You can't have it both ways.
This is a pretty weak argument which could be used to justify any number of things. Can you rape or murder behind closed doors, and invoke the right to privacy when the authorities try to stop you?
Just because X happens in private doesn't make it legal and protected by privacy rights.
There are plenty of illegal medical procedures. You can't have a doctor remove a kidney and help you sell it, for example.
How is the government going to know which people have fetuses in them, and how long they've been there, without some loss of privacy? (Do you think menstrual cycles are private information, for example?)
And how does the government know what people do (or plan to do) to their own bodies without some loss of privacy?
> In regards to bodily autonomy, again if the fetus is a life
Well yes, you can argue against bodily autonomy as a compelling argument for legalizing abortion. My initial point was that you were just ignoring it.
That said...
> you have to be a good steward of the life
Says who? Compelling someone to use their body as a host (not "steward") of another life is a violation of their bodily autonomy.
If you're going to use car analogies, we also don't say that anyone involved in a car crash must donate blood or organs to save other victims.
Originally we were talking about many people forced to give up privacy in order to possibly prevent some potential future deaths.
You're talking about one person consenting to give up privacy in order to prevent multiple certain deaths.
It's curious that the definition of human life is different in every state. The circumstances around brain death, euthanasia, and suicide are decided locally, not federally. In fact, I think before ROe v Wade, the Supremes never before tried to define what is "human" and what is not. Even the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th amendment (which decided the citizenship and equal protection under law of black people) was not decided by the Supremes but by the states.
Probably, now, it would be better if the states wrote legislation that clearly defines human life, thereby taking such an important issue out of the hands of unelected politicians like the Supremes.
Even if we agreed that life begins at conception, it's not at all clear to me that the bodily autonomy and privacy issues would go away.
> it would be better if the states wrote legislation that clearly defines human life
Except there's no objective answer in reality, because "human life" is a fuzzy made-up concept. I doubt some arbitrary legislation would settle things down. People would still disagree just as vehemently.
It was a wedge issue when the GOP picked it up and made an unholy alliance with the raving fire-and-brimstone preachers of the South that got Reagan in office. It has continued to be a wedge issue that the GOP has relied on to get their asses in office for pretty much my entire life.
If you have money, or a network of help, and a safe home situation...
It's easy to say "everyone in a regressive state should move". It's easy to say "everyone in a regressive country should move". Not everyone has that option as readily available as you might imagine.
The GOP is working their hardest to send everyone back to 1970. Or further. 1850 looks pretty good to them.
The only winner in the partisan fight are the elites in both parties. We need a working class party to resist both of the parties of American capitalism.
I wonder if this one has a partisan axe to grind
There is one side that is fighting very hard to not only make it at conception, but potentially even before conception (there are reasons to believe that the supreme court might come for birth control next - and there are large portions of the same religious community that put them in power that want that).
For many people on the other side the fetus doesn't get rights until it is born. And up until that point, it is a bundle of cells wholly dependent on the mother, and therefor part of her body (and thus, her bodily autonomy). Indeed, there's a reading of the bible that supports this interpretation - it mentions multiple times a baby becoming alive "at its first breath".
For many people, the answer lies somewhere in the middle, but it's not clear at all that those people represent a majority.
The issue touches on strongly held moral beliefs on both sides - rights to life, right to bodily autonomy, and questions about when life starts.
There is no simple universal framing that we can all agree upon.
----
And even aside from framing, even if we could agree on a framing, the issue gets really complex, really fast. Lets say we do agree that the question is about when a life becomes a life.
Pregnancy is dangerous, as I well know. My wife and I lost three pregnancies. One of them was at 20 weeks. My son was already dead by the time we got to the hospital, but they had to remove his body from my wife's body or it risked a deadly infection. The medication they used to do that, in this case to trigger labor, was an abortion medication. The procedure they would have performed had that failed, was a DNC - an abortion. Both are already being banned by trigger laws in many states. In a room down the hall, a dear friend of ours who'd been struggling with infertility and loss was having a DNC the same day we lost our son, due to yet another failed pregnancy. Again, without that procedure, she would have died.
So you very quickly get into other complexities even when you do boil it down into a question of when life starts. And even then, the argument for banning it the way many states are (completely, with no exceptions) becomes hard to make about anything but control.
You can say it's about saving the life of the child - but we don't force dead people to donate their organs even when it would save a life. These laws will force women to die, even when there is no living child left to save.
The right to bodily autonomy is not believable because there weren't a whole lot of people campaigning against vaccine mandates because they were pro-bodily-autonomy.
As for your examples, surely even pro-life people don't care about "abortions" of babies that are already dead? If laws are interpretable in that way it seems like an easy wording fix. Not many people would care about that even if religious.
Vaccines are something that touch on community health. When one person chooses not to get vaccinated they are putting everyone around them at risk. At the most extreme extent, abortion affects the potential parents, the potential life, and their families. It's a different risk calculation. A woman pursuing an abortion is making life and death decisions for (at most - because not everyone believes the fetus is a life with rights) two people. Someone not getting a vaccine in a deadly pandemic is making decisions that impact life and death for their whole community.
Yet, again, odd silence from the pro-choice crowd. Clearly they don't believe in choice nor bodily autonomy.
Abortion on the other hand does always affect other people, if you believe the fetus is a person.
But most importantly, yes you do have to be consistent. If you can't be consistent because you feel it requires adopting extreme positions then you need to rethink your moral code, because clearly, you may find that your position isn't as morally clear as you thought.
Ok then, the fetus is my enemy.
Reasons like Justice Thomas explicitly and clearly saying they should reconsider the ruling that prevents states from banning them.
From the NYT:
>Then, [Justice Thomas] took aim at three other landmark cases that relied on that same legal reasoning: Griswold v. Connecticut, a 1965 decision that declared married couples had a right to contraception; Lawrence v. Texas, a 2003 case invalidating sodomy laws and making same-sex sexual activity legal across the country; and Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case establishing the right of gay couples to marry.
>Justice Thomas wrote that the court “should reconsider” all three decisions, saying it had a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents. Then, he said, after “overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions” protected the rights they established.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/clarence-thomas-roe-gr...
"For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold [contraception], Lawrence [sodomy], and Obergefell [same sex marriage]. Because any substantive due process decision is “demonstrably erroneous,” we have a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents."
They ARE COMING for it next. They just said so.
This is irrelevant to my personal views on abortion because I believe that individuals have rights over their own body which supersede anyone else's rights to their body. We hold this as true in all other facets of bodily autonomy. I have no legal responsibility to risk my life to protect my fellow citizens. I have no obligation to regularly donate blood or bone marrow. I can't be compelled to donate a kidney. I can even arrange for all my healthy organs to be thrown in a fire or buried underground after my death rather than allow them to be used to save the lives of multiple people. This is all because my body is mine and I can control what happens to it. If I refuse to allow it to be used to support another life, that is my choice.
Probably something like, you are responsible for the creating of the fetus/baby/whatever so you have more of an obligation to it than you do to other people.
It is mostly a personal responsibility thing, as I understand it. You are responsible for creating the baby so you must give up some of your rights like bodily autonomy.
Birth control and sex education are not really related to that at all as far as I can tell.
If that's what you believe, then don't terminate your pregnancy. As far as anyone else is concerned, it's none of your concern.
I mean, I personally agree with you.
However, there are very few true libertarians in our society and almost everyone has views that they wish to impose on other people. The pro lifers are not different than anyone else in this regard.
And more's the pity.
If we go back to coat hanger abortions and render fetuses “unviable” that way, is everything peachy keen?
If not, then are miscarriages now occasion for criminal investigations?
Pro-life logic is garbage
In several states, this is now true
When crafting law it is vitally important to understand how this would realistically affect people.
This 2016 interview with a woman who had an abortion at 32 weeks after she found out her fetus would not survive outside the womb and who then had to suffer through 24 hours of labor and have her dead child ripped from her womb (and prior brain surgery meant she couldn’t push), really paints a picture of the terrible reality for anyone forced to be in a position to terminate a pregnancy at such a late stage: https://jezebel.com/interview-with-a-woman-who-recently-had-...
But if you’re asking directly if I think someone should be able to prioritize their own life in place of someone else’s, well yes, yes I do.
[1]: https://jezebel.com/interview-with-a-woman-who-recently-had-... anyone who wants to rail about late-term abortions without knowing the pain and suffering that is involved for the women that have to get them needs to read that interview. All of it. Then read it again. And then think about why the focus of this debate is on the extremely-rare scenarios that are not about people changing their minds and not wanting to bring a child into the world, but are terribly sad medical scenarios.
The reasonable thing would just be to deliver the baby and put it up for adoption, but don't you have the right to, say, disconnect the placenta (it's your placenta), and also not have your abdomen cut open to help out some other individual who just happens to be stuck in there?
Which is why I would be charged with murder if I go punch a heavily pregnant woman in the gut and kill her child.
I think it is fair to force a point of no return in a pregnancy after which we prohibit abortion (edit: beyond situations that threaten the mother's life). The most important aspect to me is that the person has the time and freedom to make that decision that is right for them. If we are trying to be scientific about it, viability occurs around 24 weeks so that seems like a reasonable deadline for a decision.
What I'm trying to get to is that "My body my choice" is a nice thing to chant at a protest, it's also a pretty damn bad argument, I can't believe we are still doing this AFTER covid. I'm 100% for abortion but I find it hard to argue outside a "the fetus is not a sentient being at that point" frame.
It's really not a bad argument if you consider acute vs routine circumstances. Otherwise how could we argue against blackout restrictions[1] in cities now that WWII has happened?
[1] http://pbchistoryonline.org/page/local-response-blackout-res...
It's hilarious to me that the same crowd that fights for gun rights under the banner of "individual liberty" is very quick to invite the government into the womb.
Well you cannot ban abortion. You can only ban safe abortions.
This is what they want. They don't want an end to abortions. They want an end to safe abortions. If more women die in labor, they are ok with it.
I do support this kind of abortion because the only situation I could imagine it happening is in a life saving one.
And you can perform the abortion yourself. After all, what right does a doctor have over what operations you can do on your own body?
The scenario you've described is approximately the same as a suicide. Consider that people still do that even though it's illegal. Heinous shit will happen, but if you're genuinely interested in minimizing human death and suffering, safe and legal abortion is a necessary component to that.
I'm not positive that allowing no questions asked abortions 1 day before the due date will minimize human death and suffering. Instead, I think it would provide an avenue to take for people who have, basically, cold feet about being a parent.
In fact, I have to wonder if OP thinks they have the right to abandon their already-birthed baby in the wilderness. After all, what right does that individual have to force another person to take care of it? I'm an individual after all. If I refuse to allow my body to be used to support another life, that is my choice.
Wheresoever these rights meet, we have, as a society, chosen the right of bodily autonomy. No one may compel you to donate your blood or organs, even if they might die without them. Even if they are your children. Even if you will be dead when they are taken. We have made a strong cultural choice that the body is yielded only with specifically granted consent.
Abortion is a place where these two fundamental rights connect. The mother's right to control herself and the child's to exist. Under our culture's normal choice of bodily autonomy, it is an unfortunate consequence that the child will not live.
It might be entirely reasonable to frame laws encouraging that children deemed viable should rather be birthed so long as there is not risk to the mother. But this is not, of course, what they have done.
Instead we have re-opened a chapter once closed. Of horror stories with women being denied abortive procedures for ectopic pregnancies, or known failed pregnancies, forcing them instead to carry their dead child until it is naturally expelled. Horrors that would be easily taken care of by the woman simply having that natural choice over her own flesh.
Desperate women without resources to flee oppressive laws will resort to the same sorts of dangerous remedies they did in pre-Roe days. These frequently went wrong, and many that spoke in favor of Roe when it was passed cited such stories.
Women will die and families will suffer under the laws that have become active today, and those laws that will be soon certified into action or freshly written to take advantage of Roe's absence. The people insisting on these laws will take no measure of responsibility for the terrors they inflict, insisting instead it is the fault of the victims of these laws. Many seem to take some perverse glee in it.
That one of the justices has insisted in their concurrence that we review and vacate laws enshrining similarly protected rights for millions of Americans, it seems sure the current path will lead only to more misery, bigotry, violence and horror if those pushing this poisonous legislation have their way.
You're missing the point that your choice to have sex created the fetus/life in the first place. That changes the debate and invalidates all of your examples.
Incest can be nonconsensual, in which it was also rape and so would be covered under a rape exception.
Incest can also be consensual, in which case what is the logic to treating conception by incest any different than any other circumstances of conception?
By your logic, if a person drives a car and has a crash, the doctor should refuse to treat their injuries, because after all, it was their choice to drive.
I'm pro-choice but this does not follow from that logic, which is that choosing to take action that might result in another living thing temporarily being dependent on you to survive, does come with at least some level of obligation not to rip that support away such that they die. Your analogy doesn't address that at all.
Moreover, "living thing" is the key word here. A fetus IS a living thing. So is a cow, a cockroach, an intestinal parasite. We kill those, and we support industries that kill them, without thinking. And while there are extremists who support protecting a broader segment of "life," that is not what the pro-life movement is about. If I breed cows for a living, I have a legal and ethical right to kill those cows. And if I have a baby attached to my uterus, I should have the legal right to do what I want.
But if you instead put the baby in your uterus, of your own free will and choice, you are responsible for it.
Rape accounts for less than 0.5% of abortions. While it's important to consider, it doesn't remove the responsibility in the other 99.5%.
I am under no more ethical obligation to preserve the life of a fetus in me than I am to preserve the life of an intestinal parasite that I've ingested.
Yeah, obviously, but it barely matters for the overall argument. It's misdirection, not a substantive refutation. Is anyone on the pro-choice side happy with only allowing abortions in cases of rape and incest? I'm not. I'm pretty sure that falls under the pro-life umbrella, in fact. All this shows is that one part of the pro-life camp may have a better-reasoned position than another.
> Moreover, "living thing" is the key word here. A fetus IS a living thing. So is a cow, a cockroach, an intestinal parasite. We kill those, and we support industries that kill them, without thinking. And while there are extremists who support protecting a broader segment of "life," that is not what the pro-life movement is about. If I breed cows for a living, I have a legal and ethical right to kill those cows. And if I have a baby attached to my uterus, I should have the legal right to do what I want.
This still doesn't address the argument. In fact your keying in on "living thing" and trying to build on that as an argument is pure semantic mumbo-jumbo. Replace that phrase with "baby" (which I avoided so we wouldn't immediately have that other ridiculous, pointless discussion) and all that junk about cows is irrelevant, which it was anyway.
Again: I'm pro-choice, to be clear. I just find most arguments from "my side" totally fail to address the "other side"'s actual positions, which is frustrating if, like me, you hope for your position to gain support. Bad arguments just make us look like we're wrong.
2. Fetuses are not babies. Babies are people, from a legal and ethical perspective; fetuses are not. If it were otherwise, we wouldn't even be having this conversation, as abortion would already be considered murder. So yes, fetuses are living, but that does not afford them any rights, any more than cows have rights by virtue of being alive, and it certainly doesn't afford them rights that supersede those of an actual person.
In other words: in our society, we give rights to people, not to mere "living things."
It's not that that faction's negligible, it's that the argument isn't helpful for refuting "the mother does have some obligation to a life that was created and became dependent on her through her own actions" because someone who holds that position probably doesn't disagree with you that rape and incest are exceptions. It's a distraction not from the broader debate, but specifically from substantively addressing this particular position.
> 2. Fetuses are not babies. Babies are people, from a legal and ethical perspective; fetuses are not. If it were otherwise, we wouldn't even be having this conversation, as abortion would already be considered murder. So yes, fetuses are living, but that does not afford them any rights, any more than cows have rights by virtue of being alive, and it certainly doesn't afford them rights that supersede those of an actual person.
This is precisely the point of contention, and it is far from clear-cut even on the pro-choice side. That's why 3rd trimester abortion rights are far less popular than the rest—even to many pro-choicers, the is-/isn't-a-baby question is settled at some point before birth, but after the 1st trimester.
The argument that abortion is tolerable in cases where the women does not choose to have sex shows your hand: the pro-life movement was never about protecting life, it has always been about punishing women. You are okay killing fetuses as long as the woman didn't actually have the temerity to enjoy sex.
[0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/what-states...
[1] https://www.axios.com/2022/05/14/abortion-state-laws-bans-ro...
It's often exhausting trying to get people to think with their brains rather than with the tips of their tongues, and all the bad arguments muddy waters.
Just because you believe this doesn't make it true. I struggle to believe that a single pro-lifer would say this is the reason behind their beliefs. As a pro-lifer, I can attest that it has nothing to do with my beliefs. Believing it may "demonize" prolifers, and help you feel good about fighting for your stance on abortion. But the reality is, blind beliefs like this are the cause of division and hate that seems to be ever increasing.
Of course they wouldn't say it out loud: that would be giving the game away. Instead, judge them by their actions. The same crowd that wants to prevent abortions also wants to prohibit contraception, allow unrestricted gun ownership, and cut back on any social programs that support families.
These actions are consistent with a puritanical, anti-sex society; they are not consistent with a "commitment to life."
Stop listening to what prochoicers say prolifers believe, and start actually listening to what the prolifers are saying. I (and most prolifers I know) don't have some secret agenda.
When the cop beats you bloody while declaring that it's "For your own protection," you are justified in questioning his motives. When the right claims to care about "life," but their actions totally contradict the stated goal, I get to declare them at best hypocrites but more likely just fascists.
I see this kind of thought process all the time: when some people don't get traction with their arguments on a particular issue, they ascribe other beliefs to their opponent and call those into question. This is both ad hominem and whataboutism, and it doesn't win over anybody's heart or mind, it just "others" the opponent, further entrenching tribalism.
The "crowd" is diverse and contains multitudes. If you want to change minds, engage with the arguments, not with the arguers.
If you don't want to be judged as a tribe, you need to take a stand. If you support contraception and gay marriage, then support them. Right now, though, the right is supporting more and more extreme ideologues.
Is the intent behind child support laws "a desire to punish men for choosing to have sex"? If a man has a one-night-stand with a woman and a child is born, he could be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of 18 years.
> By your logic, if a person drives a car and has a crash, the doctor should refuse to treat their injuries, because after all, it was their choice to drive.
If a person refuses to take a COVID-19 vaccine, and does not have COVID, should doctors / hospitals be allowed to give that person lower quality-of-service and/or refuse elective treatments? After all, the person made a choice not to get a COVID vaccine which is proven safe and effective.
Irrelevant comparison. There is no procedure to legally "undo" a child who has been born, in which case one should pursue the wellbeing of the child (which may or may not be well-served by child support laws). However, if a child has not yet been born, and the child is not wanted, abortion prevents health risks to the mother, while also preventing an unwanted child from a life of hardship. If there's a procedure that helps everyone involved, why not do it?
> If a person refuses to take a COVID-19 vaccine, and does not have COVID, should doctors
Bro this makes no sense at all. If the patient doesn't have COVID, then the decision to not take the vaccine has no bearing on their elective treatments. If a woman has sex, she has not surrendered the right to her body.
Why? In what way?
The child is literally feeding off the mother until birth, taking energy, nutrients, maybe even killing the mother. I don't necessarily want to frame it this way, because I want to view the relationship as mutualistic or commensalistic, rather than parasitic, but I could see how it might be biologically a parasitic relationship.
However, a quick search shows that people against abortions say that biologically it must be "an organism that attaches to a member of a different species and feeds off that organism in a manner that is physically injurious to the other organism."
While it may not fit the dictionary definition of a biologically parasitic relationship, I believe it still can "feed off that organism in a manner that is physically injurious to the other organism."
So I think there could be an argument for self-defense.
No, the court remanded the lawmaking decision to the states, as it should be.
There's this section of the CA-NV border known as "state line", which has a litany of casinos just right on the NV side of that border. The notion that different states have different laws is a fact we've accepted since the founding of our country.
When AZ bans abortion, Arizona women will be mildly inconvenienced by a three hour drive to the CA border, as other matters of state law divergence have always been. Nobody has lost their rights.
Cynically, I'd suggest that abortion rights aren't even the issue at hand - lots of people seem very angry/afraid that after a century of DC slowly arrogating all available power and authority to itself, that this power might flow back the other way.
I'm ok with this argument, as I believe that legislatures, national and state, should write laws to address these issues, not rely on court precedent.
> Cynically, I'd suggest that abortion rights aren't even the issue at hand - lots of people seem very angry/afraid that after a century of DC slowly arrogating all available power and authority to itself, that this power might flow back the other way.
I disagree that this is the main reason, because SCOTUS just basically said the NY state law against guns in public was unconstitutional, and Congress is passing a national gun law as we speak.
So I find it hard to believe that it's just about state's rights, because it's giving states some rights in one week while also taking away other rights.
Notably the same argument has been used to set the precedent that male rape victims are also compelled to pay child support to their rapists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermesmann_v._Seyer
There the alimony decision was based on the rape victim giving consent from the standpoint of the civil laws which also govern parental relationships. That did not matter for criminal law because the victim was underage.
Not that I agree with the court here, but it is completely different from what you described.
But there are a bunch of similar decisions here: https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
And the common theme is just because the parent is raped, doesn't override the rights of the child.
It's easy to see how that logic would be extended from child support to abortion.
If you believe that abortion is murder, how the child came to be is irrelevant.
The only way that the mother's conscious choice to have sex factor's into the equation is if the intent of abortion laws is not to protect children, but rather to punish women who choose to have sex.
But just strictly going from the legal sense, I imagine there's a lot of leeway in defining self-defense with regards to whether one chooses to enter into a situation where one is likely to be attacked.
I also don't feel very clear on what are the relevant trade offs, but maybe it's more clear to you. What do you see as the relevant tradeoffs?
Component 1: human life is valuable, and ending a human life is a serious matter not just for the individual, but for society
Component 2: personal autonomy, esp wrt control of one's own body, is one of the most profound of freedoms, and one of particular importance to the American people
Most Americans would probably agree that these two components explain the majority of the 'moral variance' on the issue. So then it's a matter of making an uncomfortable choice between them: when do we value human life less than autonomy? Answering that question will almost certainly require some further difficult reckoning:
Sub-component 3: what really counts as a human life? A person born without a brain? A brain dead patient? A patient reduced to the level of an animal due to Lewy Body Dementia? A 8.9 month old unborn baby? A 4 week fetus? A fetus that isn't viable outside the mother's body?
Sub-sub-component 4: what do we count as viable? What amount of medical intervention is allowed for a fetus to be considered viable?
And then things like:
Intersection {1,2}: What about when a person wants to exercise autonomy to end his own life, but is unable / unwilling to do so by himself? Should it be legal to enlist someone to help?
Etc. Tradeoffs all the way down. Seems more productive to admit that they exist and that you're taking a position. I agree with you that when making a legal ruling metaphor may be required (e.g., saying that the right to commercially transact is a kind of free speech), but in the current context it seems totally gratuitous. Specifically, if we're talking about making exceptions when the mother's health is at risk, that's easy to discuss explicitly -- human life is important, but the fully realized adult life is more important than the nascent life of the fetus.
But I do believe that some people who are pregnant and would like abortions may perceive the child as being parasitic (not a parasite, as I also don't like to attach strict labels of badness to one's identity but to focus on behaviors).
So I agree it sounds crass and yet think if others want to use self-defense for other arguments defending their harm to others, I don't see why that same argument couldn't apply here.
I don't want to characterize pregnancy this way, I also don't want to characterize almost any human interaction this way. I prefer to believe that we all have good intentions and sometimes accidentally hurt people and that most of us are trying our absolute best to minimize pain and maximize joy, especially to those around us. So what can hurt me is how so many mothers may feel pain whether they keep the baby or abort, and we often demonize them for making one of the hardest and most gut-wrenching decisions in their lives. That's not to say I don't feel pain for the unborn child, I also feel the pain of the lost life. But I also feel the pain for the child who is born and kills the mother, or who is born and is resented by the mother or abandoned.
I feel pain all around the situation and it hurts me that we can be so quick to demonize the unborn child or the mother.
I doubt that argument would get far in the case of most abortions, but it might work in cases where the mother's life is at much more risk than is normal for pregnancy, especially where the pregnancy has gone so wrong that there is almost no chance the baby is going to make it.
You do understand how this can be twisted for __very__ bad things, right?
Whenever someone would die soon if they did not get an organ transplant the government would check the records to identify all people who would be good donors. Those donors would all receive a notification that someone has dibs on that organ. If one of those donors died while the person with dibs was still alive their organ would be used to save the life of the person with dibs.
When that happened, or when the person with dibs dies before getting a transplant, all the people who had been potential donors were notified that no one had dibs on their organ any more.
Most of the time for most people they would occasionally get notified someone had dibs on some organ of theirs and then in a week or two they'd get a notice that it was resolved and their organ was no longer under dibs.
Rarely, someone who had an organ under dibs would get a notification that a second organ was under dibs.
Most of the time that would end like the single dibs case. Two or three weeks later they would be back to normal with no organs under dibs.
Very rarely someone with two organs under dibs would get a notification that a third organ was under dibs. In that case they were required to give up their three organs to save the lives of the three people under dibs.
Just seems wrong that you think that the mother could kill it up to the last moment of birth, for even the most absurd reasons.
When does the offspring gain rights over its body?
I think you’re trying to ask a poignant question, but it misses the point.
The fetus’ body is not the mother’s body, and bodily autonomy dictates one isn’t obligated to give their body for another’s survival.
Removing the fetus from the womb results in termination of the fetus if done prior to viability, but at no point does any violation of the fetus’ body need to occur for this outcome to happen.
Umm ... well, maybe.
My views on this are definitely coloured by having three kids, but watching the process of creating new humans starting off with a discussion about "shall we try and start a family", the next bit <cough>, a result on a test kit, the highs and lows of pregnancy, feeling your unborn first child kicking along to music in my wife's almost comically round tummy while we sat in a concert hall a few weeks before the big day ..
.. through to revising algebra and geometry at the breakfast table with my eldest this morning prior to an end of term maths test.
> The fetus’ body is not the mother’s body
Indeed, although the fetus survives due to the cord that connects them.
I've personally been in the room for all our three kids' births, cut the cord for two of them. #1 needed the doctors in a hurry after his birth, I just sat out of the way, watching in awed and stunned silence.
Life is wonderful, and complicated, and at times messy and confusing. Sometimes just downright awful. Pregnancy is some or indeed all of those.
Like everything we do there are edge cases and I don't think we should design our societies to leave anyone feeling they are left with no choices. "Look after those who can't look after themselves" is something that goes beyond the technical discussion of when is a fetus viable, I've spent enough time feeding and changing babies to know that just because they can breathe unaided it doesn't mean they can survive unaided.
TL;DR: I would be just as uncomfortable with a complete ban on abortion as I would be with unlimited easy access to it without any time limits.
And I get what you mean with survival, it’s a commonly discussed point in these debates. I think for the pro-choice side, if the technology existed to incubate outside the womb or to transplant from one person to another who wanted to give birth, we’d be for it. We are not pro-termination. But when it comes to the pregnant person’s autonomy, that takes precedence.
After viability and birth, others besides the mother and father can care for the child. And society owes its children that.
I believe the vast majority of pro-choice supports a limit at viability except when the mother’s life is in danger. Only 1% of abortions happen in the third trimester and nearly all of those are due to a threat to the mother’s life.
On the other side, I believe the majority of pro-life supporters want a complete ban.
If your beliefs are between the extremes, I think only one side represents that.
There's a line somewhere between total bodily autonomy and being compelled by the state to experience: nausea, swelling, muscle and back pain, weight gain, incontinence, depression, and laceration to you genitals.
> parents are still allowed to circumcise their children
Indeed, propertarianism where parents do not own their children would also proscribe surgically mutilating them, for example. However, parents would not necessarily be obligated to take care of their children; this is also the basis by which abortion would be permitted. Propertarianism where parents do own their children (which strikes me as unreasonable) would a fortiori also allow abortion, as well as other more universally reviled practices such as post-birth infanticide.
The US government can compel you to sacrifice your entire body ( organs and all ) for the greater good of other citizens should they wish. [0]
...I'm not saying I agree or disagree with anything in this thread, I just think this particular chain of comments is funny.
The ONLY KNOWN METHOD OF HAVING CHILDREN IS: ::drumroll:: Sexual Intercourse.
There is no other natural method of having children; intercourse is it.
The choice lies in choosing NOT TO HAVE SEXUAL INTERCOURSE.
That is the proper framing. If the choice /not/ to have sex was followed there would be no pregnancy, and no cause to terminate a life.
The choice was prior to conception, not after.
The choice was prior to the crash, not after.
> This is irrelevant to my personal views on abortion because I believe that individuals have rights over their own body which supersede anyone else's rights to their body.
It absolutely is relevant, because you view collapses into nonsense unless you believe a fetus is a not an individual and that it has no rights. If the fetus is a person, then you're in a situation where their rights to their own body are getting superseded by another's right.
> We hold this as true in all other facets of bodily autonomy.
No, not all. You totally have the legal obligation to provide for your children, if you have them, and that almost always involves using your body in some way.
You are not legally obligated to donate your organs to your children, fwiw.
I think the discussion of ethical and legal obligation cannot possible be given broad swath of "no one is obligated to anyone" nor "you are entirely obligated to someone in every way". This isn't how reality works. Parents are considered obligated to their children, unless they choose not to parent their children and withdraw their parental responsibilities under existent legal frameworks. At the same time, parents are not entirely obligated to their children, as parents are not fined or jailed for not donating their blood or organs.
What a bizarre and morbid misunderstanding. You have the legal obligation to use that "flesh" to acquire food to feed your children.
Also, it's not like a fetus eats its mother's flesh from the inside (until I suppose it emerges from the husk like a xenomorph?).
What about when the child rips open the mother's vulva on the way out? If it's a person, should it be possible to try it for assault?
[1] https://www.marchofdimes.org/complications/hellp-syndrome.as...
If you have a child, and you are the the only good potential donor match, and that child will die without, say, a bone-marrow transplant, you are not forced to donate your own bone marrow. Saying "You totally have the legal obligation to provide for your children, if you have them, and that almost always involves using your body in some way" is a poor analogy that really doesn't encompass what it is to have another being living inside you.
That's why I think the "viability" standard is the only one that makes sense, and also why that as technology has improved that I think the cutoff date for abortion should be lowered to the new age of viability. Any human should have the right to remove another from their own body. In the case of a child, if we have no technology to allow that child to survive outside the mother, so be it, but I think the much better analogy to forced birthing is actually slavery.
Did you have rights over your own body when you had sex and started the process of conception? Why do your choices only matter depending on the result of conception?
The argument is that at some point the fetus is no longer the same body. Arguing for "bodily autonomy" ignores the crux of the debate. A mother cannot kill their 1 year old, and parents have obligations to their young children, otherwise social services will intervene if those obligations aren't met. What obligations does a mother have to their unborn child? That is the debate that needs having.
"""
> I also don't really agree with this definition either. This train of logic leads to the justification of euthanizing less intelligent humans.
How so? less intelligent humans have cognitive ability so they have rights.
> It also doesn't adequately address why a human with microcephaly or no frontal lobe has rights, but a dolphin or octopus or killer whale does not.
The question is not why the law is the way it is but the way that it should be. As it is now, It has rights because it is a human, we make our laws for ourselves and sometimes for other species, and I would definitely say that animals should have protections/rights (and they do). A law is also a custom or an enforced custom and certainly animals have customs. At least in america, many families take the toll of taking care of their family members with many deformities. the state should not enforce termination of these, but it should be optional for those that do take this unfortunate toll in their hands. (criminalization != decriminalization)
> It also allows for the justification of cruelty against animals who can feel pain but aren't intelligent enough to pass some arbitrary test of intelligence.
On the contrary, as a cognitive animal capable of pain. it indicates that you should not do so, I would say the capability of pain is the most important aspect to life. given that it is usually an indicator of the will to live.
> To be clear, I don't know the answer, I am hesitant to label anything as "innately valuable". I think that there is however a sliding scale of what is "ethical".
Neither do I. Abortion is euthanasia, and it certainly has merit. both economically speaking and in the sense of well being for humans. Given that human childbirth is probably one of the worst around on the animal kingdom.
It would be nice if we just relegated pregnancies to artificial wombs, but until the technology is there. I guess we'll be having this abortion "debate" forever. """
7 people shouldn't have the power to command millions of people.
It's better to persuade, discuss, debate, change hearts and minds, than to dictate top-down.
I personally believe only women should be allowed to vote on this issue. It's their bodies, and they bear the overwhelming brunt of childcare and labor associated with raising children. They take the risks. They ought to be in the driver seat.
But surely there's another participant that deserves a voice. If it's a person (or even partly a person), then its most precious possession, it's life, is to be taken. Surely its voice cannot be dismissed outright. That's why I believe this issue is not as simple as letting only the mother (or the courts) decide. Historically, abortion has done a lot of harm, irrespective of Roe v Wade.
Personally, I think we need to try harder to minimize the injuries inherent in abortion. Let's not make a complex issue binary, as merely right or wrong. Technology and creativity are our friends. I believe it's possible to find 'cures' that do far less harm than is done now and to work toward even better ways until the rights of everyone involved are served.
I fail to see how that conclusion follows the reasoning. If anything them having a dog in the race would make their opinion biased, and thus void. The discussion is not whether if women should have control over their bodies or not, it's about the morality of exercising that control over a living human being that might or not be considered conscious to some degree.
Any group when facing the option of giving itself more rights will be biased towards the positive and surely impartiality ought to be important in this kind of matter?
Note that this isn't something I desire, as I see it the whole of society has a say on how things are run, and so we all discuss things such as education even if we aren't going to undergo any more education, it's just if you want to make this a special case and make a differentiation, anyone capable of pregnancy should be the first group out the door.
"If the fetus is a life," you say, but of course it's alive, it's made of living cells. That's not even the issue really. Something being alive doesn't necessarily say anything about how we should treat it. We don't treat bacteria with respect, or mushrooms, or even most animals. So given that a fetus is alive, does that entitle it to any rights? And if so should those rights have primacy over the rights of the person who is carrying the fetus?
I didn't mean to say whether the fetus is alive is the relevant question, so apologies for the confusion. It's whether the fetus is a person, in which case, yes being a person does entitle it to rights, none greater than your right to life. That takes primacy over other rights of the mother to terminate the person (assuming it is a person).
It's true that there's no clear answer, but I suggest that this is the question to answer, regardless of where you fall on the debate. Some people think its "heart beat" however you define that, other think its viability outside of the womb, and I'm sure other people have different criteria. But we should look to answer this question and get to a sensible policy.
This is basically the argumentation why many treat conception as the start of life. If you can't know the exact point, then disallow people from guessing and potentially getting it wrong.
I don’t think this is that complicated of an issue. The moment when the parent decides they want to keep the baby, is the moment when the fetus becomes a person. That precise time is when the fetus has someone that loves and cares for it, holds attachment towards it, etc.
However if the parent carrying the child is not allowed to make that decision form them self, then this becomes unnecessarily complicated.
Think about it; you are not required to help somebody if they're in an accident or a fire; you're not required to donate blood, but you would require a woman to donate blood and nutrients, spent several months of hardship and have a small but non-zero risk of serious health problems.
At some point it changes; in my mind, around viability. If the baby is delivered, you cannot kill it (you may be required to take care of it, although many states allow you to give up your kids).
Somewhere around 6 months, we might require a woman to give birth... Maybe
Giving birth is a life threatening process. Even under fairly routine births, women endure significant bodily harm, often irreversible. Look up prolapse. Your organs literally push out of you vagina. This impacts 20-35% of women and for many of them this condition is permanent.
If you are allowed to shoot someone in Florida because they threatened your bodily autonomy, why shouldn't a women be allowed to terminate a pregnancy for the same reason?
"Biden, the sitting POTUS, is a jackass" is probably ok.
"Don't vote for Biden in 2024" is absolutely not ok.
Look up the Koch brothers. They're largely responsible for much of the chaos we see in our country today.
A typical Catholic Mass lasts less than one hour. Most of the Mass follows a fixed, prescribed set of prayers and readings, that have nothing to do with politics. In the middle there's a sermon, that usually lasts about 15 minutes, that might include references to news or to politics.
Either you ended up at a very atypical mass, and by very atypical I'd say borderline heretic, or you don't remember well.
> with new political agenda of the Catholic Church.
New? Like it or not, the position of the Catholic Church on abortion has been extraordinarily consistent through the centuries.
That's not even remotely true!
For the vast majority of the history of the Catholic Church early term abortion was acceptable. It was only the 1588 that it was outlawed, and that didn't last long, only a few years. Another ban was instituted in 1869.
At the timescale of the Catholic Church, the current extremist position on abortions is extremely recent. Far less established as precedent than say Roe was.
That's more than 150 years ago. Matches pretty much my definition of consistency.
Even before, there might have been some doctrinal adjustments, but abortion was condemned by many Fathers of the Church, in the very early centuries.
So out of a 2000 year history, "consistency" means something that was invented 150 years ago? That seems like an absurd definition of consistency.
I mean that was 500 years ago. It's hard to argue inconsistency when it's been the same for 500 years.
But this isn't what gets mentioned in Hacker News comments. And it certainly isn't what is upvoted. The internet boosts grievances and fourth sigma event reporting.
It is a powergrab. Christian conservatives have the Supreme Court. This was all planned. Don't kid yourself.
This was a democrat party talking point to show supporters and fundraisers how indebted they should be for being "given" a right. No one owes any politician anything.
Sorry, for not capitolizing Democrat, since you seem to see such great offense in it.
Can you point to somewhere that Democrats have claimed to "give" rights? Democrats aim to "protect" rights, but the Constitution is where rights are enumerated and/or it is recognized that there are rights that may exist beyond what is enumerated. Further, if you were to read the party platform of the Democratic Party, you would see that protecting and enhancing rights is a fundamental core value.
>Sorry, for not capitolizing Democrat, since you seem to see such great offense in it.
It's "capitalizing" not "capitolizing" and it's not its state as a proper noun I was noting. The party is not "The democrats" or "democrat" it is the "Democratic" party. Sure, it's just words, but if you are going to repeatedly call out a party in a thread for some grievances, it's useful to call them by their actual name.
Much more concerning to me is the states who have enacted the actual bans with whatever passes for a democratic mandate. And it's that system which presumably will be the only tool that people have to protect themselves.
unsurprisingly, the majority of Justices are now Catholic - Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor (liberal, not a FedSoc pick), Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett.
I grew up going to church multiple times per week. Today's church is a cult and it is a cult about hate. I learned in Sunday School that God is love and that we should help each other. Today the message is righteous indignation. They don't believe in the Bible or follow Jesus' teachings but they are very very adamant that the "sinners" must be converted to their way of thinking. It is nothing but hypocrisy and if pointed out, Christians have decided that they and they alone have the right to decide what parts of the Bible matter and what doesn't.
For a Catholic, the Catholic Church is the intermediary between him/her and God.
Me when Catholicism incorporates local facist evangelicalism: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
> It occurred to me that all of this must have been carefully planned at the highest levels of both the church and political/financial benefactors that support it.
I'm curious if we'll see leaks confirming this. Otherwise this might be an anecdote stretched a little too far. It's far more likely you've experienced some bad pastors.
> “My criticism of Roe is that it seemed to have stopped the momentum on the side of change,” Ginsburg said. She would’ve preferred that abortion rights be secured more gradually, in a process that included state legislatures and the courts, she added. Ginsburg also was troubled that the focus on Roe was on a right to privacy, rather than women’s rights.
https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/justice-ruth-bader-ginsbur...
Edit: I see you've edited your post already with a quote which is helpful.
I basically see people holding states more accountable now. State politicians who are pro-life are on notice. They can no longer cry about it and blame the federal government. The issue is now on their plate- and it's a thorny one. People need to vote.
Surely you can see the hypocrisy in only being in favour of state rights when it suits you.
Permit Requester: I want to carry a pistol outside the home for self defense reasons.
Issuer: I don't believe your self defense claims are legitimate.
Requester: Why?
Issuer: I don't have to tell you.
SCOTUS enters the chat: This is no longer allowed.
There's a big difference in how you framed it, how that journalist framed it, and what actually happened. There is no hypocrisy here.
It's liberating in a way- I don't need the whole country to subscribe to living like me or holding the same beliefs and that's okay.
I am starting to come around to that view myself. The mythology of America has been dying for some time, and accelerating dramatically in the last few decades. Without that mythology to bind us together, it may be that we are more different than we thought. Arguably the majority of people in the southeast, for example, do not share the same values as people in the northwest. Maybe they should not try.
The problem is that, between natural population growth and the rise of the internet, both the cultural plane and the physical one have largely run out of space. Figurative "midwest zealots" just cannot live their lives ignoring "coastern heathens" even if they'd like to, and viceversa. And so the fights have broken out and will likely continue for a long time.
It does not matter what people in Kentucky think. They do not have the right to an opinion on another person's life decisions. Even if every person in Kentucky, or every person on the planet believed abortion is wrong, that would not impact an individual person's right to an abortion. Abortion is outside the scope of what governments can legitimately legislate, because individuals have sovereign control over their bodies.
The other side says that the fetus is a person with rights that are being trampled. And around and around we go forever. I am personally pro choice but I do understand that this is 100% my own subjective opinion.
America is also rife with examples of the federal government intervening to protect citizens from their states — Brown v Board, or most extremely the Civil War.
"People need to vote" is insufficient for regressions on issues that affect people's livelihoods. For example, Texas has a larger democrat-voting population than many blue states, "just voting" won't do anything to improve their livelyhood in the foreseeable future.
Ahmen to that. We wouldn't be in this situation if liberals took voting as seriously as conservatives.
I've seen 100's of comments over the last year about how "I'm done voting because the student loans were not forgiven" ... I don't think the next period in America is going to go very well.
I support this ruling for this reason even though I am against outlawing abortion.
RBG thought that Roe v Wade won for the wrong reasons, but didn't want to repeal it because of the damage she knew it would cause – she wanted to roll-forward rather than roll-back.
This court, or at least the conservative majority, are very much in favour of rolling-back, and I suspect are only vaguely in favour of letting the legislature pass laws because they know that there will be challenges to those laws that they can then get involved in, meanwhile they have shifted the overton window of women's rights.
https://www.newsweek.com/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-wade-aborti...
https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/justice-ruth-bader-ginsbur...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/05/06/ruth-bader...
Seems to me RGB did feel that ruling was weak and should have decided based on equal protections not privacy.
And they didn't rule against it because of the privacy angle. They ruled against it because they are trying to destroy the jurisprudence of substantive due process and unenumerated rights, because it serves their reactionary politics.
For the government to selectively follow laws, saying that in this case they don't apply since they don't give us the right result, makes a mockery of the very idea of having laws.
Whereas if one acts for the "wrong" reasons, then that will only rarely result in doing the "right" thing.
One can look back at the original Roe v Wade and say "The right thing was done here, the outcome was good", but having that sort of consequentialist outlook tends to blind people to the downside of having the right things done for the wrong reasons- which is as we see here, those wrong reasons can in the future easily lead to the undoing of the right thing.
The original Roe v Wade decision meant that Congress never had to pass a law that explicitly nationally legalized abortion. If they had, the current situation wouldn't exist.
Where in our constitution and laws are these things codified as rights? They are not.
In the same way, abortion is not a right. But I believe it should be. This is an issue that our elected officials must decide, not the courts.
Either way, there is no constitutional right to an abortion, and that is the fundamental issue. Call your representatives and demand them to take action on codifying the right to abortion.
Pregnancy does not, in and of itself, prevent access to medical care. So while it is a personal circumstance, it is entirely inapplicable within the context of care being intentionally prevented.
> I suppose the most similar analogy I could think of is a doctor refusing to perform a surgery which has a high chance of outright killing a patient and a smaller chance of treating the issue.
Not analogous, at all. That's a medical professional making a single medical decision based on medical information. That surgeon is not preventing the patient from finding another surgeon who will perform the procedure. Whereas what you're suggesting, is that freedom of religion should give politicians the right to make a singular blanket medical decision on behalf of everyone in their state, present and future, without any situational knowledge or medical reasoning.
It's not a constitutional right to abortion. It's a constitutional right to not have personal liberties stripped by the states which are enumerated in the Constitution. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion and right to privacy are all enumerably applicable to preserving this liberty. The ability for anyone to impose their personal religious beliefs on a population violates all of those rights.
Either way, the federal government does not grant this right, therefore it is up to states to decide.
> It's a constitutional right (9th amendment) to not have personal liberties stripped by the states which are not enumerated in the Constitution. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion and right to privacy are all enumerably applicable to preserving this liberty.
None of these rights apply to abortion. If anything, there should be an enumerated right to bodily autonomy.
The only objection anyone has to abortion is based on religious beliefs. So, you didn't need to mention it. It's the foundation of the entire issue -- that religious beliefs can be imposed on a population as law. Saying that it's irrelevant to the discussion betrays an ignorance of the subject at hand.
> None of these rights apply to abortion. If anything, there should be an enumerated right to bodily autonomy.
The enumeration does not need to specifically reference the word to be applicable. For a different example, the 4th amendment doesn't contain any verbiage about police officers opening a trunk during a traffic stop, but the declaration that they must have probable cause still applies. In the exact same way, to assert religious beliefs that affect someone else's medical care violates all of the rights I listed.
Uh…what? I am not religious (agnostic/atheist) but I object to abortion after a certain amount of time except in the cases of grave bodily harm or being the product of forced reproduction (idk what the site rules are on certain language, but I trust you understand what I mean). I believe that the unborn baby is a viable human life at some point and that abortion without a justifiable reason after that point would be equivalent to murder. I also believe many people also feel the same way I do.
> The enumeration does not need to specifically reference the word to be applicable
Yes, but we are in disagreement on which rights are applicable in this case.
That's the entire point! You're not objecting to abortion. You're objecting at some point in time and only when it's medically unjustifiable. But those moral thresholds are different for every individual and there are medically justifiable situations, which is exactly why no individual should be able to impose their personal beliefs as a law which declares those medical situations as unjustifiable.
You're welcome to have moral objections and believe they are the most correct or reasonable, but they have no bearing on the concerted efforts of religious groups and individuals to outright ban access to medical care. And that's the discussion at hand, which you keep conveniently ignoring. Many people have total opposition to all abortions in all situations and specifically for religious reasons, which is what actual, real-life politicians are implementing as we speak.
Someone else having an abortion (whether you believe it's murder or not) doesn't infringe on your rights. But you imposing your beliefs in a way that affects someone else's medical care is absolutely infringing on their rights. These are fundamental concepts of our democracy.
The religious arguments for banning all abortion for any reasons are not sound and I would not expect such laws to pass scrutiny when challenged in court (but who knows nowadays).
Many things people do don’t infringe on my rights. Someone murdering another person doesn’t infringe MY rights, but it is still wrong. A parent beating their child doesn’t infringe my rights but is still abuse.
All this being said, I support the right of a woman to receive an abortion, within reason. It is up to our elected officials to codify this right. It is not, nor should it ever be, the responsibility of the court to attempt to enshrine a right that does not exist through case law.
Your moral compass isn't accounting for the logistics of pregnancy. At any point during a pregnancy or childbirth, complications can arise which risk the mother's life, and a medical decision is most often made to save her instead of a potentially healthy child. By both medical and legal definition, this is still an abortion. To declare that it's not ethical to abort in these situations is a declaration that it is ethical to kill the mother. So, we very much do not agree that the ethics of abortion are obvious or even quantifiable.
> Many things people do don’t infringe on my rights. Someone murdering another person doesn’t infringe MY rights, but it is still wrong. A parent beating their child doesn’t infringe my rights but is still abuse.
I think you missed the point here, or I wasn't clear enough. Given that the spectrum of ethics doesn't allow for a standard threshold of "murder" and we've already established that abortions are a medical necessity, the only case against the right to abortion boils down to being personally offended by someone else's actions. If medical care can be decided by personal offense and codified into a law that is guaranteed to be harmful, then we don't actually have the freedoms described in the Constitution.
> Yes, but we are in disagreement on which rights are applicable in this case. [...] It is not, nor should it ever be, the responsibility of the court to attempt to enshrine a right that does not exist through case law.
Freedom of speech protects the moral threshold discussed earlier. Right to privacy protects medical information. Freedom of religion is based on separation of church and state, which means religious beliefs shouldn't hold any bearing at the federal level, particularly because they may directly contradict the beliefs of another religion. These are all fundamental concepts of our democracy, and it is absolutely the court's job to uphold them when challenged.
And the case law does exist (it's the one which just got overturned), so even if you were correct about the court's responsibility, then they just did the opposite of what you're purporting that responsibility to be.
Um, how about Roe v Wade and the TEN times the Supreme Court upheld RvW since it was decided, including as recently as 2016? The court just blew up precedent with a ten ton nuke and you're arguing hey, it was just good jurisprudence!
Separate but equal was precedent for a long time as well, would you be arguing the same for that?
"The court does not invent rights, nor should it."
It has established many specific rights that are not articulated in the Constitution or codified in laws. Most still stand.
"Separate but equal was precedent for a long time as well, would you be arguing the same for that?"
I'm confused, how many vulnerable women died as a result of that?
All of this posturing is irrelevant to the fact that the right which was granted did not follow from the arguments being made. Our courts should follow sound reasoning when establishing unenumerated rights. They also should not care about what the impact would be downstream of their decisions; their reasoning should stand on its own.
> It has established many specific rights that are not articulated in the Constitution or codified in laws. Most still stand.
And some no longer do.
> I'm confused, how many vulnerable women died as a result of that?
Impossible to say, but it had to be a non-negligible amount. Either way, that has no bearing on which way the court should rule.
The laws represent the will of the people via their elected representatives. The court adjudicates these laws and their validity as it relates to our constitution.
Do we live in the same reality? As the dissenting justices stated, "The majority's refusal even to consider the life-altering consequences of reversing Roe and Casey is a stunning indictment of its decision."
Judges are not law-interpreting robots and no one ever pretended they are supposed to be (until you I guess). Their decisions impact the health and welfare of hundreds of millions of human beings and to not incorporate that reality into their work would be monstrously inhumane. There is a long history of rulings directly referencing the impact of decisions, to argue otherwise is a lie or disingenuous.
As a big believer in states' rights, I"m glad to see more rights returned to their voters and legislatures. As was frequently told to me, "If you don't like it, you can move to another state." And I did.
Furthermore, this decision gets rid of the viability precedent so more extreme liberals states are now free to pass all the 3rd tri-mester up-until-the-moment-of-birth abortion laws they want, free of any potential legal challenges.
This gives states and their voters, the citizens, the people the right to choose. And I'm all for that.
It's all arbitrary; clever and well-read people spending a lot of time justifying and rationalizing their predjudice.
The Supreme Court just ruled that abortion is a question for the states, but concealed weapons laws aren’t. What’s more likely, that this all fits into some complex theory of states rights, or that it’s republican majority siding with the republican party?
Just another day of religious extremists and fascists crawling out of the woodwork, pretending to have a moral high ground. A lot of people here don't even know or care about how pregnancy works, what an embryo or a fetus is, or how extremely risky pregnancy is for humans because it evolved to be a crazy biological war.
https://aeon.co/essays/why-pregnancy-is-a-biological-war-bet...
Is it minority views? Surely, when it comes down to states legislating this, people can make their opinion heard at the ballet box. And if a majority of people in a state vote conservative and abortion is restricted then we are legislating based on the wants of the majority. It will be interesting to see if this is an important enough issue for some conservative voters to swing them (and states) to the democrats.
Yes, unquestionably, the vast majority of Americans support the right to abortion. That said you can do a lot with gerrymandering, suppressing voters, and our archaic electoral college that gives people more/less voting power based on the state they live in.
You've now retreated to an argument that no one was making.
Ultimately though, what matters is how many approve of Roe being overturned, which is a binary, and those who oppose Roe V. Wade are in a very clear cut minority.
> what matters is how many approve of Roe being overturned
Exceptionally few people understand exactly what the implications of Roe are so this framing is useless.
I'd like to hear why you think this. It's only a "useless" framing if you don't buy into the concept of democracy.
This is a improvement.
At the state level there is no filibuster meaning that a dissenting minority has no way to protect themselves. Re-districting (gerrymandering) also neuters the voting power of minority groups.
There is a bias for majority rule at the state level, and minority rule at the federal level. So yes, it's minority views. This is why issues like Slavery and segregation were argued as "states rights". The way conservatives prefer our government to be set up is with a weak federal government and strong state governments so that a localized majority can enforce moral legislation on a disenfranchised minority without Federal intervention. It has always been about power and any arguments about "returning the decision to the people" is no different that someone in 1964 saying it should be up to the states whether or not minorities can use the same bathroom as white people.
Many states, mine included, have "trigger laws" that go into effect if Roe v Wade is overturned. Abortion is now illegal in KY.
How about instead of deferring this to states rights, we defer directly to individual rights and let individual people decide what to do? You know.. like in some sort of 'free' country.
If you think the fetus is a person, then don't get an abortion. It's super easy. And if your fetus is killing you, then feel free to die for your beliefs.
I don’t quite understand why American progressives think they represent the world at large. Neo-colonialism, I suppose.
Therefore the question should be "when is it ethical to terminate a fetus". Pro-choice voters have different answers for this question. The problem is pro-life hardliners who refuse to play ball whatsoever. They believe life begins at conception with no basis other than religion.
Only if you're an utilitarian. There's perfectly good reasons not to subscribe to this moral philosophy.
And why have you chosen to portray the most radical and unreasonable of all your numerous opponents? It's not exactly "straw-men" because these people exist, but looks pretty similar to it.
Tell that to a right-leaning Christian pastor, or their congregation. Most of modern Christianity specifically teaches that, in some places, things are most definitely black and white and some basic questions do indeed have easy answers. "Murdering babies", as a family member of mine likes to phrase it, is to them one of the most straightforward and simple of them all.
No. Most people agree that abortion is acceptable early on (e.g. < 12 weeks). It's hardliners on both sides who are doing the most fighting because they either think that it's okay to abort up to the point of birth or that terminating a bunch of cells is murder.
> They believe life begins at conception with no basis other than religion.
It's not religion, it's science. A new human life (complete how it looks, what gender it's assigned, etc) begins at conception. It's not a full human, but it's slowly becoming one. The question is when it's too human to terminate.
> It's hardliners on both sides who are doing the most fighting because they either think that it's okay to abort up to the point of birth or that terminating a bunch of cells is murder.
The pro-life hardliners are the ones currently overturning super-precedents and creating trigger laws in red states. This isn't hypothetical, it's going to cause real harm to poor women and poor children.
Again, all these decisions are being made by pro-life hardliners aren't even willing to have a discussion AT ALL, many even believe that contraceptives are "killing babies". There's no basis behind their beliefs other than the bible. Most couldn't even tell you the stages of fetal development.
That is a bit unfair. An ultrasound is pretty compelling evidence.
Also, I could show you an ultrasound of a mouse or a dolphin at 6 weeks and tell you it's a human fetus and you'd believe it. "Well the human fetus has human DNA" ok, does that have any meaning at that stage of development when their features are all the same? At that point the distinctive trait that allows for abortion of a Dolphin but not a Human is the DNA, or that it's inside of a human mother. It's all arbitrary distinctions. You can have a real discussion about it but pro-lifers start and end at the Bible.
Also even if there weren't tons of holes to poke in the philosophical argument of "what is a human life? / what makes human life valuable?", life isn't sacred. We kill prisoners, send soldiers overseas, or let people die as a result of preventable diseases (COVID).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States
The question for a utilitarian is when is it ethical to terminate a fetus? Weighing the costs of an unwanted child on society, the cost of life if the mother dies, the cost of preventing back-alley abortions, the cost of her future as a mother if she suffers reproductive damage and cant have kids in the future even if she wants to, etc.
How so? less intelligent humans have cognitive ability so they have rights.
> It also doesn't adequately address why a human with microcephaly or no frontal lobe has rights, but a dolphin or octopus or killer whale does not.
The question is not why the law is the way it is but the way that it should be. As it is now, It has rights because it is a human, we make our laws for ourselves and sometimes for other species, and I would definitely say that animals should have protections/rights (and they do). A law is also a custom or an enforced custom and certainly animals have customs. At least in america, many families take the toll of taking care of their family members with many deformities. the state should not enforce termination of these, but it should be optional for those that do take this unfortunate toll in their hands. (criminalization != decriminalization)
> It also allows for the justification of cruelty against animals who can feel pain but aren't intelligent enough to pass some arbitrary test of intelligence.
On the contrary, as a cognitive animal capable of pain. it indicates that you should not do so, I would say the capability of pain is the most important aspect to life. given that it is usually an indicator of the will to live.
> To be clear, I don't know the answer, I am hesitant to label anything as "innately valuable". I think that there is however a sliding scale of what is "ethical".
Neither do I. Abortion is euthanasia, and it certainly has merit. both economically speaking and in the sense of well being for humans. Given that human childbirth is probably one of the worst around on the animal kingdom.
It would be nice if we just relegated pregnancies to artificial wombs, but until the technology is there. I guess we'll be having this abortion "debate" forever.
I know this is a hypothesis, but I'm sure simplifications like blyss symbolics or toki pona or https://www.plainlanguage.gov/ would "augment" intelligence as well. I've also heard dyslexia is non-existant in other languages. Which indicates that the complexity helps no one and at this rate, in due time, humans will be mentally incapable of handling the complexities of the world itself.
But that's off topic. sort of.
But let me counter with another hypothetical: if we had a contraceptive device that could safely and reliably turn a woman's reproductive system on/off at the flip of a switch would "pro-life" advocates support it or oppose it?
That's the trouble though - unwanted pregnancies are either accidental, forced on the mother (in cases of rape), or too dangerous to continue due to unforeseen complications. That's more like waking up and finding you're medically tethered to a person that now depends on your body for survival and less like the pilot example.
What's really damning of the "pro-life" movement here is their general opposition to contraceptives - sometimes including condoms. It's pretty clear that the main goal is to control sex, not preserve life.
In the case of the trolly problem, the law has always favored self preservation. It’s a non issue.
For accidental pregnancy, It’s widely accepted that the other party (males) can only reliably choose whether or not to have sex. They have no choice in the matter post-pregnancy.
I see no reason women can’t be held to that same standard.
I say this all as someone that is pro-choice. But I always prefer to be principaled in my reasoning.
The problem with this is that now the burden to prove rape is on the mother. Before she could just get the abortion, no matter the reason. What a women considers rape and what the government considers provable rape is vastly different, to the point where proving rape in court is neigh impossible (I’ve seen the process up close) unless there is damning evidence like video and a confession.
So relying on rape as some sort of exception really means that women who were raped will never be able to prove to the government’s satisfaction to that fact, and will be forced to carry their rapists baby to term. He said she said doesn’t rise to a preponderance of the evidence, let alone “beyond a reasonable doubt”.
I guess we should thank the GOP for just sidestepping that issue and going straight for the most extreme position possible of banning abortion even in the cases of rape and incest. Makes these questions a little more straightforward.
That said, my position is more nuanced. Personhood starts handful of months after conception as far as I’m concerned.
I guess what I would say in general is that we’re talking a lot about when personhood begins, but I don’t think we’re talking enough about when personhood ends. To me, personhood ends when the government forces you to do something with your body that you don’t want to do. In that moment you are not a person but in fact owned by the government.
My back hurts constantly, but even worse when I pick up my much-desired child. He’s over 25 lbs now, and I dread what the next years until he’s able to climb up into an acceptable car seat on his own are going to be like.
I work part-time, and thank heavens Germany made my pre-pregnancy employer give me that option. One of the major factors in MLM prevalence in the US are the absolutely abysmal job prospects for anyone who can’t work full time - that is, many mothers of young children. My friends with preschool age kids who work full time only manage it because they have expensive daycare open from 7am - 6pm, pay nannies, and/or have spouses with less-intense (or no) jobs. This, of course, is only realistic for women with well-paid jobs.
And if one of you wants to respond, “adoption,” please remember the aforementioned physical wreckage, plus work-related difficulties. Germany encouraged my employer to let me stay home the six weeks before my due date and insisted I do so the right weeks after the birth, all at just about my previous net pay.
I don’t think that “slavery” is too strong a word for forcing someone to go through with an unwanted pregnancy, but others can call it “indentured servitude” if that makes them feel better.
Whereas enslaved men were often forced to work fields in America, enslaved women were forced to give birth to their rapists’ babies. Forced birth and slavery go hand in hand.
Fitting now that the New Confederate States of America (read: Gilead) can be distinguished by how eager legislatures are to force women to give birth to their rapists’ babies.
Until the US is at least there, adoption is not really a free, uncompelled choice in forced-birth states like Texas.
I have a dear childhood friend whose birth mother was a college student who went through with the results of a foolish accident. I’m glad she did, because I love my friend, but I’m also glad that it was her choice to make; in late 70s Austin, she could have easily gotten an abortion. She was able to choose the adoptive parents, and got what she wanted for her baby: a well-off but childless Catholic family just far enough away to be unlikely to accidentally meet.
The only thing that matters here is what the mother wants.
Banning that ability is the government deciding for you.
This is a loss of individuality for everyone regardless if you can or ever have an abortion.
This is how individual rights begin to erode.
"Every sperm is sacred."
I disagree.
I think the more important question is, who should have the power of imprisoning people, on the basis of their interpretations of when life starts.
I don’t think the criminal justice system is equipped to make that determination, and therefore I think all abortion should be blanket legalized.
The law needs plainly interoperable rules, and I don’t see a rule that works other than “you are a person at birth”.
None of that matters to these zealots. taking a step back, if you look at it with your real world glasses (i.e.. not lawyer ones) you'll realize this is just a bunch of religious crowd trying to backdoor their religion into law. I mean realistically how much of self doubt and introspection Trump crowd you think has had about this issue? How many of them do you think would even be participating in these debates except to 'trigger the libs'?
There are so many actual issues deserving of this attention. In what universe is removing rights a priority?
Or that this doesn't actually make abortion illegal?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/...
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USA Constitution
14th Amendment
Section 1
...no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; 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...
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The constitution clearly says that states cannot enforce laws that deprive citizens of their lives and liberties.
Now, states have renewed authority to deprive at-risk women their right to life-saving medical procedures. Please explain to me how this doesn't violate 14A.
Someone believing life begins at conception is a reason for THEM to not get an abortion, it is not a reason for the government to outlaw it.
That's the claim, not whether a fertilized egg is a human.
I'd like you to explain the personhood and citizenry rights of the non-living. Regardless, from section 1 of the 14th amendment[1]:
> nor shall any state deprive any person of life,
Did you not think to check it first?
I'm done here.
Have a nice day.
The remainder of the reasonable discussion around this topic is centered around the blurry point between inception and when viable birth is possible. The vast majority of people would classify a fetus, minutes before birth, being aborted as murder.
As well, in most countries restrictions occur at some point in the pregnancy (recognition of the trade-off between bodily autonomy and the rights of the unborn). In my country that happens to be nine weeks unless there's an emergency.
Missouri just banned abortion as a result of this being overturned, so yes, it does.
> other people's beliefs are entirely a sufficient condition in what the government will do
False. Other people's beliefs are a necessary condition. If I convince 51% of the populace geminis are evil and should be imprisoned, this is not a sufficient condition for the government to implement this policy. We would need to scientifically demonstrate that astrology is in fact true. This is the sufficient condition. The necessary condition is a majority believing it. Likewise, having an objective, unambiguous, scientific definition of what life is and when it begins is the sufficient condition for outlawing abortion and a majority believing that is the necessary condition. A characteristic of a free society is not one where the government creates laws based on the whims of particular religious groups.
> Missouri just banned abortion as a result of this being overturned, so yes, it does.
No, it doesn't, Missouri's laws have prohibited abortion.
> If I convince 51% of the populace geminis are evil and should be imprisoned, this is not a sufficient condition for the government to implement this policy. We would need to scientifically demonstrate that astrology is in fact true.
Government is not bound by what is scientifically demonstrated, thus making this statement and the rest of what you wrote, incorrect.
> A characteristic of a free society is not one where the government creates laws based on the whims of particular religious groups.
Hundreds, if not thousands of years of fairly consistent belief that life is sacred is hardly a whim, neither is the opposition to Roe v Wade from certain religious groups. It's also not characteristic of free society, governments put in place plenty of silly laws "on a whim" in free societies.
You're implying:
something is scientifically demonstrated -> government is bound by it
What I said was:
government has bounded something -> it can be scientifically or logically demonstrated
> Hundreds, if not thousands of years of fairly consistent belief that life is sacred is hardly a whim
You're appealing to the populace. How long or who believes something has no bearing on whether or not it is true or whether anyone should care about it. People thought the earth was the center of the universe for a long time too. Also, something cannot be "sacred" universally, only conditionally.
> You're implying:
> something is scientifically demonstrated -> government is bound by it
How have you managed to change round such a simple sentence and state it means the opposite? I'm astounded.
1. Government is not bound by what is scientifically demonstrated.
2. Something is scientifically demonstrated.
3. Hence, government is *not* bound by it.
> What I said was:
> government has bounded something -> it can be scientifically or logically demonstrated
You wrote no such thing as the words "bound" and "can" are not to be found in your statement in any form. What you actually wrote was:
> If I convince 51% of the populace geminis are evil and should be imprisoned, this is not a sufficient condition for the government to implement this policy. We would need to scientifically demonstrate that astrology is in fact true.
Aside from your clearly not understanding what a necessary nor a sufficient condition is, this statement is not true. I shall do some reordering of my own to shine light on this:
We would need to scientifically demonstrate that astrology is in fact true… for the government to implement this policy.
That's your implication and it's not based in reality.
I could go round in circles like this forever, much like the constellation of Gemini around the Earth but it would be as much use as reading my horoscope.
> > Hundreds, if not thousands of years of fairly consistent belief that life is sacred is hardly a whim
> You're appealing to the populace. How long or who believes something has no bearing on whether or not it is true or whether anyone should care about it.
I didn't claim that the length of time it has been around has any relation to its truth, I corrected your use of the word "whims" to mischaracterise those you clearly oppose.
> whim | wɪm | > noun > 1 a sudden desire or change of mind, especially one that is unusual or unexplained:
There's nothing sudden about Christian opposition to abortion.
> People thought the earth was the center of the universe for a long time too.
It's Earth. I feel like making that pedantic point because I hope that making you more careful with your writing might lead you to read more carefully too.
> Also, something cannot be "sacred" universally, only conditionally.
What on Earth are you babbling about?
In the eyes of roughly half the country, it's plainly injust to allow anybody to murder what they believe to clearly be a human being just because the other half believes they're subhuman.
It's the government's job to punish injustice, even if the actors don't believe they're being unjust. Very few people in prison will say they did anything wrong. In their eyes, their crime was justified. Everybody thinks they're doing the right thing. Like it or not, it's the government's job to determine if that's true or not in many cases.
Slavery unambiguously violates the autonomy of another human being.
If it could be demonstrated scientifically what life is and when it begins and that happens to be at conecption, then yes, abortion should be outlawed. But we don't know this. In a free and open society, in the absence of knowledge, we should default to people making their own choices; we should default to freedom and not restriction.
"In the eyes of roughly half the country..."
61% of the country believes abortion should be legal. 39% is closer to 1/3 than 1/2.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/13/about-six-i...
37% is even more closer to 1/3; I wouldn’t count the 2% that don’t have a position with the pro-ban faction.
You are incorrect. When you apply for benefits, they ask you how many people in your family, and an unborn child counts as a person.
Most tax benefits work on a yearly calendar, but the ones that work on a monthly calendar certainly count an unborn child.
The root of the issue is not the rights provided by the 14th amendment, but when, exactly, those rights apply during the process of conception, gestation, and birth. This is further complicated by the fact that scientific advances enable situations that our founders could have never predicted.
I see two facts that are very clear:
* A person cannot exist without conception.
* At some point during pregnancy, a baby can survive as an independent living human. The youngest living baby was born on day 132 of pregnancy.
Unfortunately, that leaves a massive grey area and your opinion on those is likely highly personal - including religion and living situation.
The existence of this grey area doesn't preclude obvious constitutional rights.
Foetuses are disputably citizens and people. There's your grey area.
It reads very black and white to me.
Do you recognize that there isn't consensus about whether fetuses are citizens and people?
Answering rhetorical questions though, nope.
Like I said in another comment, I'm done with this conversation, have a nice day.
> All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
> Foetuses are disputably citizens and people
Citizens is one part, people is the other. Whether a foetus is a person, whether it has constitutional personhood, was argued by Texas in the original Roe v Wade case. You may also note that the difference between person and citizen has been debated many times before in constitutional law. From [1]:
> Thirty years ago, Bickel made a statement about the relationship between citizenship and personhood in American constitutional law that is well known among scholars of immigration and citizenship. He said: “It has always been easier, it always will be easier, to think of someone as a noncitizen than to decide that he is a nonperson.”
> What is expressed here is both a descriptive and normative claim about the significance of the category of citizenship in our constitutional system. Bickel argued that, as a historical matter, the Constitution has never set much stock by the category of citizenship; that one of the most disastrous aspects of Dred Scott was that it treated the denial of rights to slaves and free blacks as turning on their lack of citizenship; that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment came close to entrenching this mistake, constitutionally, via passage of the privileges or immunities clause of section 1, which might have appeared to make rights contingent upon citizenship; but that, in the end (by way of Slaughterhouse,7 which eviscerated the clause), “innocence was restored.” And Bickel concludes by expressing satisfaction with this state of affairs: “I find it gratifying … that we live under a Constitution to which the concept of citizenship matters very little.”
In important ways, Bickel is descriptively right. True, citizenship status is still quite significant in a variety of settings, and conflicts between citizenship- and personhood-based groundings of rights persist in various contexts. Still, for a great many purposes, the “right to have rights” is not contingent on the possession of citizenship status. In the international arena, it is largely persons who are the subjects of human rights
Because I was only responding to that half of the statement. The argument for banning abortion must stand without it. Your insistence on it was why I chimed in.
What you're now alluding to is a different claim than the one I responded to: that a. a fetus is a person (as you both seem to agree, disputable) and that even if we concede that question, the rights of the fetus outweigh those of the woman; taking some of the bills and laws that have passed in the various states, at the extreme, that it's fine to deny to a woman bodily autonomy, even where it will put her through great trauma, up to and including death.
Yes, because you were only responding to half of the sentence. My advice would be to respond to full sentences even when inconvenient.
I'll add, I'm not making a claim about personhood nor citizenship, I'm pointing to where the grey area is. How that becomes an insistence is something you'll only know.
Finally, I do not agree that accepting the personhood of a foetus would necessarily outweigh the woman's rights, as again, it would come up against bodily autonomy - another grey area that I hope would be ruled on to be as absolute as possible.
There is a massive gray area, and Roe/Casey dealt with it just fine. Prohibiting restrictions early on in pregnancy and allowing restrictions later in pregnancy seems like a good solution to the competing interests at play.
Striking a balance between the rights of a mother and child is not the job of the Judicial branch. That’s a job for the Legislative branch.
The court’s job was to determine if the Constitution prohibits the State from making their own state-wide decisions about regulating or permitting abortion.
Fundamental rights like life and liberty should not be subject to the whims of political majorities in legislative bodies. This is a fundamental pillar of our system of government. It's a big reason why we have a Constitution in the first place.
Fertilized eggs have the potential to become fetuses, and fetuses have the potential to become babies, but fertilized eggs are not fetuses, and fetuses are not babies.
I think the spirit of your argument is that we cannot decide when to call a fetus a human. Like I mentioned in another comment, this grey area does not preclude undisputed humans from their constitutional rights.
Second, pregnancy varies from person to person. You can't reasonably assume that all fetuses that are 279 days old will survive and become healthy babies.
Third, there are substantial physical differences between fetuses and babies. I'm sure you're aware that fetuses receive most of their nutrients through the umbilical cord, whereas babies do not.
Maybe I'm wrong and you're right, maybe "nothing physically changes about the baby whether it's inside the womb or outside." Let's test this hypothesis. Go feed a baby through its belly button and see how that works out.
That being said, I believe women SHOULD have a right to get an abortion enshrined in law. It is up to our re-elected representatives to achieve this, not for the courts to invent rights thereof.
There is no federal law granting the right to abortion. Therefore, states may have enact their own laws to either affirm or restrict access to abortion. This process is due process.
Any state law that deprives someone of life and / or liberty is unconstitutional.
If someone needs a life-saving abortion, the state cannot deprive that person their constitutional right to life.
It's not. It's literally not. Stealing food is illegal, even if you were going to die of starvation without it. Breaking into someone's home is illegal, even if you were going to freeze to death outside. And now, in some states, abortion is illegal, even if you were going to die from giving birth.
States or congress should pass a law allowing abortions if that's the will of the people. The court should not invent a law out of nothing; this ruling is legally correct.
Of course, congress could pass a law enshrining the rights to an abortion tomorrow. This would grant and preserve this right for all Americans, regardless of state, due to the supremacy clause. Hopefully, this does happen.
A simple drafting of a law is not the whole of "due process"; the very Roe v. Wade encapsulates that. (Of course, now overturned.)
But also, take the cases of forcing a women to have a child she did not have a say in (rape) or which will kill her (e.g., ectopic pregnancy). These seem pretty close to bill-of-attainder type situations, but also, due process.
I'd also argue you need to overcome the equal protection clause; bodily autonomy seems to me like a right that we generally honor — we do not force organ or blood donations upon people — yet, here, we strip that right from one sex in particular?
Of course, this is only applicable if the Congress fails to act; were they to pass a law that enshrines the right to bodily autonomy, there would be no issue.
Also, people who oppose Abortion believe that this is the government _taking away_ a life. Which would also be at odds with the constitution.
"This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or ... in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether to terminate her pregnancy."
— Roe, 410 U.S. at 153
In total, the opinions are 217 pages long.
Anyone able to quickly run a diff on the leaked majority opinion and the official one?
Recruiting for tech in Texas has already taken a hit due fear around abortion (getting employees to move down there can be quite difficult).
More broadly, I think this is likely to put a big damper on high-end knowledge work in conservative states. Educated people are overwhelmingly liberal. While you could certainly find a subset of knowledge workers who don't have an issue working in a state banning abortion, the difficulties with hiring and transfers probably won't pass a cost benefit analysis (again, we already see this in Texas).
That said, in talking with a colleague this morning, we agreed that if the state does go completely crazy and manages to secede, we just want enough notice to sell our property so we can leave.
And you are willing to risk going to prison for murder (that's what they will call it) if caught?
Also, I’ll point out that HN (and SV) has a little “l” libertarian streak (entrepreneurship) which favors smaller government and personal accountability/agency.
Some companies have even gone so far as paying for abortions. That's disgusting. It reveals that The Man doesn't want women's productivity to go down and would rather work them to the bone instead. Out of the kitchen and into the office? That might be a bad deal.
Or it could reveal that abortions, even in the best circumstances, cost money -- time off of work and travel expenses for example. Perhaps these companies support women having access to it regardless of their economic status.
It'll blow your mind, but some companies even allow employees time off to vote in elections, partially for the same reasons.
That is an interesting perspective. You just called something like 100M or more Americans not good people. I am not being hyperbolic. Talk to them. On the surface they are friendly, easygoing, etc, but switch the topic to LGBT rights and listen. The very fact that they believe there is such a thing as "gay rights" tells you a lot. Good luck trying to educate them on how "cannot discriminate based on sexual preference" is not the same thing as giving gay people special rights.
Fair enough. So long as they believe they deserve more rights than another group of people, they're not good people. Hopefully they'll change their opinion. I've known plenty of people to change their opinion on this issue over the years and hopefully it'll continue on that trajectory. My point was more than on those issues it's simply one group that thinks another group does not deserve to be treated equally. With abortion it's more two sets of competing 'rights' - the woman and the foetus.
What special rights? The right to not get thrown in jail for being gay?
No. We already have enough corporate influence in the political sphere.
Alabama has Huntsville, Texas has Austin, TN has chatt and Nashville, NC has Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, Florida has Miami/Tampa, AZ has Phoenix, CO has Denver (CO isn’t super red but it’s somewhere). This will get more interested and remote workers go deeper into small towns.
So now we are in a situation where the dog has caught the car and it's not sure what happens now.
It already has. See all the hysterics about how any discussion of same sex relationships or trans identity around children is "grooming".
It has been used (built, really) as a political tool as you say, but the victors here are quite happy to have won.
And they know what happens now. (It’s gay marriage and trans rights.)
It’s not like there’s a shortage of political wedge issues. And since this is about power, not principle, they will always find more.
They were extremely impoverished. It was the Great Depression and in one of her letters, she writes about not even having the luxury of bone broth They were barely able to take care of their two children and she writes that it was better to save two children than let three starve. In her letters, she describes her guilt and the emotional pain she endured watching her two children be hungry. One of those children was my grandmother. She describes her concerns of being malnourished, she had been opting not to eat as much to let her two children eat, and how that would affect her unborn child.
She wrote that her pregnancy was early enough that she could reconcile her faith in allowing her two other children to survive and that not giving birth to a malnourished child would also be the right thing to do for that child as well. In college ethics classes, I became enamored with her situation and had a dozen or more conversations with my grandmother, I read my great-grandmother's letters and heard the story as passed through the generations. I will always cherish those conversations with my grandmother.
This of course ultimately developed my personal beliefs. I am thinking of her and my grandmother today.
I’m in a same-sex marriage and my stomach dropped reading Clarence Thomas’s opinion and his reference to Obergefell. It wasn’t that long ago I wasn’t able to see my now-husband in the hospital — the emergency room - here in conservative Idaho. I do understand his opinion and context but even if legally sound, it affects me.
We the people of the United States of America know how to edit our living constitution and make the rights that we want a constitutional guarantee. It seems impossible at the moment with the divisiveness, polarization and in-fighting but we know that religion is on the decline and you will see that represented in elections in the coming decades. It is possible, we just don’t know the path today. It can be done, but it won’t be easy.
I’m sorry, this isn’t all that related to Hacker News. To relate it back, I guess I am saying that we’re hackers, we can hack society, we can hack belief systems, we can take unrelated ideas and bring them together to create something new just like we do inventing new categories of products. We can disrupt things through big ideas and through execution. If we want change, it will be a lot of hacking and hard work. After all, I think it was social / political hacking by the creators of this movement that got us here to today.
Please keep telling people about your story and how these decisions affect you.
Time to start planning on how violently we do that or not -- to consider this unthinkable is going to be the path of more violence and not less.
To all the centrists who are trying to spin all this as nothing to get worried about -- either you're secretly perfectly happy with everything going on and you're not much of a centrist in reality, or else you're still in denial that you've lost. Political polarization is here to stay and will only get worse, and centrists equating what the right is doing now with the "far left lunacy" of universal health care share a massive chunk of the blame even though they'll never accept it.
The ruling itself is at https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf, via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31863903.
[The Griswold case] says the penumbras around the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendment create a right to privacy. So what they're getting at — a penumbra is just a shadow, right? — is that these textual provisions cast these shadows. And those shadows, which all contain this notion of privacy overlap with each other such that they coalesce into a right in its own right, so that the right to privacy under which the right to contraception is protected is derived from the shadows of actual textual provisions.
Very disconcerting that the rights to contraception, same sex marriage, and consensual adult sexual relationships are up for debate because they are not explicitly enumerated in the constitution.
[0] https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/05/31/the-fragility-of-une...
- Parliamentary democracy, two chambered if need be, with slowly changing electoral maps (drawn from the Census and controlled by judges, not politicians)
- Ban on non-government funding of political parties. Money raised comes from the government or small donations.
- Parliament/senate majority is enough. Enough of that 19th century filibuster nonsense.
- Faster constitutional amendment cycles that don't require supermajorities
- No assinine lifetime appointments to anything. A 10- or 12-year term and a healthy pension are controls enough
Law is code: it needs to be easy to change when it's not working and it needs good change processes when it does change. But we cant be running a modern economy and society on 250 year old COBOL...
https://www.yellowhammerfund.org/
In their words: "The Yellowhammer Fund is a 501(c)3 abortion fund and reproductive justice organization serving Alabama, Mississippi, and the Deep South. We envision a society in which reproductive decisions are made free from coercion, shame, or state interference, a society in which individuals and communities have autonomy in making healthy choices regarding their bodies and their futures. We commit ourselves to community education and empowerment, policy advocacy, and the development of systems of mutual aid to ensure that our friends, families, and neighbors never go without the things they need."
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_e...
Kind of a provocative study and you could make a similar case for leaded gasoline and other factors but nevertheless interesting.
But this is not the case and sometimes we regress.
As for paying for it… no taxes need to be raised. Just divert 1/1000th of the money going to the military.
Except the child's death isn't guaranteed if we fail to implement universal healthcare/free school lunches/insert welfare program here, so it's not really a normal trolley problem. And that's before you get into potential adverse second order effects of such programs.
>Just divert 1/1000th of the money going to the military.
GP mentioned universal healthcare as one of the ways in which to support children after birth, I don't think $800 million is going to be enough to cover it.
I'm also not sure how giving the power to pry into people's reproductive decisions is somehow less state power than administrative power to distribute resources.
[1] That's accepting the argument that a fetus is technically a person, which can also be debated.
sorry, this is not enlightened.
The key questions is, how many of such peope exist.
Life for the sake of life feels like virtue signaling, especially since those who espouse it have no interest in providing social programs to help these mothers and couples raise the kid they were forced to have. That’s pretty barbaric.
Congratulations. You saved a life you almost immediately stop giving a shit about.
Should we not wipe out polio because our ancestors couldn't?
So they could have used condoms, the man could have avoided ejaculating where it could cause pregnancy, or they could also just not have sex or the woman could take pills or an IUD. Unless it was rape, nobody forced them to have a child.
I do agree that there should be programs that help the parents more.
Or what about rape cases which take longer than 9 months to reach a conviction?
And the second issue seems to be an issue of bureaucracy and it's slowness.
Those cases are both valid where I think most people would argue it's not as clear cut but I think they are mostly the exception, not the rule.
Like… your opinion is that corner cases don’t matter in law?
That's not an enlightened or moral direction.
It's all a matter of punishing women for their own desire to be emancipated, it's a punishment for those women who have sinned by thinking they could act like a man and have sex whenever they wanted. If they truly cared about the unborn, they would
1. care about the already born, first, and 2. push for the widespread availability of contraception.
Given that contraception is bad for them, too, it's clear this is not an ethical question, but a moral one: sex outside of marriage, or for pleasure really, should not be allowed, and it must always carry consequences, no matter if it vastly more impacts women than it does men. You know, a man can always run from their responsibilities, while a woman cannot run away from her womb.
As has been pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, we don't vote for Supreme Court justices. There's no leverage to impose electoral or party pressure on a justice who has already been appointed, unless it is by impeachment. Your assessment of their motivations doesn't hold up.
It stands to reason that on average, if you elect conservative presidents and senators, you will get conservative justices, and vice-versa.
You seem to assert that there are wolves hiding in sheeps’ clothing, waiting until they are confirmed to show their true colors to save the country. I counter that reality is more boring than that, and that these people can be taken at face value by virtue of what they’ve said and done for decades.
Furthermore, I think yours is an apologist/denialist stance people use so they can get someone in the courts they truly approve of, while hiding behind the “hope” that they won’t be as bad as everyone else knows they will.
> You seem to assert that there are wolves hiding in sheeps’ clothing, waiting until they are confirmed to show their true colors to save the country
Against this characterization I would oppose John Roberts, who was appointed by a Republican president, but has been reluctant to create any non-trivial precedent on topics that figure in the Republican platform. There's a lot of anger among Republican voters over that, but what can they do? They can't vote him out, he is not beholden to the Republican party, and he's done nothing impeachable.
I understand how this can be difficult to perceive from outside, especially if you happen to be in a bubble that perceives Republicans as uniformly deplorable. But I assure you that Roberts is viewed that way. (I view them from another direction entirely.)
As far as my stance being apologist or denialist, you have no idea what I think or want.
zzleeper: “Are you naive…? Republicans have lists of candidates for justices…they have deemed…anti roe-vs-wade”
you: “If I'm naive, please explain”
This is where you lost the point, and where I explained your naïveté, an explanation you ignored in your response to me.
Your last two paragraphs consist of speculative ad hominem (judging by your profile, we have similar life circumstances, and I have many conservatives in my “bubble” ie family members) followed by a hypocritical self defense. We don’t know anything about each other outside of what we’ve said here. I’m simply calling it like I see it:
you: “Why [wouldn’t Thomas change his mind once he is appointed], if he's now free to act as he pleases?…what's to stop him doing as he thinks is right…?”
The obvious answer is that he was appointed precisely because it was expected he would act the way he has, because what he believes is right is fully aligned with who appointed him, as are the three most recent appointees. You want to point out exceptions like Roberts, but those merely prove the rule from my original explanation.
This is just straw manning the other side's position to the extreme.
> If they truly cared about the unborn, they would
Neither of those are logical implications of being against late-stage abortion, and you don't get to tell others what they should care about.
These are the same people who actively work against giving children school lunches, who protect racist gerrymandering, who want to defund planned parenthood, and so on.
If, in the same breath, we were talking about significantly revolutionizing support for children/families in poverty, then this would be a different discussion. Sadly, look at the polls, this is majority boomers who no longer have functioning ovaries & men whose egos demand control over women.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/393104/pro-choice-identificatio...
On the hand, I think the right has done more than they usually get credit for. Median real wages rose significantly under Trump. [1] Nixon created the EPA. [2] At an individual level, conservatives donate significantly more to charities, and give blood more often. [3]
[1]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
[2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_...
[3]: https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/conservatives-are-more-...
I don't have any stats on that, but it's contrary to my personal experience. When I was a student, there was this Pentecostal group which used to give free food to everyone every Thursday. It was quite unconditional, not even means tested.
I'm not sure if I follow. That seems to me like having more empathy with irresponsible people, possibly at the cost of innocent fetuses.
On another thought, you think the best thing to do is give people you judge as irresponsible a child? Also, doesn’t original sin mean the fetus not innocent? Is innocence really the important measure? Because lots of things are innocent we don’t care about.
I don't have any particular problems with contraception. Some right-wingers do, they should speak for themselves. (I'm also not against early-stage abortions)
> On another thought, you think the best thing to do is give people you judge as irresponsible a child?
It's not ideal, it's just better than normalizing taking innocent lives. Also, if someone really thinks they can't be a good parent, putting up the baby for adoption is always an option.
> Also, doesn’t original sin mean the fetus not innocent?(which of course doesn't really apply since it's not a person)
I'm not religious, so I don't really think about the issue in terms of sins in the religious sense.
You may disagree with the idea it is murder, but if it is in fact murder than it is completely consistent to support laws against it.
And people who are opposed to physics believe Earth is flat. Both views are the same in terms of rationality.
You may disagree with some of the premises but they follow one another and have decent reasons to believe them. That is hardly irrational.
Something to keep in mind. If you want to actually convince somebody in the future, saying their views are as irrational as believing the Earth is flat isn't the best way.
[1] https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.ht...
[2] https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes.htm...
Forced birthers are crazy, full stop. A fertilized egg is not a human any more than a sperm is a human.
And here you're making the same mistake again: you're assuming that if someone disagrees with your ideas about biology it means they don't understand it. In reality the reverse is true - pro-life myths might make sense to a high schooler, but not to someone who actually understands the topic.
(Also, you're conflating 'being homo sapiens' with 'being a person'; you've already tried this method of derailing the discussion two days before.)
Of course it would. Should you be able to murder your kids in your house because "your house, your choice"?
Does it mean a parent can be forced to donate an organ for transplant for their child?
>Should you be able to murder your kids in your house
Completely different situation; we are talking about bodily autonomy, not “housing autonomy”.
I am not who you were responding to, but since we were talking previously I will remind you what I said before. You are not obligated to provide what people need above the basic necessities. Organ donations go beyond that.
>You may disagree with some of the premises but they follow one another
You can say the exact same thing about antivaxers.
>If you want to actually convince somebody in the future, saying their views are as irrational as believing the Earth is flat isn't the best way.
Honestly, I don't think I can convince a flat-earther or pro-lifer. This kind of brainwashing appears to be unfixable. What can be done is limiting the spread.
As a pro-choice person, I could be convinced against abortion _if_ there was a guarantee that every child would have the full resources of the government to help them achieve a successful life. We all know that isn't going to happen.
So without the appropriate follow-through, this is actually less enlightened and hurting both parents and children more.
Kids brought up with bad parents will be somewhat similarly disadvantaged. Why should potentially bad parents (eg. heavy drug addicts) not be banned from having kids? Both of them would be "forcing children onto parents who are in bad positions to raise them".
And exactly how does banning an abortion when the pregnancy is not viable for any number of reasons (molar pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy, anencephaly) help anyone? Why are we forcing women to carry dead fetus's around in their bodies?
Because that's what a total ban on abortion does. It also makes IVF illegal if "life begins at conception".
The notion that the only abortions happening are happy couples who find out they're pregnant, tell their friends and family, plan parties, and then in some sinister plot months later wake up and casually decide "you know what, let's just kill it" is absurd.
Not all life is equal, and not all human life is equal. If you were driving down the street and two buildings were on fire, a IVF clinic with viable implanted eggs, and a preschool full of living children, you would 100% of the time try and rescue the preschoolers if you only had time for one. The idea that all human life down to a recently implanted egg has the same value as an 11 year old girl who's been raped and wants an abortion is an untenable position.
Controversial opinion, prisons aren't a deterrent, corporal punishment would leave a more lasting impression and instill fear into would be offenders. It would also be more cost effective and efficient.
Or is it common in your country, but the justice system nails the rapist every time?
If prolife movement actually cared about protecting life, they would not support policies that leave children to die of terrible diseases if their family can't afford healthcare.
But there are some stages in the life of a human fetus that is less sentient than a monkey, a horse, a dog, a fly, an ant, etc.
Do you think abortion should be illegal at all stages?
And, do you think that abortion should be illegal even if the woman faces life threatning risks?
The ruling today says that the federal government does not have that power, absent legislation. But by the same token, it also could not BAN abortion absent federal legislation.
Others have commented on the weakness of the original "penumbral reasoning" of Roe v. Wade decision establishing the government's ability to do this, and that this criticism is recognized by judges commonly perceived to be on either side of the political spectrum.
A lens with which to view this decision through is the correction of technical debt, and it's really not that remarkable from a legal perspective.
It's very remarkable from a social perspective, considering many of us have grown up in a Roe v. Wade world.
But this returns the burden to states. In my state, today's ruling changes nothing, as abortion is protected by our state constitution. In other states, there's some political work to do assuming the citizenry in those states agrees that things should be different.
If there's actually a consensus opinion on abortion in the US across enough states, federal legislation could be created some day. By design, federal legislation is a slow process - it's designed to be inefficient. One of the biggest liberal criticisms of Roe v. Wade is that it stopped the process cold, and we've lost decades of time to have that conversation about legislation in trade for a decision on very weak legal footing, which many have argued was long overdue for correction.
From my vantage point, the questions you raise are immaterial to the legal issue decided in the SCOTUS. This decision was one about the structural relationship between the states and the federal government. The questions you raise are relevant to the state politics that need to take place going forward, for sure. But it comes back to this question - if the majority of people in a state believe that abortion past some point in time (1w, 14w, 24w, pick one) constitutes murder, should they not be allowed to have their state law reflect that? We believe other nations have that power for diverse views on the matter - France, I believe, doesn't allow abortions after 14w (it was merely 10 up until 2000). When evaluating law in the US, a key premise is the idea that the US is a collection of states that outsources certain functions to a central government, not a singular government with separate census areas.
And this decision was not about any "state rights" bullshit. The court previously found an unenumerated right to an abortion, and now they completely reversed themselves. Women do not have complete body autonomy and must support another life no matter the impact on their own.
Seems to me that the arc of the moral universe is actually more of a spaghetti. While some things improve, others regress.
Dr. Martin Luther King
That's the central fallacy of Whig historiography [1]. It is in part facilitated by the fact that recent history is often written by the victors.
MLK repeated the same fallacy: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Is that the same arc that included two world wars?
Look at Iraq, the cradle of civilization, the seat of Babylon. And Egypt. And even Greece to an extent. Former glories of the world but they aren't the most glorious places in the world now.
Christopher Hitchens
I wonder how such a legal framework would work if the court could go to their respective law makers and say that the law is unclear in this case and require them to vote on it. Then, rather than Roe vs. Wade being passed in the first place, the supreme court would order congress to vote for/against a new law forbidding states from being able to restrict abortions.
Unfortunately it would require a constitutional amendment and so is unlikely to happen. But the benefits are obvious: No mucking around trying to interpret legislative intent, just get new legislative intent! If the executive steps into grey areas of the law, force Congress to clarify things.
I do worry it would solidify the judiciary as a proto -legislature arguing the law back and forth with Congress. I’d also worry about other unforeseen consequences which would somehow cause worse problems then are existing system.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-abortion...
On this tech focused forum people have portable skills in high demand. As WFH continues to be normalized there’s probably more opportunities than ever to work for US companies from elsewhere. You can move to Canada and you’ll be in the top 5% of earners easily.
You can still vote in us elections and donate to help turn things around, but in the meantime set yourself and your ancestors up for better success elsewhere in case things don’t.
There’s no real downside aside from forgoing the absurdly high wages of Silicon Valley, but you’d still be highly paid.
My understanding is these rulings are both based on the constitution. The one on guns seems really straightforward:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
I know this can be interpreted differently but to me it reads that nobody should be restricted from arming themselves.
Regarding abortion, what aspect of the constitution would cover it?
I'm asking in good faith here btw.
Edit: separately, it is insane to me that these big decisions can be completely split along political lines. A 'supreme court' should be apolitical. There are so many issues with the way the US Supreme Court works. It needs total reform. You should be able to trust a court to make a decision based on the law, not their personal preferences.
The US Constitution does not contain the word abortion, and so decisions by the Court on abortion either way are only indirectly guided by applying other parts of the Constitution.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
To the people == legislative branch. to the states means the states legislative branch.
> [The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
Which is the go-to argument for federal control over things. If you pay for it, and buy it from another state, then the feds can regulate it.
It seems perfectly legal to make a federal law that states don't have the power to block access to medications produced in elsewhere. Nor do they have the power to prosecute people for buying such medications, regardless of the effects, from businesses which have locations in multiple states.
But since we don't yet live in that world, we need every argument we can find, no matter how flimsy or contrived. Because, despite having a solid foundation sitting right there, we are forced to build on top of a patchwork of whatever else we see laying around.
Remember that the supreme court has a somewhat checkered history. IT is the least of the democratic branches, but has unarguably limitless rights.
What is the supreme court decided that I had a in-numerated constitutional right to have slaves? Or a un-enumerated right to not have Japanese or Chinese in my state. These are not hypothetical.
This is the first time I've seen that assertion.
The problem with saying technological change invalidates the 2nd amendment, is that you have to also explain or accept that the 1st amendment only applies to letters written with a feather and a pool of ink.
A constitutional amendment could easily ban nukes. It's not like there isn't a process to get them out of private hands the legitimate way. It probably wouldn't even be difficult amendment to pass. Similarly an amendment should be required if you want to exclude certain technology from the 1st amendment.
The Roe case hinged on abortion being a right under privacy right. It was a very weak argument and even Ruth Bader Ginsberg (a very left leaning justice who died recently) didnt like that reasoning and thought it was weak: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/05/06/ruth-bader...
I think was this was meant to mean was: Any citizen has the right to join their local/state militia, and keep their service rifle and uniform with them at home.
...however in the absence of militias in the US today, it makes sense that even if that requirement was initially envisioned (which is very debatable), it's no longer reasonable.
It's historically interesting to note that different versions of the amendment were ratified, both including and not including that last comma.
While the first part of the sentence says why should care, the explicit right is owned by the people.
What people don't often consider is that one can infer that rights might be infringed. The second amendment just says, "We can't fringe this right".
Obviously this should probably be expanded to include women generally, but their 2nd Amendment rights are not predicated on their membership in the militia.
if able-bodied or militia is defined by the law does that mean they can include and exclude whoever they wish by redefining it?
Seems sensible. But the court is saying that if you look at what laws were passed / in force at the time, and what courts said about them around that time, you'll see that to contemporaries of ratification the second amendment meant a right to carry arms, not just to be in a militia, or whatever. That too seems sensible. Now what?
> I know this can be interpreted differently but to me it reads that nobody should be restricted from arming themselves.
Sure was interpreted differently when black people started carrying in public! [0].
None. Roe was based on pure vapor, constitutionally speaking.
>You should be able to trust a court to make a decision based on the law, not their personal preferences.
That is in fact what the Supreme Court has just done, by overturning Roe.
With regard to abortion, the constitution guarantees us a right to privacy, which is closely linked to bodily autonomy. The argument being that there is constitutionally no legal way for the government to involve itself in your personal health decisions. There is an interesting ideological reversal here with regard to the recent vaccine debate with liberals arguing the government should be able to compel vaccination, and the conservatives against.
If one were to die tomorrow without being an organ donor, the state still cannot compel one to give up their organs, even if it would save lives. Why should a woman’s body have less autonomy than a corpse?
On the other hand, I don’t think many people would support 39-week abortions either, absent some explicit medical necessity. At some point, which is inherently a gradient, our legal system has to afford protection to what is a viable person.
Americans have a tendency to go for the most extreme positions on everything and I think the court reversing Roe is an incredibly shortsighted decision that will cost it decades of legitimacy. The institution is more damaged now than possibly ever. Even the Chief Justice had wanted to uphold Mississippi’s law but preserve Roe, which would’ve been a much better solution than where we are today.
Extremism is a cancer destroying this country.
We have a system that allows for changing laws - it's called a republic. We have a system that even allows for changing the constitution.
Upholding Mississippi's law but preserving Roe is intrinsically a political decision. Politics belong with legislatures, not judges.
My interpretation of that ideology is that liberals want the government to protect public health by restricting personal freedom of participation in certain aspects of the public sphere by those who choose not to be vaccinated, and conservatives want to put their own personal choices above the public health by allowing them to do without restriction all the things they did before the pandemic regardless of their vaccination status. There was never serious debate about blanket compelling of vaccination.
This simply says "Abortion is a legislative matter - the constitution does not say that abortion must be legal until the moment of delivery".
Equal protection under the law would be my first pick for constitutional protection of abortion. There are very few life threatening things that the law compels men to do. Yet the law can compel a women to carry a fetus to term against her will?
But wouldn't that introduce the issue of whether or not the foetus should be entitled to equal protection (which most anti-abortion voters would suggest is a child and should be protected/have rights)? Seems odd to make it a man/woman equality issue.
For example, i have two lungs. You are in a car accident and both your lungs have failed. I could donate a lung and save your life.
Your right to live comes up against my right to control my own body. My right overrules your right. Even if I was the one who caused the accident that damaged your lungs. I can be found to have broken laws causing the accident, but I can’t be forced to donate an organ.
People do not have the right to physically attach themselves to another person, and leach blood, oxygen, nurturant etc off the other person. Period. Fetuses would not be an exception.
I feel that a person who wakes up with another person surgically attached to them by some sort of mad-scientist doctor could have surgery to have the second person removed, even if this means certain death for the second person. I don't view abortion as any different.
I could support a ban on abortion methods that directly kill the fetus, but as long as the method is primarily about severing the connection to the mother and removing it from the body, I see nothing wrong with that, even if removal means certain death for the fetus.
If people feel fetuses have human rights, I could also support laws or medical ethics requiring doctors to attempt to save the fetus after it is expelled (if the condition was such that saving them might be possible) just like they would try to save any other person.
This was upheld very recently in 2019. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Coalition_for_Men_v._...
Not to mention that when a war threatens the country you being drafted is taking the lion's share of the risk, because someone not doing it is also risky and to everyone.
Here women have to risk their lives and jail because a bunch of religious extremists and fascists have nothing better to do. There is no logical, philosophical, moral or even religious reason for it. It's tyranny for tyranny's sake. It's a demonstration of the power these people have over society.
"Unconstitutional" is never as straightforwardly defined as one would like. For example, protesting against the draft was ruled by the Holmes court as unprotected speech. Today, you can burn a flag with impunity.
> Equal protection under the law would be my first pick for constitutional protection of abortion.
While I'm supportive of the, for lack of a better term, "spirit" of Roe vs Wade, it was never premised on equal protection under the law. After all, men don't have an acknowledged right to avoid parenthood. The opinion itself only justifies abortion on a limited right to privacy and explicitly rejects the "my body, my choice" justification that it is mythologized to have:
"The Court's decisions recognizing a right of privacy also acknowledge that some state regulation in areas protected by that right is appropriate. As noted above, a State may properly assert important interests in safeguarding health, in maintaining medical standards, and in protecting potential life. At some point in pregnancy, these respective interests become sufficiently compelling to sustain regulation of the factors that govern the abortion decision. The privacy right involved, therefore, cannot be said to be absolute. In fact, it is not clear to us that the claim asserted by some amici that one has an unlimited right to do with one's body as one pleases bears a close relationship to the right of privacy previously articulated in the Court's decisions. The Court has refused to recognize an unlimited right of this kind in the past. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 25 S.Ct. 358, 49 L.Ed. 643 (1905) (vaccination); Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200, 47 S.Ct. 584, 71 L.Ed. 1000 (1927) (sterilization)."
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113
> There are very few life threatening things that the law compels men to do.
Selective service and compelled paternity.
> Yet the law can compel a women to carry a fetus to term against her will?
The law can compel a man to support a child even if he man is not the biological father. It can compel one be vaccinated against his/her will. It can also compel sterilization if it determines that one is mentally defective.
Child support isn’t a matter of bodily autonomy.
Both of those apply to both men and women.
The law can theoretically compel everyone to be vaccinated, not just men. That’s equal protection under the law. It’s also only available in public health crises - not routine.
Again sterilization has been applied to men and women.
Selective service is maybe the only analog to forced birth, and even that has carve outs for religious and moral beliefs.
>Child support isn't a matter of bodily autonomy
A man can be ordered by a court to obtain a job to pay for the child or risk being thrown in prison for refusing to comply. Even terminating parental rights does not remove him from the obligation of paying child support. There has never been a case of compelled maternity (compulsion to mother a child) as every state, even the ones that will now be able to criminalize abortions, allow a mother to surrender her child within a period of at least 72 hours.
> The law can theoretically compel everyone to be vaccinated, not just men. That’s equal protection under the law. It’s also only available in public health crises - not routine.
Equal violation is not equal protection. Otherwise slavery would be OK as long as you could find a persuasive or compelling enough interest for it and found that it could be equally applied to men and women. That's not how rights work. They're inalienable. You either have them or you don't.
> Again sterilization has been applied to men and women.
Same as above.
> Selective service is maybe the only analog to forced birth, and even that has carve outs for religious and moral beliefs.
Carveouts and concessions only make the violation of a right palatable, not reasonable or justifiable. Several states that oppose abortions have carveouts for incest, rape, and/or threats to the health of the mother. In spite of these carveouts, I reject that states or even the federal government should have a say on what one does with one's body in the first place with "special" cases being negotiated after the fact.
> Well then we mostly agree.
What is it that you don't agree with?
https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-constitution/ma...
Funnily enough, it's literally not in their original job description. Judicial review, like so many things about the Supreme Court, is just based on precedent [1].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_review_in_the_United_...
> Weird because the courts striking down laws as unconstitutional is literally their job description.
Not really, because the question is actually "what makes something unconstitutional." Should the standard be "we nine unelecteds don't like it, and can read whatever we want into text that is actually silent on the issue"?
> Equal protection under the law would be my first pick for constitutional protection of abortion. There are very few life threatening things that the law compels men to do. Yet the law can compel a women to carry a fetus to term against her will?
That frankly doesn't make any sense. The law doesn't say that men are permitted to get abortions but women aren't, and the law clearly must be able to regulate things that one sex is incapable of doing (e.g. penetrative rape, and please don't waste time trying to argue the illustration instead of the point). Also, I believe most, if not all, anti-abortion laws apply to people other than the woman getting the abortion.
I mean that’s what every ruling is. The court exists because the text isn’t clear. No text is clear enough to handle reality. There are always exceptions, shifting definitions, changing technology. No document can be the full representative of its meaning - a system of rules based on documents will always have a layer of interpretation built on top of it
> I mean that’s what every ruling is.
No, it clearly isn't. If it was, you might as well abolish the other branches of government, because the government is really an oligarchy of judges.
> The court exists because the text isn’t clear. No text is clear enough to handle reality. There are always exceptions, shifting definitions, changing technology. No document can be the full representative of its meaning - a system of rules based on documents will always have a layer of interpretation built on top of it
That's true, but only to a point. Take it too far, and you are just using an oligarchy of judges to bypass the legislative process.
The law also compels men to carry fetus's to term against their will, should they happen to become pregnant somehow.
Just because men can't get pregnant doesn't mean that the law doesn't apply to them.
Yes it does.
I don't think it's the court's job to equal the playing field on biology.
But since you put it like that, wouldn't that mean the father also has the right to decide for or against the abortion of his child?
which is also why 2nd amendment is relevant. if the people responsible for the creation of laws is sufficiently corrupted, then the public have the right to form a militia and replace them. Which you cannot do if those same corrupted people are the ones deciding who is allowed to have guns or not.
The Supreme Court has taken on relevance because Congress is worthless. When no laws can be passed, courts act as clever compilers to keep society working despite the source code being ancient. The programmers of the law have not updated it to match the reality on the ground nor the features users want. This is a far better outcome than an uprising against the government, but it will only work for so long. Ultimately Congress needs to become functional again, which will require compromise and pork barrel trading.
>Ultimately Congress needs to become functional again
Yes exactly. I keep seeing rhetoric that we "lost 50 years of progress". we didnt. We band-aided our government and had 50 years to make the proper correction and havent been able to yet. More importantly, though, I dont think we have really tried to
the group that was keeping that band-aid on is now out of power and we want to blame the other side for simply upholding separation of powers. I mean, it is tone deaf to do it now at best, but Mississippi pushed the issue. the court is obligated to uphold the law, not dictate it. Abortion as a privacy right has always been a weak stance.
Anecdotally, I have felt a growing disinterest in local politics growing for the past decade. I can name so many people who "didnt want to talk politics" 2 weeks ago who are now non-stop politically charged over roe v wade. I could roll my eyes about it all, but honestly I just hope it serves as enough of a wake up call for people to stay involved.
The New York carry case seems like it was probably decided correctly, what's interesting to me is that the courts gun law doctrine relies on deciding whether the law is "consistent with the nations historical tradition of firearm control." The court decided this law was not, even though it is over a century old and 7 states have had similar laws for decades. At what point does it become part of our historical tradition?
The court has to be allowed to undo precedents once in a while. Otherwise we'd have to fight a civil war over every Dred Scott case.
I'm NOT saying this case, or yesterday's, was rightly decided. I'm only pointing out that the court has changed its mind a number of times in the past, and will again in the future.
So the current argument might be that since the constitution does not give the federal government the power to regular abortions (or to prevent states from regulating them), then that power to regulate them or not is reserved for the states to do as they please.
The prior argument (from Roe vs Wade) is that the US Constitution provides a right to privacy and that prohibiting or otherwise restricting abortions violates that right to privacy.
While there's no explicit right to privacy in the constitution, it could be implied by the 14th amendment: "... nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ..."
From the original Roe vs Wade opinion: "A person may choose to have an abortion until a fetus becomes viable, based on the right to privacy contained in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Viability means the ability to live outside the womb, which usually happens between 24 and 28 weeks after conception." https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/113/
The viability condition is one of the legal arguments people tend to attack. Justice Blackmun even wrote in a memo when drafting the verdict for Roe vs Wade: "You will observe that I have concluded that the end of the first trimester is critical. This is arbitrary, but perhaps any other selected point, such as quickening or viability, is equally arbitrary."
They did end upon a viability criteria. The exact week has also changed since medical science has advanced in the last 50 years.
Roe & Wade is based on the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Roe vs Wade did not happen in vacuum, it's part of a larger understanding of the Constitution that recognizes a right to privacy and recognizes that there are unwritten rights.
This decision overturns this whole 50-year old framework. Decisions based on 14th Amendment’s Due Process clause are now open for banning contraception, banning interracial relationships, family relationships, right to intimacy (sodomy laws), the right to personal control of medical treatment. It will even have data collection limit consequences.
How Dismantling Roe Puts Interracial Marriage at Risk https://www.aclu.org/podcast/how-dismantling-roe-puts-interr...
Roe v Wade was controversial since it was decided. It was never settled precedent. People have tried to overturn it from the start.
The Constitution is or was a band-aid and it's reached its EOL.
The Congress has abrogated their duty here and we're seeing the consequence of this.
>> "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
So anyone, including children, the insane, felons etc has a right to bear "arms". And there is no clear limit to say that a gun is "arms" but a kilo of C4 or a ground-air missile launcher or a fully armed attack helicopter is not. In fact, in 2022 any militia that could be even slightly useful will need at least some air support. Yet SCOTUS has routinely banned these items from personal procession.
I say this not because I am some crazy gun nut or I think that those an actual right to bear arms would be a good idea.
I say it to point out that the courts job was always to rule what people wanted and what was practical was also legal. Just like a politicians job is.
Actually arguing actual constitutionality is a red herring. A lawyer's job is to find a loophole and all judges start as lawyers...
Most Americans don't realize that, at least until recently, you could buy a kilo of C4 with cash, no questions asked. It is outside the experience of most Americans to buy high explosives retail, but that's actually a thing depending on where you live.
Yes, the courts generally lag public opinion, but eventually side with it. Whether regarding interracial marriage, birth control, gun control, and many other things. If anything, Roe was an outlier because in 1972 the public was probably mostly unconcerned about abortion and, if pressed, probably not broadly for it to be legal.
If, indeed, more than half the States were to legalize civilian possession of heavy weapons, then the courts might rule that to be covered by the second amendment. And since none do, the court will feel safe ending the second amendment's shade at small-caliber firearms.
One might wish for the courts to act very differently than this, but then we'd probably see large majorities in favor of reforming them to be as they are.
It's a problem, though, that we have such disparities in public opinion between various States.
By the way, this decision may well cause the end of Republican rule in many Republican States if their legislatures get too excited about banning more abortion options than the people of those States want them to. It might well usher a multi-decadal Democrat majority in the State legislatures and in the Federal government. It could very well be a Pyrrhic victory for pro-life activists.
The role of a court is to interpret law. While not preference, but "opinion" is entirely the point of a court.
You answered your own question. It's the interpretation that matters. The Supreme Court is a joke.
Political debates have not been done in good faith in the US for decades. It's no longer about the people - it's about fooling the people into getting amped up about things and voting one way or the other. It's like a wrestling match. Does it really matter who wins if it's all fake? Actually I take this back: being a wrestler actually needs some sort of prep and physical conditioning. Wrestling is better than politics.
(1) Stare Decisis and Reliance: two legal standards that had restrained even right-wing courts for years. It's legal, but "bad", for the Court to overturn a long-standing law that people organize their lives around (as they did post sexual-revolution). So the standard isn't "is it wrong," it's "is it egregiously wrong." And the court has found multiple times that Roe is fine.
(2) The decision doesn't take aim at _just_ abortion. It takes aim at the right to privacy. This right is pretty strong, overall: the 9th Amendment says "just bc a right is not explicit, that doesn't mean it isn't real"; the 3rd, 4th and others say "the gov't can't just meddle in your affairs without real justification;" the 14th says "this right is universal." Implying this right is weak is iffy at best, and DEFINITELY doesn't meet the "egregiously wrong" standard.
(3) The new tests are, uh, speculative.
(3a)They rely on historical analysis that is contextually-driven at best. Are we talking abortion, reproductive healthcare, or women's rights? That's a matter of framing, not law, and will lead to dif conclusions, which makes it a bad test. [Note: more on this when Obergefell is inevitably challenged...]
(3b) The tests lead to dif conclusions than Alito reached. Abortion has been legal in the US for longer than it's been illegal; it wasn't banned nationwide until the 20th century, because it was explicitly legal under british common law. Even 19th century regulations were effectively just regulations of methods (poison control), not abortion itself. I'd argue "a cultural practice referenced in Shakespeare, explicitly addressed in 400 years of british common law, and that we kept for 100+ years in the US, including when the Constitution was written" is pretty deep. Besides, it's applied differently in different cases (how far back is "deeply rooted," anyway?). TLDR: arbitrary = bad test.
All this to say: I'm pissed bc it's bad policy, but I'm ALSO annoyed at the bad legal analysis. Like - there are better arguments! It feels like an F U.
(2) Roe vs Wade is not premised on the 9th amendment (as much as I would have liked that) or cases involving substantive due process (Lochner vs New York), but on Griswold vs Connecticut, which relied an unsubstantiated argument of "penumbras" and "emanations", as though rights can be "found" in the same way that one summons Captain Planet. Roe vs Wade does not make a protestation to the defense of bodily autonomy as a fundamental right. In fact, Roe explicitly rejects such arguments.
If you followed the absolute letter of the law in the current US legal code, females should be disqualified from owning guns: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title10/sub...
George Mason, coauthor of the second amendment, was asked "Who is the militia?" He's been asked this several times and at one point said it was everyone except our politicians. He typically responds: "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for few public officials." (George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 425-426) - https://www.madisonbrigade.com/g_mason.htm
The scope of the second amendment is the same scope as all other amendments which is to say it's an unlimited, and natural right. Anything else is just playing stupid games with lawyers.
The 9th amendment of the United States reads:
> The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
This was added as an Amendment, because many founders were deeply concerned that the introduction of a bill of rights would create the impression that if they enumerated some rights, people would consider that list to be complete.
That is, they recognized that there were many rights not explicitly enumerated by the constitution that were still important rights. Nearly everyone agreed that the enumeration of rights was not intended to capture every right.
So, relying on "what rights are explicitly mentioned in the constitution" is antithetical to the entire concept of the bill of rights. It's an incorrect place to start reading the constitution.
This is aside from the founders not being presented with a firearm that can put 6" holes into a kindergartner's body at the rate of 45 rounds per minute.
We're never going to fix the gun issue in this country but the reading of 2a has always been absolutely absurd.
RE: SCOTUS the powerful will always protect the powerful. Sotomayor just went on the record the other day to call Clarence Thomas 'a man who cares deeply about the court as an institution.' Clarence Thomas, whose wife was supporting and funding the January 6th insurrection and effort to overturn a legal election.
Every now and then I ctrl-f the constitution to find the words "supreme court" and somehow come up blank every time.
Citation required... the only way you're going to get a 6" hole in a human body is with something like a .50 BMG (which is an anti-material rifle) or maybe a .45-70.
The 14th, to me, encompasses everything that it means to be American: self-autonomy. The right to marry outside our race, the right to choose our sexual partner, the right to birth control are established in the due process clause.
Scalia said, "the Constitution's refusal to 'deny or disparage' other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them, and even farther removed from authorizing judges to identify what they might be, and to enforce the judges' list against laws duly enacted by the people".
Of course, anyone with a brain can see that Scalia was the first to abandon textualism or the reactionary idea that judges should not engage in 'judicial activism' whenever they came in conflict with conservative policy.
The rights to choose your sexual partner and marry outside your race are also established in the Equal Protection clause, which gives them a stronger basis in the constitution than birth control and abortion which solely rely on substantive due process.
http://www.notguiltynj.com/our-constitution-doesnt-give-us-r...
Lest they be accused of inconsistency, this Supreme Court likely intends to remove any existing protections for those rights as well.
He then goes on to say outright that Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell should be reconsidered. I take that to mean the majority reactionary court, who also do not believe in substantive due process, will overturn those. And it also implies a call to action for reactionaries to start building cases.
Wealthy republicans can just fly their teenage daughters to a blue state, while poor people will inevitably end up getting back-alley abortions.
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." - 9th Amendment, in its entirety.
In other words: there is an entire Amendment specifically dedicated to refuting this argument. People have rights, even if they're not specifically written in the Constitution.
The 9th amendment says some rights aren't mentioned. But abortion couldn't be one of those rights because abortion was banned in some states.
Abortion was not, in fact, banned when that amendment was written. The first full ban was in New York in 1829. [1]
Besides, the legal issue is not whether abortion is one of those rights per se, but rather whether privacy is an implicit right (almost certainly), and whether family planning (abortion, yes, but also contraception & choice of sex partner) is a sufficiently private decision that the government is restrained from regulating it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States#....
The right to potentially life saving treatment sounds an awful lot like those enumerated in the first amendment, and the right to not have the government force you to go through an potentially deadly and avoidable situation sounds in the spirit of the eighth amendment.
The news here isn’t a Supreme Court overriding voters, but devolving the decision of abortion rights to voters in the states and their elected representatives.
Don't argue the case. Marginalize the dominionists. Neutralize their effectiveness. Exclude them from institutions and communities. Dominionism is a movement closely related to white supremacism and the American flavor of fascism. It is as fundamentally dangerous as those related movements. Debating dominionists is just as useless as debating neonazis, and for the same reasons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_courts_of_appeal...
They've undermined their own position.
What Alito and others did by over turning a previous supreme court ruling is open the bad box in that any time a majority changes on the supreme court there will be an attempt to over turn past rulings not based upon law but based on feelings of the court.
the only sliver lining is that there is growing evidence that at least 3 supreme court justice might be impeached by year-end.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opini...
0: https://apnews.com/article/only-on-ap-us-supreme-court-abort...
I believe the poll from your source fails to make that distinction. From the article:
> But Dr. Daniel Grossman, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco, who supports abortion rights, cited research showing that Americans viewed second-trimester abortions more empathetically when told about some of the reasons why women seek them.
So if asked if abortions should be legal in the third trimester, most people would jump to say "no", without considering the context.
I'm sure your overall polls would change if you said it meant that a nearly-due baby could be aborted at will, too.
I don't think I understand. Are you looking for a blanket statement on all abortions?
The former poll is not nuanced because it aims at providing demographic data. The latter does not - it de-aggregates sentiment based on trimesters, thus adding the circumstances should be considered.
Disaggregating the question based on trimesters is one form of twisting. Asking only a single blanket "are you for or against the right of a woman to choose" is also twisting.
Fact is though, most US citizens aren't against the _idea_ of abortion. We could be nitpicking in there all day long, but there is a majority who is not against it.
On the other hand: I support impeaching these five justices for their deception claiming it was settled law before they were confirmed, rescinding a constitutional right purely for religious reasons, and thus violation of trust. This is the proper civil mechanism for accountability. And making Roe a federal statute.
"You won! Take the W and move on."
There is no win when the same people who supported Prop 8 were working hard to prevent marriage equality, and end it once it happened, and working hard to fight the very underpinnings for it and other rulings like Roe vs. Wade. This is why I refused to move on for so long, but eventually the downvotes and flags and screaming won over, and I gave up. And we lost.
For now.
What if an American person wishing to have an abortion just travels to another country where it's legal to get it done? Can they be arrested upon return?
If so, does that mean that all Europeans that had an abortion could be liable to prosecution in the US if they choose to visit?
Not that I expect a huge impact to tourism etc. I've seen gay football fans willing to go to Qatar to watch their matches. Visiting a country that thinks they should die didn't seem to bother them :/
But I saw some politicians in the news saying they wouldn't want to enforce it. So I assumed it was a law that all states had to obey. Sorry I was wrong.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/06/24/1107126...
That's a lot of people and a lot of territory where you could be arrested traveling through if someone snitches.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/us/anti-abortion-movement...
Depends on how effectively they can link it to interstate commerce or one of the other powers given to the federal government in the constitution.
Also depends on how the current supreme court feels about the commerce clause. I am not sure if they have ruled on anything involving that recently.
This decision overturns the argument that Roe v. Wade was based upon and rights it established.
Overturning Roe v. Wade opens the door for banning contraception, interference with the right to marry (interracial relationships can be banned), family relationships, right to intimacy, the right to personal control of medical treatment. It will even have data collection limit consequences.
Overturning Roe v. Wade opens the door for banning contraception, banning interracial relationships, messing with family relationships, right to intimacy, the right to personal control of medical treatment.
This isn't about originalism. This is about the sitting judges' religious beliefs.
This is the droid you're looking for: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099542962/abortion-ben-frank...
It reiterates the thesis of the first article: "It just wasn't something to be remarked upon. It was just a part of everyday life."
> Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Substantive due process is far shakier. It's Justices deciding what rights they think people should have and then working backwards as best they can to justify them. The back to back gun rights & abortion rulings lays it bare. There's just no intellectually honest way of finding a right to an abortion but not a right to bear arms.
IMHO, the substantive due process was the wrong way about this. It was a shaky foundation and as more rights were found the logic got shakier. They should have used the right to peacefully assemble and based most of these substantive due process cases on them.
This is literally 99% of a Supreme Court justice's job.
Here it is in its entirety:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Please point out the part of that amendment that references the right of people to have concealed carry for the purposes of self defense. Because it seems to me that they tried to be as obtuse and textualist as can possibly be with regards to Roe, but apparently the second amendment grants all sorts of rights that don't actually exist in the Constitution.
Interracial marriage has existed for pretty much all of human history (though race as a concept likely didn't, at least not the way it is perceived in modern times). Heck you even have Moses marrying an Ethiopian woman and his siblings spoke out against him over it and were punished by God for it (see Numbers chapter 12).
Gay marriage, on the other hand, has near zero historical precedence outside of a few cases with Roman emperors and stuff like that.
The approach that Thomas favors is "text, history, and tradition". The words - as written - taken in light of what the author(s) intended and what was happening at the time.
As best I can tell it would be entirely legal for the US government to sell someone sentenced to life in prison to a private party.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/abortion-ethics-ge...
Gay marriage has existed for as long as marriage has, it’s just best documented when it involves emperors.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_same-sex_marriag...
But you know what doesn’t have a long historical precedence? Automatic weapons, or protecting money as speech.
I’ll grant you automatic weapons though
You're describing the "living constitution"[1] view, which has not been the dominant position among Supreme Court justices for some time.
Now they're all "strict constructionists"[2], who think the opposite of what you describe: that the constitution should be interpreted just as it was written.
It has, but not as a right. The Hippocratic oath specifically bans it:
> Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion.
— Hippocratic Oath (AD 275, or earlier)
This sounds like it needs a source.
As far as I understand, anti-abortion laws started getting traction in the 1800s. Before that, these were scattered and mostly religious inspired. Also, Hammurabi doesn't make any references to voluntary abortions.
The court found otherwise, you can read the majority's evidence in their opinion at https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf starting on page 17:
"The “eminent common-law authorities (Blackstone, Coke, Hale, and the like),” Kahler v. Kansas, 589 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 7), all describe abortion after quickening as criminal. Henry de Bracton’s 13th-century treatise explained that if a person has “struck a pregnant woman, or has given her poison, whereby he has caused abortion, if the foetus be already formed and animated, and particularly if it be animated, he commits homicide.” 2 DeLegibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae 279 (T. Twiss ed. 1879); see also 1 Fleta, c. 23, reprinted in 72 Selden Soc. 60–61 (H. Richardson & G. Sayles eds. 1955) (13th-century treatise)."
They go on for a few pages going over common law before discussing the historical record in the US.
> Interracial marriage has existed for pretty much all of human history
is not the answer to the question originalism is asking. It asks whether there is a historical precedence for protecting that action as a right.
You don't need to look any farther than this very ruling! Abortion has been practiced since the beginning recorded history (and likely much longer) and books like the bible even instruct you on how to perform one. That history has no bearing on Alito or Thomas.
Not really, that depends on which translation of Numbers 5 you're looking at. It's not clear at all that the "Ordeal of Bitter Water" was supposed to induce a miscarriage.
to be clear, its pretty irrelevant to the argument because the bible is just one such example of the history of abortion. There are hundreds more and if it would help you can pretend I mentioned one of those instead.
Unsure if you're presenting that as the human history that exists "in Thomas's mind" or actual history
That would be an anomaly in setting judicial precedent. If legal precedent was formally acknowledged for historical reasons, then we would be having a really long conversation on civil rights, _all_ civil rights.
And the issue may not be gay marriage, but straight up sodomy laws, which were introduced as religious inspired laws, most extensively Judeo-Christian. For these to stand, we would need to ignore the separation of church and state.
"In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,"
It has been abundantly clear to everyone that a black man can impregnate a white woman. And a black woman can have children with a white man. If this act (reproduction) is what marriage is about, then the sexes are not equal, and thus not worthy of equal protection. A man cannot impregnate a man. Whereas, any race can impregnate / be impregnated by any other race as far as we can tell.
If you have evidence to the contrary (that both sexes are identical when it comes to reproduction, which is the historical view of marriage Thomas may adhere to; or that various races cannot interbreed), then please do share.
> However, if one views marriage as a precursor to reproduction -- the historical view of marriage...
The historical purpose of marriage is the exchange/pursuit of status and resources[1]. Reproduction was an inevitable outcome of lack of contraceptives. The idea of reproduction being the primary purpose of marriage is pretty recent.
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200505/marriage-...
Historically, and actually still today, if you have actual reasons you can't conceive (for example, if a man cannot get an erection due to permanent and incurable impotence), then yes, the marriage can be declared anulled. Annulment is different from divorce because it makes it such that the marriage never existed at all at anytime. In other words, yes, certain conditions preventing conception can be used to claim that a marriage was fraudulent.
In certain legal jurisdictions, a castrated man cannot marry. While that may not always be true today, it has been the case historically. Prior to the modern day, people did operate under the assumption that those who certainly could not conceive could not marry, but of course, they didn't have the full understanding of conception we do.
> The historical purpose of marriage is the exchange/pursuit of status and resources
Yes, and the purpose of status and resources is to pass those along to your children. Also your article mainly talks about 'love' and marriage not reproduction.
> The idea of reproduction being the primary purpose of marriage is pretty recent.
This is completely baseless. Thomas Aquinas writes about the purpose of marriage as being for procreation. Given that at the time he wrote he represented an organization that represented the majority of moral thought in Europe... it's hard to actually believe these ridiculous claims. Moreover, status and resources were the main pursuit of the rich. The poor still married... usually for kids.
Source: https://www.newadvent.org/summa/5049.htm
> It would seem that the "sacrament" is not the chief of the marriage goods. For the end is principal in everything. Now the end of marriage is the offspring. Therefore the offspring is the chief marriage good.
Given that Aquinas is also pulling from historical sources (in this cases the Sentences by Peter Lombard), it's extremely likely this idea -- written very clearly in the 13th century -- originated well before then. What's modern is the claim that the chief aim of marriage in previous centuries was status / resources. Everyone in previous centuries understood that the way in which marriage produced those goods was children. A woman from one family marrying into another noble family would have little claim over her new status if the couple were unable to produce offspring. If a man had no offspring to inherit, the status and resources would end.
MORE SOURCES FROM EVEN EARLIER
In the 5th century, Augustine of Hippo clearly indicates in his treatise 'On the Good of Marriage' that offspring are one of three benefits of marriage (along with faithfulness and the sacrament of matrimony itself). In the summa, Aquinas attempts to argue which of these is the 'chief' good of marriage. Thomas believes the sacrament of matrimony itself is the chief good. Now, most here don't necessarily have the religious view of marriage (nor do they need to), but aside from the sacrament, it's faithfulness and offspring that remain. Nowhere there is status and power. And these men are again writing on the predominant moral system of the Western world for the past thousand years.
Going to secular philosophers, Aristotle (from whom Aquinas derived a lot) also consistently writes that marriage is for children. His other aims of marriage are community stability and pleasure. Again, nowhere does status and power appear.
Couples without children can adopt children, regardless of the gender of the parents.
Here's a Utah law firm offering advice on how to annul your marriage should you have found the man you married to be unable to have sex: https://www.isfma.com/law-and-order/when-ending-a-marriage-o...
Here's a review of case law in BC from the 2000s: https://disinherited.com/family-law-matters/annulment-for-no...
Scientifically, one cannot know if you're sterile until you've tried. There's no 'test' for sterility that truly works or that there hasn't been an exception too. Legally, once a marriage is fully consummated, it's more permanent than if it weren't. Historically, a marriage that was consummated could not be dissolved and was considered permanent at that point, so even if you later found out (usually after many years) that you couldn't have kids, the marriage would continue. Similar to how old people stay married.
I'm giving an historical view on marriage. Not saying how things should be. You seem incredulous at this view, but it was the prevailing view of marriage in Europe and the West for thousands of years.
I understand your position. On your point about why people think marriage is a right… I suspect this is because, at present, many rights are coupled with marriage - visitation rights at a hospital being the classic example.
They are rearing for another battle in the gay rights culture war.
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[1] https://texasgop.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/6-Permanent-...
None of this is the will of the people.
So the issue is really what the hell is wrong with the states where the people elected feel empowered to take rights away from half their populace.
As I just said in my chosen Mastodon instance:
“Ever since today’s Supreme Court decision was leaked, some have said that this oddly might hurt the Republicans in future elections — i.e., they’ll no longer have Roe v. Wade to use against the Democrats. However, this ignores what made today possible: the power of the Christian Right, particularly those whose votes won’t be erased by some currently running for office on promising to make it harder for anti-Rightists to vote (or have their votes count).”
Those of you who don’t have a lot of exposure to that culture, and the way it has completely taken over a good chunk of American politics — not to mention one of the two major U.S. political parties — in the last forty-plus years, will find today a shock. And wait ’til you see what else they have in mind.
Of the following two forces, the Christian right and the atheist Marxist left, I promise you the latter is far more shocking, dangerous, and self-destructive to America.
Remind me which side is threatening supreme court justices right now? That looks an awful lot like insurrection: https://news.yahoo.com/protesters-descend-amy-coney-barrett-...
Remind me which side is planning to engage in acts of domestic terrorism this very weekend? https://aleteia.org/2022/06/24/department-of-homeland-securi...
And if you say something like, "these people don't represent us," You can probably guess I'll respond: the small number of men who rioted at the capitol without any actual realistic plan to perform a coup don't represent us either.
Leftist activists, unfortunately, are much smarter about what it takes to really overthrow a government, and they've been in it for the long haul for almost a century now.
People loudly protest all the time, that isn’t the same thing as “domestic terrorism” even if some property gets damaged or relatively few people get hurt. By that definition the civil rights movement would have been domestic terrorism. You know what is domestic terrorism? Firebombing abortion clinics and murdering doctors like some “Christian” right members have done.
Frankly the people who stormed the Capital are a sideshow. The real coup was directed from the highest seats of government to prevent the peaceful transition of power, and the mob was merely a minor part of the plan. The real action was in getting Pence out and selecting alternate electors illegally sent.
The protestors were breaking the law: https://www.aei.org/op-eds/protesting-at-justices-homes-is-i...
"it is unlawful to protest near a “residence occupied or used by [a] judge, juror, witness, or court officer” with the intent of influencing “the discharge of his duty,”"
What they were doing clearly amounts to intimidating the justices, including by putting them in harm's way by announcing their home addresses on the Internet.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/insurrection-politics
"Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."
What they are doing is illegally engaging in rebellion against authority. It is insurrection.
I also can't believe you are calling this "protesting loudly":
"The DHS agent reportedly told the diocese that “large groups with cells nationwide have already been discovered ‘casing’ parishes, including here in California.”"
What they are planning to do, is, in fact domestic terrorism. Your condemnation of the right while supporting the terrorism of the left is very revealing. At least people on the right are willing to condemn both. We at least have principles.
I have condemned terrorism on the left, for example eco-terrorism (which seems to have thankfully died off). I didn’t read the DOJ notice, but it is important to note their job is to take the worst case scenario and plan for it. I haven’t seen widespread attacks on parishes and don’t honestly believe they will occur. Some insane portion of people on both sides issue a lot of dumb threats but only rarely are those threats executed on. If they do I will of course condemn them. But I will always place more emphasis on events which have actually happened, not just hypotheticals. For example the recent troubling incident in Idaho where a few dozen men with guns were headed to attack a parade. Multiple studies have shown that 90+% of domestic terrorism is linked to the right wing.
I do not support harassing judges, but I hardly think that rises to any level of insurrection. They weren’t attacking the authority of the government or even of the justice in question. I doubt most of them even intended or expected her to change her mind. Even if you are right and they were attempting to unduly influence her, that wouldn’t be undermining her authority but relying upon it.
It reflects the current reality - justices have become partisan so people believe they are entitled to treat them as any other partisan politicians, who as elected officials are required to be accountable to the people. We should prevent that. Justices not acting as naked partisans would help, as would both parties compromising and writing laws again so fewer things of import are decided by unelected justices. Controversial decisions should allow both parties share some of the blame, because any good society requires controversial decisions to be effective.
By the way, if protesting outside a justices home is insurrection, then the right is guilty again - they protested outside numerous state election officials homes to attempt to pressure them to violate their oaths to keep Trump in power. They also issued numerous death threats, which thankfully didn’t happen. And published home addresses.
We need to step down from this level of rancor and return to democracy in action. The broad public is in agreement on most things and supports reasonable compromises, but our governmental structure has stopped making them viable.
So unfortunately they seem to say violence is more likely from all sides as the result of this. Even with that, arson attacks are more serious then vandalism. So to date both sides aren’t equally indulging in violence.
FTFY
I’ve taken to defining nihilism as being so dedicated to an ephemera and philosophy, harm to real people is ignored.
This decision gives states to impact interstate business. It controls what doctors and patients can discuss. So it goes a good long way to squashing other rights in deference to pudding brains traditions. They chose not with logic but delusion.
Figurative identity preferences are being leveraged to directly control human agency.
I don’t owe coddling anyone else’s sensibilities. There is no greater good. And I hope this society collapses around us and reminds the majority how meaningless their personal self image is to others.
We have six jurists with an extremist legal view called “originalism” which is “let’s imagine I’m a white male in 1800, what would I think about X”. The first Supreme Court decision to mention originalism was in 1994, when Scalia dissented because he thought juveniles should be executed.
I'm not about to dignify such an obvious bad-faith argument as is represented by your parody of originalism.
Sounds like a good argument against allowing late term abortions, and a good argument against banning them outright.
It’s hard to believe there is such ignorance out there that pregnancy isn’t even considered an inconvenience by some men, let alone a life threatening event. If I can object to my corpse being used for organ donation to save lives, a woman should be able to object to her organs being used to support the extreme demands of a growing fetus. But now we are in the odd situation of corpses having more bodily autonomy rights than women.
This is like an 8th grade textbook understanding of US government. It doesn't actually work that way.
Just like we don’t legislate that you can’t kill plants for the sake of the plant, a fetus spends up to 18 weeks in a non-sentient state where it has no subjective experience. It doesn’t need protection since a non-sentient being can’t suffer.
Edit: it’s also worth mentioning that many abortions happen at the zygote or embryo stage, before there is even a fetus.
Any such legislation could be immediately undone if Republicans take things back.
SCOTUS could strike it down, too.
[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
It is a serious flaw is the US system that issues that carry supper majority support in the public for decades have no chance of making it into the constitution.
It can't happen because 30% of republican primary voters are evangelicals, so every republican will vote against abortion protection, even if most of their constituents want it.
It would serve people better.
If state A wants to ban abortion based on what their constituency wants, isn’t that exactly how democracy works?
Griswold - contraceptives
Lawrence - same-sex sexual relations
Obergefell - same-sex marriage
Neither party has had the votes to do that in a while (2/3rds in both the House and the Senate). It must also be ratified by 3/4ths of the states (38 right now).
Not going to happen for a long time.
Edit: Quick scan show the last time a party had 2/3rds majority in both was 1965-1967 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_Stat...)
The founders had no qualms about strongly disenfranchising people. The founders were NOT good people by any measurement.
An amendment on an issue this polarizing would never get the requisite support from enough states, no to mention that it doesn’t even matter if you control three branches of government to pass an amendment, only Congress is involved in the process.
Do you really think that a Republican controlled Congress for the majority of the 2010s would have allowed such a law to remain on the books?
Do you really think no superfluous law is ever passed...? The books are full of them.
> such a law would’ve be repealed the moment republicans regain control of the congress
Maybe, or maybe it would have increased Democratic majorities and forced Republicans to face a politically dangerous repeal or even a major policy switch.
Politicians are ready to go with the flow... see for example gay marriage in the UK, which was cautiously introduced by Labour as a separate formulation and then brought into full existence, with great fanfare, by a Conservative Party that had been staunchly against it for decades prior.
A comment ago you were complaining about political theater, how is passing superfluous laws anything but political theater?
> Maybe, or maybe it would have increased Democratic majorities and forced Republicans to face a politically dangerous repeal or even a major policy switch.
This suggests to me that you aren’t very familiar with the last 50 years of American political history.
I see half of the US becoming economically fallow as a result of this decline into dystopia.
But otherwise, I agree, this will just further the red states' economic bankruptcy.
Unable to show concrete reliance on Roe and Casey them- selves, the Solicitor General suggests that overruling those decisions would “threaten the Court’s precedents holding that the Due Process Clause protects other rights.” Brief for United States 26 (citing Obergefell, 576 U. S. 644; Law- rence, 539 U. S. 558; Griswold, 381 U. S. 479). That is not correct for reasons we have already discussed. As even the Casey plurality recognized, “[a]bortion is a unique act” be- cause it terminates “life or potential life.” 505 U. S., at 852; see also Roe, 410 U. S., at 159 (abortion is “inherently dif- ferent from marital intimacy,” “marriage,” or “procrea- tion”). And to ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that our decision con- cerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/supreme-court-abortio...
The system as it stands makes voting pointless for people who are in districts that reliably go for the "other team". If they could at least influence the Presidential election, more of those voters might show up at the polls. GOTV and other campaign efforts take this into account, which magnifies the effect.
Why is bad intent less bad than bad accident.
> My issue is with the house, where we are supposed to have equal representation, but don’t.
House representation was supposed to be approximately equal limited by granularity and it remains approximately equal limited by granularity.
But the "limited by granularity" part is growing more and more limited. The size of the House originally grew as the size of the population grew. Once we capped the size of the House, we lost relative granularity allowing this problem worsen as the gap between the smallest and largest congressional districts increased.
DC has a larger population than Wyoming or Vermont, and will probably overtake Alaska by the next Census based on its current trajectory.
States are not fixed entities. It's people that should be represented, not an arbitrary geographic boundary.
That intentional design makes it so depending on where you physically live, your vote is worth many times less or more than someone else's. That makes no sense.
Note that pretty much every country has something similar - some body that acts on a check of pure democratic representation.
Much better.
Isn't that the other way around? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presiden... (i.e. Democrats have won the popular vote in the last 8 presidential elections, but have only won the office in 5 of those).
Also, I had forgotten this (and it was huge at the time, and I voted in those elections, so I should remember), but Bill Clinton didn't win the majority popular vote either. The democrats had a larger popular vote that the republicans, for sure, but not over 50% due to third party / independent candidates.
Contrast that with the last 6 elections where the democratic party has had more than 50% of the popular vote each time.
Ah... And W's second term the republicans had more than 50% of the popular vote...
Everyone knows the rules going in.
Anyone not happy with the power allotted their vote is free to up stakes and move somewhere where votes are worth more, from California to Iowa or New York to New Hampshire.
The ground shifted has shifted around the rules many times in the past, but the current rural vs urban divide of the two parties combined with the majority of Americans living in urban and suburban areas has led to some really distorted and unintended outcomes of the rules.
Does knowing that a system is undemocratic make it more democratic in some way?
More importantly, there’s apparently only been 5 presidents elected where popular vote != electoral vote[0].
Based on this metric… everything seems to be working mostly fine, with no apparent bias?
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presid...
It’s pretty hard to declare a trend with such small numbers.
National Popular vote should not be used for any reason for any purpose, unless you want to completely change the American system of government ending federalism completely, which I have no desire for, I like federalism
Well, yes, that is exactly what many people want, a government that is more representative of the will of the people. We don't have to throw out federalism to get there, but a system that was not intentionally designed to support minority rule would be nice.
If you remove the power of the states, leaning only on "the will of the people" you are getting rid of federalism,
In no way it makes sense that the Senate should wield the power it has when South Dakota has the same weight as California. It's ludicrous.
What planet are you living on? Seems not to be earth...
1990's democrat platform I was probally 60-70% aligned with, 2020's democrat platform I am 20% aligned with
Republicans I probably agree maybe 40% with, 50% on a good day.
In this context as an example, I do not agree with banning abortions, but I also think Roe was bad law and decided incorrectly so.....
You mean Democrats.
Roe v Wade is so devastating of a defeat largely because democrats who support it don’t care enough about state and local government.
Why cant we break representation to be based on something else. I dont know what, and the simple answer it well geography is the easiest way but easy it often not the best
Two neighboring farmers in Alamaba are going to have a lot more in common with each other than with someone living in LA. For political representation purposes, it makes sense for those two farmers to share a representative.
You're correct that this isn't necessarily optimal, but I don't think it's that bad either. It's a pretty good heuristic in making sure that:
1) everyone has a representative.
2) each representative is representing a group of people who can reasonably be represented (because they have shared interests/goals/concerns).
Sure 2 Alabama Farmers farmers are in common.
But does a farmer in near Austin has more in common with the Farmer in Alabama or the Urbanites in Austin?
Would Occupation, be a better class than geographic, or age, or something else
Physical locality was the primary social constraint when the government was architected. I honestly have a great deal of difficulty imagining any other way of doing things that would make even a lick of sense in terms of information propagation.
Also my comment does not say to forego all geographic basis but more so questioning the idea that we need continuous geographic zones.
Maybe 3 counties in Iowa and 3 counties in Texas, and 3 counties in Montana all want for form a new zone....
Until they're important for elections...
The house is screwed up largely because it's capped by a law passed a century ago. It's essentially impossible for it to be actually proportional with the current voter:representative ratio and districts being allocated along state lines.
The current ratio is over 700,000.
One could easily make an argument for geographic representation of 30,000 people. Those people should have a lot in common and have similar concerns. You could also make a good argument for 100k-200k people. However, 500k+ people cannot be properly represented by one voice in congress.
If we had even the ratio of representation when the number was fixed (1:210,000), we'd have over 1500 members of Congress.
https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Pr...
False.
>the end game is proportional representation
True. As I've said before, there are so many ways to do it that it's hard to unite people behind a single one:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31347226
And in fact, even when I tried to make a list of all the methods in the comment above, I missed at least two:
https://electowiki.org/wiki/PLACE_FAQ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_proportional_approv...
It went to a federal court who ruled the districts not fair but will let them stand for the 2022 elections.
The GOP ignored the rule of law, ignored the courts, and ran out the clock. They will cement their hold on the state in 2022.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2021/nov/...
https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2022/01/12/republican-...
Legislation needs to pass both Senate and the House, and in the senate, someone from a state like Wyoming has 65x more voting power than someone living in California.
I think the issue is that small states and countries would not join if they would be subject to whatever large states decided.
So the option would be to have a country without Vermont and stuff or to have them in the current config. Because that’s the math that was done 250 years ago that resulted in NY and VA choosing to accept it, and also smaller states.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-2022-maps...
I think any reasonable person would find it unfair that a 2% difference in the popular vote (for governor, before the major Trump controversies) leads to doubling the number of Congressional seats.
https://www.reddit.com/r/VoteBlue/comments/fwa7sa/regarding_...
(and 50% of seats are not even a majority)
Another model would require 15% more to go from 36% to 51% of seats. In this case, 69% of popular vote (54+15) would be required for a majority of seats, or in other words: 2-1. Which effectively is just as egregious as 3-1.
It's not a boxing match. The fact that it has become one means your electoral system is flawed.
In a proper system, you have different people with different goals (eg Greens who want less pollution, businesspeople who want lower taxes, socialists who want worker's rights, etc) and they have to compromise (greens cancel the carbon tax is businesspeople accept to ban a certain type of very toxic manufacturing, for example) and WORK TOGETHER.
Obviously this is the problem. But its flaws have lead us to a situation that makes it impossible to fix them. Either we work within the system we have or we're left powerless.
Then it just becomes two kids pointing at each other shouting "he started it!"
I'm just pointing that out because the parent said gerrymandering screws Democrats. It does. But it also screws Republicans, and well, all of us.
I understand it's now a tit-for-tat so I'm not blaming either side more than the other. I just want it gone.
[0]: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/592968-dismantling-demo...
Based off of the responses itt, it's clearly not "all the rest of the people". But you know, maybe if you keep insisting that the political coalition in favor of Roe represents "all the rest of the people" it might magically become true
> I fail to see what moderates can do in a two party system where gerrymandering is so heavily done that often Democrats have to win 3-1 to control any majority.
Ofc democrats don't gerrymander. The Illinois redistricting wasn't a gerrymander, it was a fair process. Wherever the democrats have a hard time winning it's always because there was a gerrymander, and not because the people don't want them in office. /s
Without taking any side on this issue: this is a tough day in America, when a 50-year precedent is overturned.
There were many (tens) obituaries written for the people who went to live on for more years or are are still living.
Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they had found out earlier just like previous decisions have been leaked.
I've only skimmed the judgment, but Roberts CJ convincingly points out that there was no need for the court to completely overturn Roe. It would suffice to jettison the viability standard. Going further was completely unnecessary to decide the case.
On the other hand, Thomas J took the occasion, without having heard complete argument on the respective issues, to opine that other substantive due process rights should be reconsidered. Including Griswold (no banning controceptives), Lawrence (no banning sodomy), and Obergefell (no banning gay marriage). This is simply astounding.
The second is the sheer hypocrisy of the members of the court who decry judicial activism while, in the next breath, engaging in the same.
I wish you luck for the future, Americans.
The states can ban abortion but not ban concealed carry.
Roe vs. Wade is practically almost the same as a law that allows abortion, the other threatened precedents cited in the other comments are similarly almost laws that allow various rights, and so there is very little "upholding" of existing laws in this demolition and threatened demolition of "liberal" norms.
Politicians delegate too many decisions to the SCOTUS because they don't want to govern, well the SCOTUS isn't supposed to govern in their place.
If nothing can get done at Washington, then the problem is at Washington itself, not the supreme court.
Arguably a supreme court decision is more stable.
A constitutional amendment would be most stable but we will never get to that level of state support
What exactly are you looking for that would count as a rationale that doesn't boil down to "we think they were wrong"?
All this to say: flee if you can.
You're not edgy & insightful. The impact of this decision isn't just pushing pieces around a chess board. It's scared women & girls around the country, it's women dying who wouldn't have otherwise.
Roe v. Wade determined that the Constitution itself implied abortion as a right, meaning that there already was a law on the books which protected abortion.
At one point, the court determined that access to abortion was a right, according to the 14th amendment. Meaning, that the 14th amendment was, among other things, a law that granted the right to access abortion services.
Later, the court decided to override their precedent, and declare that the 14th amendment did not grant the right to access abortion services.
I think you need to define what a "real law" is, and how the 14th amendment doesn't qualify in this context.
If you want to discuss the human impact make that comment, or frankly, you're visiting the wrong sort of forum.
You really couldn't make this up.
According to polls, the end of democratic majority in Congress was almost inevitable. Now, democrats will put a federal abortion law on their banner. The elections is due this November, the timing is just right.
Thus, they will persuade non-partisan voters to vote for them. They will strengthen their majority in Congress and will have a 60/40 majority in Senate, which gives them an ability to overthrow a filibuster[1].
Then the world is their playground. Electoral laws, gun control laws - you name it.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_eff...
In fact, according to what ICE was/is doing, is already happening to non-citizens at our borders https://forward.com/culture/454663/ice-hysterectomies-eugeni...
But next up is attacking Obergefell... So, if that's deemed unconstitutional, what happens to the gay and lesbian people who are married to same-sex partners? Are their marriages nullified? What of the legal issues in unwinding a marriage of X years?
And people who are trans - will they then have to "marry in line with respect to their listed gender"? Can their gender be changed legally? Will this pathway be available for gay and lesbian same-sex partners so they can "legally become opposite of their gender" to then re-marry their partners?
In the case of a binational couple, does the non-citizen (now-former?) spouse get to keep living in the US? Or is the situation going to go back to how it was previously, with no federal recognition, even if legally married in "gay marriage" state?
Married same-sex binational couples are minorities in a minority. They don't exist on the political radar unless a larger group takes up their cause. I fully expect them to get rolled here (again).
In this context, I'm not implying that an unborn human's rights override those of its mother, nor imply what the right balance should be (50:50? 20:80? 80:20?). But pro-choice arguments tend to assume that the in-womb human has no rights, since mother has the right to terminate the pregnancy basically without any good reason at all. I'd argue that where welfare of two beings is affected, you need to consider the rights of both. Is it clear that an unborn human has no rights?
Perhaps this can be straightforwardly spelled out, or is obvious - in which case I'm curious to know what that argument is. If not, doesn't some kind of cautionary approach require that err on the side of caution in considering the rights of the unborn human? For example, if a healthy woman is pregnant with a healthy human, but decides to terminate the pregnancy for no extreme reason (health reasons I guess), what is the argument that says "the unborn human's right to mature and be born and live is non-existent or trumped by the mother's preferences"?
There is a myriad of difficult scenarios that life can write, and for now I'm moving away from those. Not every pregnancy is terminated for life-threatening reasons, for example.
Because the damage is much greater otherwise. A child brought into this world under duress, to an unprepared mother and/or unprepared parents will have all the odds against him/her. There's a greater risk of dying. Of poverty. Of sickness. Of crime.
It's not that the unborn has no rights. It's rather that these rights cannot be realized partially. It's either the full package or none.
So just like the US electoral system, some people are in favor of abortion even if they are 49% in favor of the embryo.
There are some really plausible reasons for birth, for example, as an important turning point:
- Before (and in particular during) birth, a child's life and physical well-being is immediately tied to the mother's. There is a real risk of one's sickness killing the other.
- Before birth, there is no mandatory, conscious care-taking. The embryo is automatically taken care for. Afterwards, it requires a (excuse my wording as a parent) shit-ton of work to keep a kid alive, happy and successful (however you define that)
- The risk of death is vastly higher for an embryo than for a child (with about 1/3 of pregnancies being unsuccessful) and decreases strongly after birth. I suspect this is one of the reasons why abortion is often intuitively seen as different from euthanasia.
That said, I completely agree with your argument that it's wrong to argue as if there was a sudden point at which humans are suddenly and naturally protected but aren't before. But I think that not many advocates would argue for such a radical position.
if you consider the welfare of the whole population then, you'd be ok if we took some people without asking and "donated" all their organs and other useful body parts to those who could use them
This framing does create a problem of defining when exactly it becomes a human, which I haven’t heard a good answer to.
I'd like to probe into this assumption - and if with good reason the conclusion is that, indeed, it's not a human, then so be it. But it being a "naked", or poorly-supported assumption, irks me.
Most sane countries have sane rules related to abortions. But I guess some people still hang on to an imaginary superpower that will make them live forever, if they follow certain rules.
I also find it funny that most pro-life zealots are also pro death penalty. Completely bonkers.
With retarded shit like this I'm very happy to live in Europe, where we already figured these things out generation(s) ago.
What is the root difference?
The question abortion ethicists ask is whether a fetus or embryo is a person.
If, in fact, all embryos are persons, then the logical ethical reasoning would be that taking steps to minimize miscarriages should be one of our highest priorities. This doesn’t appear to match most people’s moral intuitions, however.
It is not obvious that a newborn baby is a person, either. But defining a being as receiving the rights of a person at birth is a schelling point that many people are more comfortable with than spots earlier or later in development.
What's the scientific argument for or against personhood for the unborn homo sapiens?
It is a philosophical question.
About 5,000 people die in the US annually while waitlisted for a kidney transplant; they are deemed medically eligible and a donation would give them more quality adjusted life years, but there is not a willing donor available.
Consider, pairwise, the rights of two particular people: a person on the waitlist who will die unless they receive a kidney but who is below the cutoff line; and a healthy adult who lives next door to the sick person, who has two kidneys, and who could relatively safely donate one of them.
The law currently forbids the sick person from paying the healthy person money in exchange for their kidney. This prevents coercion[1] which could endanger the health of the healthy person.
In other words, the law prioritizes the healthy person infinitely and does not prioritize the welfare of the sick person.
Do you think this setup is correct? Or should we make legal changes that would balance the rights of sick people against those of healthy people? Under your proposed framework, should we sometimes allow sick people who have money to pay healthy people for their organs, buying a chance to live?
[1] Some discussion here: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/698563807
That being said, for me, it fails on the responsibility front. The healthy person did not cause the sickness, is not the sick one's parent and did not in any way "give" life, so to speak. If we reimagine the sick neighbour's predicament so that her husband and child both need a new kidney and the healthy neighbour convinces her to give them up because the he has a special room in his house where she can convalesce and regrow her kidneys. Should the healthy neighbour now be allowed to withdraw the offer after the sick neighbour had donated both kidneys?
That kind of situation seems to align with some of the factors at play a bit better.
> If we reimagine the sick neighbour's predicament so that her husband and child both need a new kidney and the healthy neighbour convinces her to give them up because the he has a special room in his house where she can convalesce and regrow her kidneys. Should the healthy neighbour now be allowed to withdraw the offer after the sick neighbour had donated both kidneys?
While I'm totally willing to engage in this kind of Talmudic thought experiment, is there a way you could recast your question to be more biologically plausible?
For example, suppose you offer to donate a kidney to your child, who is suffering from a fatal, heritable condition for which you carry a recessive gene. You thought that you were incurring a 0.007% risk of mortality (the average). During the surgery, the surgeon performing the extraction discovers that you have unexpected extra risk factors and their process will not work; they stop. They tell you that they can try again, but the new procedure they need to use will incur a 10% chance of your death. There is no other donor, and your child will die.
1 - Should you be allowed to withdraw your consent for the surgery?
2 - Should your child's wealthy spouse be allowed to pay you money to continue with the surgery?
It's a thought experiment, isn't the point that it is unencumbered by what is plausible? The reason for setting it up that way is to put responsibility for the sick person's life onto the healthy person through an action they took. I have no current alternative.
> 1 - Should you be allowed to withdraw your consent for the surgery?
Yes, the circumstances have changed.
> 2 - Should your child's wealthy spouse be allowed to pay you money to continue with the surgery?
I'm not against it but I can see why there could be rules against it.
> … > If we reimagine the sick neighbour's predicament so that her husband and child both need a new kidney and the healthy neighbour convinces her to give them up because the he has a special room in his house where she can convalesce and regrow her kidneys. Should the healthy neighbour now be allowed to withdraw the offer after the sick neighbour had donated both kidneys?
> That kind of situation seems to align with some of the factors at play a bit better.
I'll admit that my preference for ethical questions to be realistic is an irrational preference. I don't know why I feel this way but I think we get answers which are more likely to be meaningful if we start with scenarios that could plausibly happen.
Let me try revisiting the one you propose:
Suppose there is a healthy person whose husband and child both need kidneys. Donating her kidneys to them both would ordinarily kill her -- people need at least one kidney to live, and she only has two. But her neighbor says "if you donate your kidneys to your family, I'll let you live in a special room in my house where you can regrow your kidneys".
Let's say this process takes 40 weeks, and at about week 10 the neighbor says "I don't want you in my house any more -- please leave". Should the neighbor be allowed to say this, even if this means the formerly healthy person will require daily dialysis, and may indeed die?
I wonder whether the answer changes on why the neighbor is saying "get out":
* What if the neighbor themself has suddenly developed kidney failure, no transplants are available, and the only thing that will save them is an immediate 30-week stay in the special room?
* Does the answer to the above change if the room's special-ness is tied to the neighbor being alive (if they die, no one else can ever use it to regrow organs)?
* What if the neighbor's own infant child has suddenly developed kidney failure, no transplants are available, and the only thing that will save them is an immediate 30-week stay in the special room; should they be allowed to evict the recovering kidney donor? Does the answer change if the kidney donor has a 1% chance of surviving on dialysis until the room is available again? 10%? 99%?
* If the neighbor is just being selfish and wants their room to be empty because they've decided think it looks better when it's tidy, should that be forbidden?
* One way or another, if the room is empty at the end of the 40 weeks, should the state use eminent domain to seize the room and force the neighbor to take in gravely ill people from local hospitals, housing them until they are well, for as long as the room is working?
When I have interrogated these views personally I have found that some things may be wrong to do, but society should still be structured in such a way that people may sometimes do wrong things.
> What if the neighbor themself has suddenly developed kidney failure, no transplants are available, and the only thing that will save them is an immediate 30-week stay in the special room?
The neighbor should be allowed to evict the donor, even if this causes terrible outcomes for the donor.
> Does the answer to the above change if the room's special-ness is tied to the neighbor being alive (if they die, no one else can ever use it to regrow organs)?
My answer doesn't change.
> What if the neighbor's own infant child has suddenly developed kidney failure, no transplants are available, and the only thing that will save them is an immediate 30-week stay in the special room; should they be allowed to evict the recovering kidney donor? Does the answer change if the kidney donor has a 1% chance of surviving on dialysis until the room is available again? 10%? 99%?
My answer doesn't change; the neighbor should be allowed to evict the donor.
> If the neighbor is just being selfish and wants their room to be empty because they've decided think it looks better when it's tidy, should that be forbidden?
The donor should be allowed to stay under EMTALA.
> One way or another, if the room is empty at the end of the 40 weeks, should the state use eminent domain to seize the room and force the neighbor to take in gravely ill people from local hospitals, housing them until they are well, for as long as the room is working?
Yes. If there exists a special room which can heal people and if it is idle, the government should seize control of it and distribute its healing ability to help as many people as possible. Ideally we should raise taxes to investigate how this healing room works and replicate it until we can end all death in the world and heal all disease. But in the short term we should immediately maximize its use, and compensate its owner accordingly.
> Let's say this process takes 40 weeks, and at about week 10 the neighbor says "I don't want you in my house any more -- please leave". Should the neighbor be allowed to say this, even if this means the formerly healthy person will require daily dialysis, and may indeed die?
I would say no, there is at least an implied contract with such severe consequences for backing out that it cannot be backed out of without it becoming murder (it would meet mens rea).
> What if the neighbor themself has suddenly developed kidney failure, no transplants are available, and the only thing that will save them is an immediate 30-week stay in the special room?
This one maps to the mother's health, which will almost always be prioritised (though I'm sure there are exceptions/considerations depending on circumstances). I reckon this is done for two reasons, that an adult is a known quantity whereas the child may be born and still not make it, but also because the mother can probably try again. In the case of the room, if the room would continue to work its magic even though the owner died then I'm not sure society/law would prioritise them.
It might also map to a doctor treating someone in hospital then falling ill themselves.
> What if the neighbor's own infant child has suddenly developed kidney failure, no transplants are available, and the only thing that will save them is an immediate 30-week stay in the special room; should they be allowed to evict the recovering kidney donor?
This one was difficult but I'd have to say no, based on the same reason as above, that the treatment had started and there was (at least) an implied contract to finish it and knowledge to not to would be reckless and akin to murder.
In the UK the House of Lords ruled[1]:
> that it was lawful to withdraw life-sustaining medical treatment from [a] man who had fallen into the condition known as permanent vegetative state. Their Lordships agreed that although, in withdrawing the life-sustaining treatment, death would be intended, his death would not be regarded at law as caused by the withdrawal of the treatment, but rather by his underlying condition.
(I've edited that for consideration to the family and length)
That decision was considered controversial among the medical community (apparently[2]). However, I doubt one could justify withdrawing treatment to someone who would probably go on to live a full life.
> If the neighbor is just being selfish
No.
> One way or another, if the room is empty at the end of the 40 weeks, should the state use eminent domain to seize the room
No. Property rights mean something (to me, anyway), and in our analogy that would be like the state making someone forcibly pregnant or available for rape. That's not the same as telling someone who became pregnant through actions of their own free will to bear the ultimate responsibility for those actions, nor forcing someone to keep to a contract they made freely.
> I have found that some things may be wrong to do, but society should still be structured in such a way that people may sometimes do wrong things.
I agree, which is one reason why I'm against abortion but pro-choice (because it would go against bodily autonomy, so I choose the lesser of two evils). I'm not against quite short term limits.
[1] https://academic.oup.com/medlaw/article-abstract/13/3/357/94...
I think something special happens to humans on the journey from embryo to child. Something like an awareness of their relationship to the world, that makes death more tragic.
As an aside, I think the same transition happens in many animals and their deaths can be just as tragic, although obviously nothing in U.S. law acknowledges that.
In fetuses, I don’t know when this “relationship to the world” begins, if it has really begun in earnest in the womb, or if it even has begun in earnest as a newborn.
But the problem with law is that such things must be codified.
I know “at conception” is too early, since we destroy similar creatures by accident every day. And even a sparrow has a richer concept of their relationship to the world than an embryo.
I’ll also add that “on their first day of kindergarten” is certainly far too late. By that time many of us have a very rich self concept.
“At first breath” is a clear middle ground, easy to interpret legally. It certainly seems that the “understanding of one’s relationship to the world” is greatly enriched at that moment of birth, and quite actively thereafter. And importantly, “at first breath” happens to be a moment where the child is no longer a danger to the mother. People have a right to self defense that clearly ends for the mother at that point.
All of that said, I think it’s possible some form of person is ”murdered” in some abortions. Just like some people are “murdered” in war. But there are simply limits to what can be fairly decided through the legal system.
At some point, other forms of justice take over. For me, not trying to push this on anyone, but that’s God’s justice. Many evils are punished not by the courts but by something greater, and that’s OK with me.
I believe it's self-evident that there is something in our brains that causes us to mentally separate things into in-group and out-group. In other words, we evolved to be social and generous, but only tribally so. Visual and behavioral differences such as skin color and culture can be the difference between in/out-group delineation. And so it is with animals. They are so similar to us and have so many of the traits that make us "human" that it's obvious they should have certain rights, if you think about it. In fact, some animals do enjoy rights to be protected against humans, as cruel treatment of animals is ostensibly taboo in Western cultures as long as you ignore current American factory farm practices, and in the case of some protected classes of animals such as dogs, enforced by law. But the differences between humans and other animals is enough to trigger the in/out group delineation, so almost no one bothers to recognize they should have rights, let alone fight for them. Those that do fight for those rights are typically relegated to the out-group themselves.
In short, it has nothing to do with logic, and everything to do with the primitive parts of our brains running the show.
People do not have the right to physically attach themselves to another person, and leach blood, oxygen, nutrients, etc off the other person. Period. Fetuses would not be an exception. This is not a rights balancing issue. A woman has the complete and absolute right to stop another person from parasitically draining her of resources.
I feel that a person who wakes up with another person surgically attached to them by some sort of mad-scientist doctor could have surgery to have the second person removed, even if this means certain death for the second person. I don't view abortion as any different.
I could support a ban on abortion methods that directly kill the fetus, but as long as the method is primarily about severing the connection to the mother and removing it from the body, I see nothing wrong with that, even if removal means certain death for the fetus.
If people feel fetuses have human rights, I could also support laws or medical ethics requiring doctors to attempt to save the fetus after it is expelled (if the condition was such that saving them might be possible) just like they would try to save any other person.
So in other words, we value the right to life and freedom so much that even when someone is abusing our rights, we can't take justice into our own hands, and have to put up with the damage.
In addition, I'd imagine many abortions happen to women in relationships with pregnancies stemming from consentual sex. So I'm not sure if your analogy stretches that far. Other cases are, I agree, more complicated, and I'm not arguing about such circumstances.
I guess again it comes down to "fetus rights".
“...Roe is 45 years old, it has been reaffirmed many times, lots of people care about it a great deal, and I’ve tried to demonstrate I understand real-world consequences...”
“...I am a don’t-rock-the-boat kind of judge. I believe in stability and in the Team of Nine...”
Brett M. Kavanaugh
You cannot just put slavery on your municipality ballot and let the local residents vote on it.
It won't be merely a "States will decide issue." McConnell is already writing the legislation.
I hope that whomever supported this ruling is happy right now, and I'd like to remind them that, while Jesus Christ never gave to abortion the slightest mention, he was quite vocal about the fact that greed was not compatible with salvation. I'd like to see Evangelicals and other Christians being as vocal for social justice as they were for abortions and same sex marriage, but I guess they do care about putting woman back in the kitchen as indentured servants more than they do about social justice.
It isn’t about religion. It’s about power and control. We need to stop pretending it has anything to do with Jesus and everything to do with power over others. Nietzsche is more relevant here than Jesus.
They didn’t because the argument you are repeating is wrong, as well as made in bad faith to undermine obviously correct legal analysis.
You are a victim of propaganda and it makes me sad.
For example, your second sentence here would have been fine on its own, or as the nucleus of a more thoughtful comment. The other sentences are the ones that break the guidelines. I understand that on a fraught topic like this, it can be next to impossible not to write such things. But then one should edit them out. That's what I do, or try to.
Edit: it looks like your comment history contains a fair bit of ideological battle. Please make sure you're not using HN primarily for that, because that's the line at which we ban accounts (regardless of which ideology is being battled, or battled for).
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
> "Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship."
If your counterargument is "the word privacy isn't in the Constitution", my rejoinder is "neither is 'assault rifle'".
The legal theory on which the right to privacy mostly stands is called "substantive due process", which more or less says the state can't abridge your liberties without trying pretty hard not to. So liberties here can be contraception use, or drug use. Indeed United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative had the coop arguing that the Controlled Substances Act "violates the substantive due process rights of patients, and offends the fundamental liberties of the people under the Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments". This has generally (and maybe oddly) been at odds with the Commerce Clause, pretty well typified by Wickard v. Filburn where the Court held that even though Filburn was only growing wheat on his own land for his own use, the US could impose a quota on him because it was regulating the price of wheat federally. This extends interpretation of the Commerce Clause from mere interstate commerce to production and consumption. Here's a good quote:
"Hence, marketing quotas not only embrace all that may be sold without penalty, but also what may be consumed on the premises."
I'm not an expert, but I believe this is the constitutional leg on which the CSA stands: the gov't can regulate what you consume. I'm personally sympathetic to the substantive due process challenge argument, but probably still too young to be on the Supreme Court. Call your senator! :)
You should honestly just read Griswold [0]. It is a strikingly conservative opinion if, for example, you think privacy is also about "the government has to show a compelling governmental interest to regulate firearms". Here are some gems:
"The association of people is not mentioned in the Constitution nor in the Bill of Rights. The right to educate a child in a school of the parents' choice -- whether public or private or parochial -- is also not mentioned. Nor is the right to study any particular subject or any foreign language. Yet the First Amendment has been construed to include certain of those rights."
"In NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U. S. 449, 357 U. S. 462 we protected the 'freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations,' noting that freedom of association was a peripheral First Amendment right. Disclosure of membership lists of a constitutionally valid association, we held, was invalid 'as entailing the likelihood of a substantial restraint upon the exercise by petitioner's members of their right to freedom of association.' Ibid. In other words, the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion."
"The foregoing cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. See Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 516—522, 81 S.Ct. 1752, 6 L.Ed.2d 989 (dissenting opinion). Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers 'in any house' in time of peace without the consent of the owner is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the 'right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.' The Fifth Amendment in its Self-Incrimination Clause enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment. The Ninth Amendment provides: 'The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.'"
"In presenting the proposed Amendment, Madison said:
'It has been objected also against a bill of rights that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration, and it might follow, by implication, that those rights which were not singled out were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard urged against the admission of a bill of rights into this system, but I conceive that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the
Page 381 U. S. 490
last clause of the fourth resolution [the Ninth Amendment]."
"Madison himself had previously pointed out the dangers of inaccuracy resulting from the fact that 'no language is so copious as to supply words and phrases for every complex idea.' The Federalist, No. 37 (Cooke ed.1961) at 236."
I could go on. I urge you to read it.
Where do you see abortion rights there?
4A is pretty good at this. People have a right against unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause. While the state's interest is implicit here, it's obviously law enforcement. This balances the state's interest in enforcing laws with the individual right against unreasonable searches and seizures.
In Griswold, the Court couldn't justify the state's interest in enforcing anti-contraception laws given its necessary invasion of privacy. Other concurrences found the right to privacy in other Amendments (the 9th and the 14th), but regardless of where you look, all of these Amendments lay out an individual liberty vs. a state interest.
Courts are faced with the unenviable task of taking a > 200 year old document and applying its precepts to a world that would bewilder its authors. Different philosophies try to do this in different ways; Scalia famously pushed originalism, but even he essentially writes out slavery, Native American disenfranchisement, and the chattel status of women in the 18th century, and other originalists are even less consistent.
Other justices look for the core liberties ineffably and imperfectly silhouetted by the Constitution--a document defining the most free nation ever yet made--in order to keep the flame of liberty burning. What originalists miss about the Constitution was that it was an extremely radical document. If we are to be consistent with the spirit of the US at its founding, we have to preserve that dedication to liberty and human rights.
Should what was once the beacon of liberty be tethered to what liberty meant 250 years ago? Is that a fitting destiny? Would Madison or Jefferson be proud of such an outcome?
I am no legal scholar by any means, but wasn't Scalia's argument that if the people don't like the social contract (i.e. the constitution), the people should change it via amendments vs having judges change it? I think he would say he did not "essentially writes out slavery..." but rather the 13th, the 19th amendments etc. wrote those out of the constitution.
> if the people don't like the social contract (i.e. the constitution), the people should change it via amendments vs having judges change it.
This only makes sense when you dovetail it with originalism. The Bill of Rights isn't supposed to grow infinitely. Madison didn't even want it (if you're into appeal to authority to Founders). But when you make the dual arguments of:
- the Constitution only means what it literally says, according to its time period
- the only way to expand interpretation is to literally change it with Amendments
you completely ignore the 9th and 10th Amendments.
Originalism is largely a smoke-screen to roll back rights. Dobbs is a great example of this, it heavily relies on "eminent common-law authorities" (only eminent as the result of conservative opinions pushing them into the catalog):
"We begin with the common law, under which abortion was a crime at least after “quickening”—i.e., the first felt movement of the fetus in the womb, which usually occurs between the 16th and 18th week of pregnancy."
Concluding:
"The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions."
Well, the problem with the originalist take on this is: women. couldn't. vote. End of debate! Haha.
It's probably also worth saying our understanding of medicine, conception, and pregnancy was pretty rudimentary back then. Why in God's name would we look back to that time period for wisdom on this?
Well, it's because in those days "it was a crime". Pretty convenient.
> I think he would say he did not "essentially writes out slavery..." but rather the 13th, the 19th amendments etc. wrote those out of the constitution.
He doesn't incorporate this into his analysis though. Here's what he writes in Heller regarding "Right of the People" in 2A (he quotes a Rehnquist opinion he concurred with to start):
"‘"[T]he people" seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution… . [Its uses] sugges[t] that ‘the people’ protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.'
This contrasts markedly with the phrase 'the militia' in the prefatory clause. As we will describe below, the 'militia' in colonial America consisted of a subset of 'the people'—those who were male, able bodied, and within a certain age range. Reading the Second Amendment as protecting only the right to 'keep and bear Arms' in an organized militia therefore fits poorly with the operative clause’s description of the holder of that right as 'the people.'"
His argument is that "the people" means "everyone", and that "the militia" only meant "male, able bodied, and within a certain age range". But "the people" actually only meant white, land-owning men; it excluded women, free Black Americans (largely denied the franchise), and Native Americans.
I think you would probably argue that, OK sure 1789 wasn't wonderful if you weren't a white guy, but we can extrapolate, now that the franchise and civil rights have been extended and incorporated to the States, that "the people" means everyone.
But this is exactly the opposite of what Scalia's arguing. He's saying because "the people" meant everyone, we must understand 2A as applying to everyone. In doing so, he ignores that 2A allowed white men to be armed, but did not allow women, free Black Americans or Native Americans to be armed. "The people" absolutely did not mean everyone, and the Founders were well aware.
In short, he ignores the fundamentally oppressive construction of the Constitution when it was written, and substitutes an imaginary regime where all enjoyed the right to bear arms. It was never so, and hearkening back to such a non-existent time is a daydream.
Such is the problem with originalism. It idealizes men and a time period that were far from ideal. Looking to this period for wisdom inevitably starts to strip rights away from marginalized groups. And that's what we're seeing here.
By what power does the government enforce the seizure of a person's reproductive system and require it to be used to breed another life?
Why use this sort of rhetoric? The legal backing of Roe v. Wade wasn't about that at all.
- Javelin missile launchers
- aerosolized bioagents
- jet fighters
- land mines
but not sniper rifles.
Again, if you're going to extrapolate what "arms" meant in the late 18th century, you have some choices:
- personal arms of the day (muskets, cannons, bayonets)
- personal arms of the current day (missile launchers [0])
- weirdo arms of the current day (drones, gases and bioagents, dirty bombs, white phosphorous)
Originalism isn't helpful to us here, it turns out.
[0]: https://www.militaryfactory.com/smallarms/rocket-launchers.p...
Can you buy Carl Gustaf 8.4 cm recoilless rifle? M114 155 mm howitzer? Mortars? They are all firearms.
You want to disarm yourself in light of that news?
They've been banned since 1986, since "assault rifles" are full auto. Presumably you mean "assault weapon" which is fuzzy media-talk for scary weapon.
False.
I would imagine they believe the point of sex is to conceive. Both those things prevent conception.
And that’s not even getting what is “good” and “bad” and if a laws purpose is to outright outlaw them without thinking of other measures and consequences.
Hmmmm....
The only alternative I can think of is that a women should carry the non viable fetus into term for 9 whole months instead of getting it out of her as soon as she can.
My own surprise (but very wanted!) pregnancy was easy the first few months - I even skied up through week 16, but around week 30 I started developing back pain and intermittent numbness in some of my toes that is still around, after nearly two years and lots of physical therapy.
And I was always considered to be having a “healthy” pregnancy, and was pretty healthy beforehand. Only unusual thing is that I was 40.
For a more extreme but still realistic hypothetical, I have a severely physically disabled friend who weighs about 60 lbs and requires regular mechanical breathing assistance. She is, as far as she knows, just as capable of getting pregnant as I am. She also knows that she would not survive more than a few weeks of pregnancy.
There are many people capable of becoming pregnant who live somewhere between these two extremes.
The horror is already starting. A nurse sent this message to a nurse on TikTok who has a large platform:
I don't have a platform so I can't reach people like you can, but please share this! I work in ** on a small niku/l&d floor. Our trigger laws went into effect immediately after the decision. ofc we had a woman walk in with an ectopic at 11:30pm last night. We had to basically sit on her until the doc could speak with a lawyer. Her ectopic RUPTURED. She then did not get her procedure done for another 9 hours because the doc was working with the lawyer for so long trying to work around the laws and not lose his license. By the time she had her procedure she had over 600cc of blood in her abdomen and she almost died. I am so scared of how often we as nurses are going to see things like this now and not be able to do a damn thing about it. We're all livid at huddle tonight, several of my coworkers were in tears.
Therefore it's okay to use racially-targeted methods of enforcement and arrest poor, ethnic minorities, etc. as long as we get at least a little drug reduction out of it.
Your job is to argue that abortion is not murder. Any argument that sidesteps the morality of abortion is not going to convince anyone.
Morally however, I also do think it's wrong to not give the blood transfusion because the burden is small and the cost of not doing so is large. Whether it rises to the level of murder is a tougher question that I think would depend on intent.
Do you think a suicidal pilot has the right to stop flying a plane mid-flight even if she knows that no one else on the plane will be capable of landing it?
But we haven't decided that saving the life of someone who's been endangered by your actions is an appropriate reason to violate bodily autonomy. That's the whole point, society has decided that you can refuse to give the transfusion, even it leads to a death you essentially caused.
Interesting example, but I don't think such a pilot whould cares about rights.
The better question might be - what could you do to force such a pilot to fly the plane, and it appears that you could only plead - they would not be afraid of being shot (which is illegal anyway), and torture is very clearly illegal.
On the contrary, I think it would be very popular to say that someone who directly caused the crash out of negligence should be required to give blood to save the victim.
You're referring to a version of the violinist argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion#The_viol...
Your version is actually pretty similar to a normal pregnancy (the woman brought about the pregnancy through her actions and now has to decide whether its morally okay to stop the babies' use of her body).
I think it's very hard to justify abortion along these lines and might be easier just to try to show that the fetus is non-human and doesn't have rights.
Sure, and your job is to argue that abortion causes the death of a viable human life.
Murder is defined as "the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another."
Abortion isn't that.
By this definition we couldn't consider any killing sanctioned by the state to be murder.
Let’s start with the belief that life starts at conception. With this belief, a fetus is equivalent in protection to a newborn. Following this, voluntarily ending it is murder.
Then what about miscarriage? If a newborn were to die under unknown circumstances, there should be an investigation. Should then all pregnant people be investigated for potential negligence or abuse for this already traumatizing situation? 1/3 to 1/2 of all fertilized eggs never implant. Should these be scrutinized? I cannot see how one can say a fetus and newborn deserve equivalent protections and then fail to give them.
Further, what about support for abortion exceptions for incest or rape? If the pregnancy in this scenario went to term and the child was born, one wouldn’t then support that murdering the newborn was OK.
If you don’t believe these things, then you don’t believe newborns and fetuses deserve equal protection. You only happen to believe specific fetuses deserve one specific protection.
This argument has always struck me as odd. A miscarriage is, for lack of a better word, a random natural event. People die from random natural events all the time.
Now hopefully in the future the argument won’t strike you as odd.
If you’ve been paying attention, exceptions for incest and rape are being thrown out of the window in most red states. That was a pre supermajority compromise. Now that the supreme court is a conservative supermajority, the compromise position is no longer desirable for conservatives. They have the power and they are using it.
But they elect extremists to govern.
I’d like to believe being more aware of the extremism would temper voters towards moderation, but I fear instead history proves the voters are more likely to have their views shift towards extremism.
Most states have laws regarding causing miscarriage via assault, even California so there are investigations already.
To draw the parallel to a newborn, some pass away from SIDS, some from abuse, some from malnutrition. Investigations are performed in suspicious circumstances. Sometimes it truly happens to be random or unknown or unpreventable.
If one were to treat fetuses the same, wouldn’t one want to verify there was no abuse or neglect? I.E. the causes are unknown, it could be a random natural event, it could be due to someone’s actions, the only way to know is to investigate. To my knowledge, nobody currently gets investigated for a miscarriage of unknown cause. One can only hope it stays that way.
Also looking up the definition of abortion in this case is important:
https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/abortion.h...
For the purpose of surveillance, a legal induced abortion is defined as an intervention performed by a licensed clinician (e.g., a physician, nurse-midwife, nurse practitioner, physician assistant) within the limits of state regulations, that is intended to terminate a suspected or known ongoing intrauterine pregnancy and that does not result in a live birth. Most states and reporting areas that collect abortion data report if an abortion was medical or surgical. Medical abortions are legal procedures that use medications instead of surgery.Adding exceptions is antithetical to the belief it is murder. One does not get to murder another person because they were a child of incest. On the other hand, not adding an exception for abortion is monstrous.
If you agree that forcing a woman to give birth to a child of rape or incest is monstrous, then maybe you’ll agree abortion isn’t murder. If you think it’s not monstrous, I hope it never happens to you or someone you love just to be taught a hard lesson in empathy for others.
I’m unsure why you’re quoting the definition of a legally induced abortion and why you feel it important to your argument.
This is an interesting comment. It is not your job to do anything unless you are actually paid by an entity that has a vested interest in an outcome. Your argument structure does not have to follow predetermined steps ordained by the high priests. All these arguments are not going to convince anyone. For better or worse, most have already made up their minds a long time ago. Just to make it all more confusing, GPT-chan showed clearly you simply cannot trust online fora ( or, frankly, based on Amazon's raise the dead skill, phone conversations ) to have real humans anymore ( although you could argue, this was clear during last net neutrality debate and how comments there were not written by individuals).
But going back to the crux of your argument, I disagree. This is HN. Morality will not impress people here. Rational discourse is a path forward if it is intended to sway anyone.
Yes, we do. All kinds of things are viewed as immoral and not criminally punished, or punished less than things viewed as equally or more immoral, because of the perceived social cost/benefit of the alternative.
It is murderously insane to consider only the problem addressed and not the impacts of the policy response in setting government policy.
would rather a productive person today then a who knows what 20 years in the future.
Why is it that people that want to outlaw abortion, and are willing to pay for the policing and prosecution resources necessary to enforce that law aren't willing to invest the same amount into contraception that would have a similar effect.
Is it better to clean up after an oil spill, or ensure that the spill doesn't happen in the first place?
Once you accept a fetus is a person, this same logic can also be extended to argue that life starts at ejaculation; impeding sperm from fertilizing an egg prevents the birth of a person, and is therefore tantamount to murder the same way abortion is.
It’s much more a tenuous an argument, which is why it’s only made by the most extreme people. But I guess that explains why Clarence Thomas is pushing to make contraception illegal today.
Because it's more exciting to punish Bad People for doing Bad Things than it is to create systems where the Bad People don't want or need to do Bad Things as much.
Should you end up pregnant, it’s illegal to fire you for any reason, and you must either be accommodated or put on paid leave. During that first year of Covid, any nurse or doctor or other employee that had to work with the public was put on paid leave if pregnant if something non-public-facing couldn’t be found for them.
We also get 2/3 of our previous net salary for up to a year after the birth to stay home with our babies, and that was as a mother with a well-employed husband. There is further assistance for women in harder circumstances.
Granted, abortion is (was?) more strictly controlled here. You have to go for “conflict counseling,” but it’s available from both of the major churches (the Lutheran church’s organization aims to help you if you want to go through with the pregnancy, but will give you information on the costs and logistics of termination), other religious associations, as well as secular organizations with a pro-choice point of view (e.g.: ProFamilia). After the 12th week, however, you can only get an abortion if your life or health is in danger, or the fetus has a serious abnormality. Yes, Down Syndrome is an accepted ground for termination, but social support services for mentally-handicapped children and adults are far more comprehensive and reliable here than in the US.
Result? One of the lowest abortion rates in the world among countries where women (mostly) have bodily autonomy.
I think it is convenient to point to the importance of the lives of unborn children but until the same protection is applied to children post-birth it seems like a convenient cover for controlling women.
> ... until the same protection is applied to children post-birth ...
The same protection is applied to children post-birth. It's still illegal to kill those children after they're born.
---
Edit to respond to comments, because I'm "posting too fast":
Yes, the conservative position on social programs seems inconsistent with being pro-life to someone who believes that government benefit programs are not only helpful, but are the primary mechanism to help the needy.
But not to people who believe, like Reagan, that "the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'"
They don't look to the government for help for themselves and they don't see it as a mechanism for helping others. For that, they prefer family, church, charity, and community.
They also generally believe, contrary to some extreme positions that have been exaggerated by their opponents, that:
"we would not consider it immoral for a woman to accept treatment that is necessary to save her life, but which may end the life of her preborn child."
https://www.focusonthefamily.com/family-qa/abortion-and-heal...
Anyway, I think that's mostly irrelevant. Say conservatives decided that abortion would be banned nationwide but there would be comprehensive social programs to care for pregnant women and children. The banning of abortion would still be a terrible idea.
The law may protect kids from being directly killed consequence free. However, indirectly, these good Christians support everything right up to that (spare the rod, spoil the child).
Edit: To respond to your edit, since you don't want to take the time to actually respond.
Reagan was good with the short quips, yet hardly someone you should look to for a "pro-life" attitude. He actively impeded AIDs research because "ewe, gay people". He has blood on his hands and invoking him in an argument about the sanctity of life is ridiculous.
Further, saying "Oh, let the churches feed the hungry". What would you do for the child of an atheist parent? What would you do if the church (like many of them do!) imposes strict morality clauses before aid is given. What if there is no church giving such aid in a community?
Why do you think there is child starvation in the united states? Because not enough kids know about their local churches and community centers?
It's also laughable that the same people who cheer on dumping 800 billion dollars into the most powerful military in the world are somehow afraid of the consequences of what happens when that money goes into a program to feed children. So what, the government is only scary when the money DOESN'T go towards guns? What kind of backwards thinking is that?
People understand that murder is illegal - but life isn't just two states. Alive or Dead. If we were living in 20,000 BCE then maybe we could be forgiven for thinking this way, but we live in an advanced, modern, (presumably) ethical civilization where life is about flourishing and giving everyone opportunities to thrive.
Focusing on the fetus's rights, yet condemning children to a life that's designed from the start to prevent flourishing is the conundrum people are referring to and pointing out the hypocrisy of.
It's legal to force a raped child to carry a pregnancy to term even if they will suffer lifetime damage or fatal injuries.
It's legal to force a raped child or woman to carry to term a child that is the result of incest and may suffer a lifetime of genetic damage and disability.
It's a nonsense argument that is premised of the falsity that a fertilized ovum is somehow a "child". It is not.
> smaller proportions of women in 2004 than in 1987 said that having a baby would interfere with their job or career (38% vs. 50%), that they were not mature enough (22% vs. 27%), that their husband or partner wanted them to have an abortion (14% vs. 24%), and that they and their partner could not or did not want to get married (12% vs. 30%). In both surveys, 1% indicated that they had been victims of rape, and less than half a percent said they became pregnant as a result of incest. [1]
The large number of unborn children that have been killed because of them being perceived as an economical burden, or other personal reasons cannot be ignored. But you ignore all this injustice and make it seem like abortion is all about dealing with rape and incest, while these in reality only account for ca 1% of all abortion cases.
I’m saying killed because we still have a large portion of abortions happening in the second (10-15% worldwide [2]) and third trimesters.
The point here is that a woman’s freedom does not override her child’s right to live. But you seem to think otherwise.
[1] https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2005/reasons-us-wom...
[2] https://www.uptodate.com/contents/overview-of-second-trimest...
If the Pro Choice movement starts a campaign aimed specifically at changing federal law to allow abortions in the situations above, I believe they have a fair chance of getting 60% within 1-2 election cycles.
So where is the child who is raped and impregnated by her uncle, priest, or coach supposed to turn?
Is the government really doing all that much for those victims? Our justice and foster care systems are pretty badly run. Democrats want to throw more money at the broken systems. Republicans want to tear them down. I'd support reforming them, but that is much easier said than done.
Obviously absurd and far beneath the level of rigor I'd expect on HN.
Because, if protecting life was truly the goal you are after, then you'd do a whole lot more to actually, you know, protect life, long after the child is born.
This is a straw man argument. No one is arguing children need no societal protection. Look at the push for Head Start under Bush, for example.
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/earlychi...
This is could be a reason that religious folks and conservatives donate much more to charity, even though their income is less [1].
For cases like childcare, they believe that burdened families are best served by a close community coming together to help each other, rather than government programs.
[1] https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/resource/statistics-o...
Legal basis? With enough mastery, it can be whatever you want it to be.
They get out of bed for denying care that empirically has a massive effect of reducing suicide for trans people, too.
1. A block that also skews religious, and socially conservative - that could totally work. There's only one problem with that in the present day.
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/14/texas-special-electi...
This is just a dishonest argument.
That is essentially the same argument, just applied to somebody who is very much human.
I don't support this ruling, but I don't believe that argument is any good.
If anything, it's more important to me that I refute misinformation in support of things I believe as opposed to argue against positions I disagree with.
Btw, I agree with you. I believe women should be free to choose until the fetus is able to live independently of the mom.
This is because I don't think a 3 month old fetus is equivalent to a person.
But IF you agree with the premise that a fetus is a person, it follows that they should have the same negative rights as other people (freedom from being killed, for instance), that does NOT mean that the person has to think that every person should have a large set of positive rights (ie rights imply that tax-payers should provide welfare for all people).
If you listen to the pro-forced-birth side, they claim to be speaking for and defending the most vulnerable “people” (if we are to admit their premise) in our society. They are advocates for the innocent, and abortion needs to be illegal to protect their vulnerable rights. You can see them all over TV today and the internet saying just this.
In fact fetuses are not the most vulnerable “people”; they have significantly more protections than newborn children. Aside from guaranteed food and shelter, fetuses also have the full support of a political party and religious institutions.
Newborn children are guaranteed neither food nor shelter. In America, we even separate newborns from their mothers depending on their immigration status. We’ve even jailed children and put them on trial. Gun deaths are the leading cause of death for children and that’s a problem the pro-forced-birth party doesn’t want to fix.
So all this talk about “protecting the vulnerable children” is clearly just disingenuous. It’s not about protecting the vulnerable at all. It’s about a religious conservative powergrab and we know this by how quickly Clarence Thomas invites challenges to contraception and gay marriage, on the basis of the Dobbs decision.
I'm not American, so I don't know these things. Can you document a single newborn child that, with the knowledge of the government, is starving to death outdoors?
That is one way to frame it. Usually, though, abortion requires someone to actively kill the fetus.
And there is another problem with this argument. The sacrifice it takes for the woman to carry the baby for 9 months may not be the real reson people have abortions. Rather, I imagine, the real reason is that they don't want what happens AFTER the child is born.
Let's consider a similar argument: A ship crew on an oil tanker going from Saudi Arabia to Huston discovers an uninvited "passenger" hiding in the ship. A 5 year old girl, let's say. Do they have an obligation to feed this girl until they reach LA, or can they throw her overboard?
Now, from a purely postive rights argument, one could say they're not allowed to throw her overboard, but they also are not required to feed her. But we all know that's not going to happen.
This is what solves the dillemma for me, others may differ.
Maybe you really do not care. After all, neonaticide has been a common practice for poor mothers all over the world, in places where there were no welfare states or orphanages to take children that nobody could or would care for.
And neonaticide doesn't evern require an active act. You can just leave the child in the forest, to be taken by frost or animals.
But for a lot of people, it makes a big difference whether they consider the fetus an actual person, or just a lump of cells.
For an abortion, you turn this on its head. If no action is performed, the fetus will most likely surivive in the womb until it's born.
Now, you may claim that fetus is somehow commiting a crime by extracting resources from the mother's body. The problem with this argument, is that this crime is first of all not voluntary. The fetus doesn't have a way to stop doing so by an act of will. Second, the fetus is not developed enough that we would assign moral agency to it (just like we would not do that to a baby after birth).
Now, if you believe (like me, especially in the first trimester) that the fetus is not a person, and doesn't have the legal rights of a person, it is still probably ok to abort it.
But if you think that the fetus IS a person, it also follows that it deserves the same protections as a person. In other words, the passive right of the fetus to not be "murdered" is in conflict with the passive right of the mother to not have its resources extracted. The fact that the passive right to not be murdered may be considered a stronger right than the mothers right to bodily autonomy.
Also, in this situation, there are two more factors to take into account:
1) This conflict between the two subjects involved was not caused by any actions of the fetus. Unless she was raped, though, the mother most likely played a part in the conception of the fetus, so bears some responsibility for being in such a situation.
2) Even though there is a real conflict of interests, the MOST passive approach is to not abort, while aborting requires active intervention.
So, I would argue, IF the baby is to be considered 100% a person, with exactly the same protections by the law as the mother, it is logical that abortion is banned.
Now, personally, I don't agree with this premise. In fact, I see the fetus as becoming a person gradually, and I'm not even sure if it reaches fully 100% at birth (though close enough for practial purposes, at least as long as the mother is not starving). Personally, I think the fetus at conception should have 0 person-rights. After 2-3 months, maybe similar to a farm animal, and during the 2nd trimester, probably similiar to your favourite pet.
Only during the 3rd trimester, once the baby would be able to survive outside the womb, would I consider it to get close to deserve the same protectino as a baby after birth.
> I wasn't clear then: I don't care in the context of this question. We already don't require you to donate bone marrow to save a specific person.
And with all due respect, I think perhaps what you're really saying is not that you disagree with the reasoning above, but rather that you refuse to seriously consider the premise of the Christian fundamentalists. In other words, I think you refuse to really imagine that you see the fetus as a 100% full person.
Now, I'm not meaning to imply malice on your part. To understand another person's perspective when they disagree with you about something fundamental is hard It requires a lot of empathy to do so, and it is not easy to find this kind of empathy for a perspective or group of people that one has negative emotions for.
As for it being an active action or not: if we instead were to leave the foetus in place, but remove all the connection to the uterus only, it would still die due to lack of nutrients.
You are right that the woman might have been involved with an activity that can cause babies, but then you can get into the weird arguments about liability to third-parties that do not exist at the time of the action, and the feotus in the end is no different (it does not live) as it would have if the woman had choosen to use other means, such as condoms or not had sex at all.
Yes.
(Actually, the latter obligation attaches whether or not you have the former belief, but if you don’t believe that the entity involved actually is a “person” whose life has value, it explains, but does not justify, why you would not also feel the latter obligation.)
I’ve never heard this stance put forward.
edit: fixed typo
All data shows that outlawing abortion does nothing to reduce abortion. It only makes it occur later in pregnancy and makes it more dangerous.
It’s time we just call religious fascism what it is because this month has shown the scorched earth approach it takes in this country to its demand of power.
The abortion rate in the US was far lower pre-Roe. It went up 5x in the decade after it was nationally legalized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_Uni...
Wrong because Roe v Wade was decided in 1973, the rate went from roughly 14 to 23 (a 64% increase).
Naive because as Jim said, the article clearly states the numbers are voluntarily given and therefore would not include illegal abortions. And the recording started in 1969, so it wouldn’t be surprising for it to take time before clinics even began reporting. In other words, abortions in states where it was legal probably didn’t DOUBLE between 1970 and 1971, but rather reporting of them improved.
It doesn't mean that fewer of them were doing it before it became legal. They were doing it and hiding it.
It's the same as when gay people finally started coming out of the closet, once the laws and stigmas against being gay were reduced. Now they could finally admit what they were doing all along, with less fear of being stigmatized, arrested, imprisoned, or killed.
That doesn’t stop this falsehood from being repeated and it is one of many points of intellectual dishonesty that characterize the anti abortion movement.
Assuming you brought this to the discussion in good faith I would encourage you to reflect on your information sources because one side of this debate has shown a willingness to lie, mislead, cheat, and commit violence in support of their ideology. Personally I have found that ideologies that behave like that do so consistently and will choose to mislead to get what they want. That is a helpful heuristic for guiding how I interpret their arguments and attempts to support them with data.
If there were 500,000 five-year-old kids being murdered every year, with the explicit approval of the government, there would be a civil war.
The fact that the overwhelming majority do not do anything is proof positive that they do not believe abortion is equivalent to murder.
You can't simply claim, oh, I believe in democracy, or I believe in the rule of law in the face of a government that actively murders hundreds of thousands of children. No one has such a deep attachment to the rule of law for its sake as to tolerate 500,000 explicitly-legal child murders.
If this belief of theirs isn't real, none of them are. Which I think is actually true. They believe in nothing.
That's where you are wrong. What action exactly are you looking for that would make you respect their beliefs? Apparently its outside the law.
Any argument otherwise could equally justify any genocide.
What they do believe, however, is that any woman who may need an abortion was being promiscuous, and should be punished for her actions. They absolutely believe that.
Precisely this -> It is a common technique that someone believes in Position A because of reason X, but reason X is unacceptable to the wider society and won't win debates. You make up reason Y to rationalise your Position A.
Peole will debate you on reason Y and be wondering why they can't convince you despite demonstrating that reason Y is wrong. They can;t convince you because you don't care about Reason Y, it's just a ruse. Often your followers also know that reason Y is a ruse, at least the ones who are not totally stupid.
In the Brexit debate, you would have people claiming that it's about national sovereignty and 'all them bloody EU laws', but they wouldn't be able to name a single EU law. They never knew and cared about EU law, they had a problem with immigration.
If at least the country was discussing immigration, maybe they could discuss if it's cheaper to give some extra money to people who are affected by immigration or suffer the collateral damage of Brexit.
By that argument, no abolitionist except for John Brown actually believed that chattel slavery was wrong. No suffragettes except the anarchists actually believed that women should have the right to vote. No blacks in the USA in the 1960s actually believed they were equal in dignity with their white brothers.
Non-violent responses to violent outrages are a very Christian approach to the problems of evil. That doesn't mean there's no suffering involved. Pro-life activists are regularly arrested, assaulted, battered, and insulted. Pro-life organizations spend millions of dollars (gifted in charity by hundreds of thousands of pro-life people) every year helping woman who find themselves in difficult positions choose life and give their children a better life after birth. Time and treasure poured out for a cause are a better measure of the importance of a cause that the total weight of bullets expended in overcoming the other side.
The side that triggered the Civil War was the side that was in the wrong, so I'm not sure what truth you are pointing to there.
However, their rhetoric goes much further than that. Their rhetoric says that abortion is equivalent to murder, and thus justifies curtailing inalienable rights held by women.
The right of self-defense of others is something very close to universally accepted. If there were an equivalent number of five year old kids being aborted, we would not see milquetoast efforts like sit-ins and prayer vigils, actions with both little consequence and impact.
I believe Eric Rudolph believed abortion is murder. But all those people at prayer vigils, sit-ins, Red Rose Rescue, and pregnancy centers do not. They see it as something bad, but less than murder.
If a half million five year old kids are being murdered, you can't just go about your life and attend an annual March for Life protest. What kind of a person doesn't do more? This is systematic, legal, mass-scale child murder we're talking about.
Or is it about wanting the mother to also go to heaven, and believing that if she did this, she would not go?
I appreciate you pointing out there may be a deep existential fear and doubt of the existence of heaven that drives people to this and oh how I wish we people talked more about our doubts, especially as they relate to religion. One of my favorite TED talks was about how doubt is essential to faith: https://www.ted.com/talks/lesley_hazleton_the_doubt_essentia...
According to a lot of American Christian doctrine, yes. The Bible teaches that humans are sinful beings not because of what they do, but because sin is an immutable part of human nature. There's no such thing as an "innocent" baby where the doctrine of original sin is concerned - all humans deserve hell by default. So unless the baby is born, baptized and saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (which can only happen through their consent and free will, you can't "save" an unborn baby as a loophole) it will burn in Hell for eternity like any other unsaved soul.
Although I'd suspect most Christians simply believe life, in terms of a divine soul and part in God's plan, begins at conception. To accept that a fetus is simply a "clump of cells" would be too close to accepting a naturalistic (non-theistic) view of biology. To interfere with procreation and birth is to commit murder for the same reason that shooting someone in the head is committing murder - only God has the right to decide when and how life can be taken.
> The Bible teaches that humans are sinful beings not because of what they do, but because sin is an immutable part of human nature. There's no such thing as an "innocent" baby where the doctrine of original sin is concerned - all humans deserve hell by default. So unless the baby is born, baptized and saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (which can only happen through their consent and free will, you can't "save" an unborn baby as a loophole) it will burn in Hell for eternity like any other unsaved soul.
As someone not born into or raised by a Christian family, I sometimes struggle to understand how deep some of these beliefs are.
So is the idea that one does not receive unconditional love from God unless one first consents to believe in God? And babies don't have the ability to consent?
Maybe this is too off topic for HN but I'm quite curious.
Of course that said, there have been plenty of Christians who believe in infant baptism or a state of grace for infants and all sorts of things - Christianity isn't a monolith. But when it comes to the intersection of religion and pro-life politics in the US, the more hardline strains of faith seem to dominate.
Ah, so do they believe that if and only if one goes through baptism, then they have asked for God's forgiveness and then will be forgiven? I seem a bit confused by that, does it mean that the love is unconditional only after the one specific condition is met? Or maybe it's that unconditional love and forgiveness are separate things?
Also maybe you don't know and that's ok, too, I'm just grateful for you helping me reflect on this more.
1. Innocent people ought not be killed. Children are innocent people. Therefore, children ought not be killed.
2. What is conceived in a woman is an innocent young human being. Young human beings are children. Therefore (given syllogism #1) children in utero ought not be killed.
Those syllogisms can lead to emotion, but they are not based on it.
- At what point do you believe it becomes a person? Viable to survive outside of the womb, heartbeat, insemination?
- How do you define innocent, as one who does not have actions that cause harm to another, one who does not have intent to harm another, or something else?
- If defined as one who does not have intent to harm another, how do we know what the unborn child's intent is? Do you assume that the child is not developed enough to have intent? At which point does the child develop intent?
- What if you would consider the child already dead from other causes and needs to be extracted, should the mother be allowed to have it removed? What if the baby is an ectopic pregnancy, growing outside of the womb and likely to cause significant harm or death to the mother, is the assumption that the mother is not as innocent as the unborn child and therefore we should prioritize the child?
I'm ok and even excited to take a reason-based approach (ironically stating how I have have feelings about taking a reason-based approach), I just hope if you want to go down that path, that you will go deeper down it with me.
No. It is old people wanting to stop young people having sex. It is about increased the biological risks associated with sex. It is about people who believe that sex should only ever be for procreation. It is about the oldest issue in history: old people not wanting young people to enjoy life.
That would help the children these voters are so concerned about!
Specifically, Numbers 5:20-27 prescribes ritualistic abortion if a woman has cheated on her husband. A thorough reading of the Bible gives one the understanding doesn't care about fetuses or children. He cares about the subjugation of women and everyone in their "proper" place in His hierarchy.
It's a perfect replacement subject for income inequality, debate about guns, foreign policy like isolationist movement.
Because of the electoral system, Republicans in Texas had a big issue with immigrations from "blue states" - they could loose it forever. This is an existential threat for them - first fight was Heartbeat bill. Now they have a perfect tool to slow down the process or even reverse it.
most people don't care, they won't move for that. But Covid/Remote work/housing is pushing them, hence Rep. went all-in.
Actually believing something and thinking you believe something are two wildly different things.
Power and control is what organized religions have always been about.
I can promise you that this has quite a bit to do with religion. My parents both voted republican because "Billy Graham's son endorsed Trump" and before Trump they voted republican for this issue among others. I fully understand that elected republicans are just paying lip service to religion/abortion but they have their constituents completely fooled (or happy with their cognitive dissonance).
The difference? Politics and religion are both about controlling the actions of people. It may be done for good or ill, but it is always about control.
But as a matter of fact, Christians who are Christians in more than name only do everything of import because of Jesus -- or because of biblical teaching more generally. I believe that I should tell the truth because of Jesus. I believe that divorce is wrong because of Jesus. I believe that those who take a life should forfeit their own because of Jesus (Gen 9.6).
I am not sure Jesus would agree
"Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor 10.31).
Morality and ethics are not the exclusive purview of Christianity, or even religion in general. Atheists and agnostics don't need a bible to tell right from wrong.
In fact, religion is often used as an excuse to subjugate others, which is what they're doing by overturning RvW. They are subjugating women of breeding age as baby factories and unpaid child minders whose life course is decided on whether a man ejaculates in her and fertilizes an egg or not (whether she wanted him to or not.) If she catches, her life is no longer hers. It now belongs to the state as a incubation vessel for a potential citizen, and her wishes are now unimportant.
You may be right; perhaps atheists and agnostics don't need a Bible to tell right from wrong, but that isn't something even atheists themselves have agreed on. The whole angst of the European existentialist movement had to do with the realization that without a god everything and anything was permissible (including abortion, one assumes).
We, as a society, need to stop constantly creating straw men like this.
Opposition to abortion is certainly about religion, or at least morality. Sure some politician can exploit morality to cynically gain power to accomplish other things, but that doesn't mean the voters are doing that. The voters are just caught in (many) moral dilemmas, and are therefore forced to make bad choices.
https://www.christianpost.com/news/less-than-half-of-us-evan...
It's not a "religious issue" when the members of the religion are split along party lines just like everyone else.
It is absolutely religious.
I'm not here to argue semantics. The point I'm here to make is that the people who call it a religious issue are trying to claim legal protection that is undeserved. "That law violates my religion!" is not a compelling argument when half of your religion supports it.
What now? Has "science" become a nonsense word that only used to lend authority to nonscientific policy?
> The point I'm here to make is that the people who call it a religious issue are trying to claim legal protection that is undeserved.
That's not what's going on at all.
What's actually happening is something along the lines of "my religion says X is morally wrong, therefore I support making X illegal" (or more accurately "my religion teaches Y, which I understand makes X morally wrong, therefore I support making X illegal").
Separate from that, there are issues where the religious people are pretty much all on the same side. My point is, the pro-life side frames abortion as the latter, when it is actually the former. And they do this not out of confusion or misunderstanding, but as a politically useful act. It helps their cause to frame abortion as a religious issue, because if it weren't that, it would be a medical issue or a rights issue or a privacy issue, and virtually any other framing hurts their case.
Like I said, I'm not here to argue semantics. I just thought it was worth pointing out how divided the religious are on this issue, mainly because I wasn't aware until I looked it up.
This is seen very Authoritative Governments and Dictatorships because it allows for the exploit of self-identity. People often create their self-identity around a religion and if you try to talk about any logical flaws with their statements or show them whole evident of facts proving them wrong they will still stick with their religion because they then would destroy their self-identity. When religion becomes self-identity then the person stops living reality and in a religious dream-like state.
Look at Benjamin Franklin, US Founding Father, was a Christian but didn't self-identity and also wrote a section in a book, Every Man His Own Doctor: The Poor Planter's Physician, how to perform an abortion.
He is an example of self-identity that goes beyond religion. But also the self-identity factor can also be tie not to religion but political parties or other extreme identities leading to group think.
With high confidence, and hopefully a good study is done, a high percentage of people that gave power to the anti-abortion / anti-liberty movements are self-identified with religion over other aspects.
In his defense, Jesus came to fulfill the old law and not abolish it, as directly stated by himself. The old law has the 5th commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," which in the times of Jesus was unanimously interpreted to cover abortion (Psalm 139 being one reason why) and Jesus, by not speaking against this interpretation (unlike other interpretations), left that view unchanged.
Exodus 21:22-23 recounts a story of two men who are fighting and injure a pregnant woman, resulting in her subsequent miscarriage. The verse explains that if the only harm done is the miscarriage, then the perpetrator must pay a fine. However, if the pregnant person is gravely injured, the penalty shall be a life for a life as in homicides.
Jesus was Jewish and fetuses aren't considered persons under Jewish law.
A counterargument would be that the Jewish law does not address whether they are persons, but rather focuses on the fine being the solution to the matter. The law also only addresses if the incident should occur by accident (the miscarriage being a side effect), whereas deliberately inducing a miscarriage was not included.
EDIT: Adding more information (also due to reply timers):
@DangItBobby The verse in question:
"When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life."
A few notes.
1. The law only addresses unintentional injury, and does not address intentional injuries.
2. The law does not specify "injury." It could mean an injury that occurs to the pregnant woman, the unborn child, or both. One way to interpret the passage is that if the woman is caused to have an early delivery, then the penalty is a fine, but any further injury to the child is covered under the lex talionis law of “an eye for an eye.”
3. The law actually calls the fetus a "child," and takes foregranted that the woman "is with child" which pretty clearly shows that the personhood was taken foregranted.
Nope, that's covered. In the verse, accidental damage to the human mother was punishable by death.
It doesn't say "with child" in the original Hebrew, that's added in your translation.
The way it's translated into English these days directly from the Hebrew is
> If men strive, and wound a pregnant woman so that her fruit be expelled, but no harm befell [her], then shall he be fined as her husband shall assess, and the matter placed before the judges. But if harm befell [her], then shall you give life for life.
And yet... If the woman is harmed, it's treated as if you harmed a human (eye for an eye), but if the fetus is harmed, there's a fine. It's quite clear that the fetus is not anywhere near the same importance in this law, not that this should have anything to do with modern law.
The core point was that most of the message and teachings of Jesus were clearly, unambiguously about social justice and charity, and yet modern Christians care way more about Old Testament moral rules than the actual Christian message, what Jesus clearly cared about the most, the last, the meek, the poor.
The modern Christian votes for racist ultra-rich that only profess hate towards everyone that's different from them in order to get abortion and gay marriage banned. That's the worst corruption of the Christian message possible, in my opinion, and makes those people phony believers to my eyes. They use their as an indentitarian way to distinguish them from the others, which is absolutely at odds with the ecumenical message of Jesus Christ.
Care about the young not being able to start families first, about those who are in need and can't make their ends meet, and then take care of the rest.
You could say it is a matter of perspective, as to the Christian, the unborn child is the most last, the most meek, the most poor, and the most helpless compared to any person including the mother, and thus logically requires precedence.
Is the fetus a child or is it not? If it is not, then the mother should take precedence. If it is, in fact, a child, then it must be protected as such.
@timbit42 Not true. https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=31863293&goto=threads%...
Then how do you explain this:
- When the Bible commands abortion: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2018/02/03/bible-c...
- How to perform an abortion, according to the Bible: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/allsetfree/2021/11/how-to-perf...
Exodus 21:22-23 - Abortion isn't murder. It's property damage.
Numbers 5:11–31 - The biblical version of the "abortion pill", used to test a wife's fidelity.
Rights do not necessitate dialogue.
Let me start with this: why should we as rational human beings assume life doesn't begin at conception? Is there a more logical place to ascribe life beginning, whether it be human or otherwise?
However murder is defined as taking the life of a human being. Conception is not a logical place to ascribe the beginning of a human being.
As an example, is the loss of a zygote, or a blastocyte, or an ectopic implantation to be considered the death of a human being?
Birth control actually prevents implantation rather than conception every once in a while [2], would taking birth control be considered manslaughter if proven it prevented implantation rather than conception? This is actually what many are worried about now that Roe v Wade is down, Griswald vs Connecticut could be up next.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage
[2] https://www.guttmacher.org/antiabortion-activists-their-own-...
What about spontaneous abortion (miscarriage)? If the women is found negligent such as taking excessive risks (smoking, drinking, excessive age, some strenuous physical activity) they are also technically committing manslaughter correct? Again regardless of how viable it is to prosecute such a crime, are they committing a crime?
It is both wrong and a crime to forget your child in a hot car to the point where they die. It isn't murder but it would be on your conscience regardless of whether the state prosecuted you or not. As I believe the unborn have an equal right to life as the born children it makes logical sense to enact laws such that crack use resulting in deformed children is a prosecutorial offense tantamount to neglect of born children. Of course, there is also criminal negligence vs. accidental crimes and all of that still applies.
EDIT: miscarriage isn't abortion, I'm not sure about its relevance to the discussion?
What say you on ectopic pregnancies where it will never be viable and poses a threat to the mother?
Of course leaving a baby in a car is potentially manslaughter nobody is arguing that because there is general agreement that child is a person. The question is why you believe a fertilized egg is a person? Why is a separate sperm and egg combination not also considered a person? Why is conception the bright line? Why would you leave something as serious as homicide up to the state to decide?
Naturally in cases where you can only save one life but not both it makes no sense to let mother and baby die, this is logical and provides a terrible ethical dilemma for doctors to figure out where the borderline is - at what point is the risk to the mother so great that it warrants an abortion? These types of dilemmas are common as far as I understand in medical ethics.
I believe an unborn baby is a _person_ with the same intrinsic human rights as you and I, so I see no logical difference except in degree of uncertainty between the baby in the car and an abortifacient killing an unimplanted zygote. Of course the degree of uncertainty is very important legally. If I through an unforeseeable action end up being responsible for the death of an employee of mine, it matters how certain the outcome was based on my negligence. Maybe no one will ever know that I was in some way responsible but it will live on my conscience nonetheless.
Involuntary manslaughter does not require conscious choice to kill, premeditate conscious choice is murder, you brought manslaughter into the argument.
Just as someone drinking and driving does not intend to kill someone they can still be found guilty. A woman older than 35 having unprotected sex which could lead to geriatric pregnancy could be considered to putting an unborn person at risk due to much increased chance of spontaneous abortion.
>These types of dilemmas are common as far as I understand in medical ethics.
These choices will be easy in states that outlaw abortion with no exceptions because there will be no choice.
>I believe an unborn baby is a _person_ with the same intrinsic human rights as you and I
If zygote is a person does that mean freezing embryos that may never be used is homicide? Is embryo selection in IVF also homicide when only picking some of the embryos?
No state as far as I'm aware is outlawing abortion in the case of emergencies in the health of the mother, this is a common misunderstanding people have about anti-abortion legislation.
More on IVF tomorrow if I have time :)
Abortifacient - a substance that induces abortion. How is this different from abortion, that makes no sense logically or grammatically.
If a zygote is a person, then any action by another person which kills it is a homicide. If taking a birth control pill prevents implantation then you have committed homicide.
My point is you define abortion as a conscious choice, but that is not the definition of abortion, that is specifically induced abortion. You said just like manslaughter is not murder they are different, however manslaughter is a crime as is murder. Are you saying manslaughter should not be punishable or that abortion that comes from non-copious choice is not manslaughter even though a zygote is a person and the law would normally define that as manslaughter?
>No state as far as I'm aware is outlawing abortion in the case of emergencies in the health of the mother, this is a common misunderstanding people have about anti-abortion legislation.
Louisiana had a trigger law on the books since 2006 that did not have exceptions for ectopic pregnancies, luckily a democratic senator helped push a revision in the law very recently to make the exception [1].
The point being the is left up to the states and is also homicide if the fetus is a person. Hopefully it will be a justifiable homicide in all states.
[1] https://gov.louisiana.gov/index.cfm/newsroom/detail/3727
I use manslaughter as an analogy to explain gradations of homicide in terms of intent. I've been very clear that I don't think abortifacients as birth control make sense to be prosecuted at all, they aren't manslaughter in the legal sense because there's no way of knowing if anyone was killed or not!
It looks like your Louisiana case fixed a law that didn't make those important exceptions explicit (probably because it was a useless law anyway, only to signal a pro-life stance with no legal weight to it, but who knows?). This is good, the exceptions mentioned are just and necessary.
Not all homicides are illegal, all weigh on the conscience though - whether they be a soldier in war or a doctor performing euthanasia. Certain classes of homicide should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law to provide a just society and minimize the repercussions of injustice by penalizing perpetrators. In the case of a person making a conscious choice to end the life of an unborn baby they are making a decision that humans have no right to make in a way that leaves clear evidence and can be prosecuted. By the way, I personally think that doctors performing abortions should be prosecuted and not mothers.
Christians believe that all human beings are corrupt to the core. We take every aspect of the technological progress we've made and twist it to evil purposes, that's just what we do as humans. This is related to our dignity, our capacity for doing things gives us a unique capacity for evil. Some evil we do has terrible repercussions on the world at large and abortion is one of these evils. It unnaturally shapes our demographics in this country and in every country where it is allowed unrestricted. For example the black population of America is unnaturally small in proportion to the white population because of Roe, and there are more men than women in India and China because of abortion. Anti-abortion legislation doesn't help get those millions of lives back, it doesn't give them justice either. In my mind its primary purpose is to curb the wrongdoing in the future.
Your stance is a zygote is a person, yet you believe that killing one should not be prosecuted in the same manner as killing a born human it seems. Manslaughter does not require intent and is still a crime, either you believe the zygote is a person or you don't, if a person then the laws regarding killing a person should be the same. If you are ok with different laws between a zygote and born human then you must believe the zygote is less than human.
>This is good, the exceptions mentioned are just and necessary.
Something as serious as homicide should be codified at the federal level right? Why would you leave something like that for interpretations between states?
>Christians believe that all human beings are corrupt to the core.
Christians also believe god created everything including designing humans and their corruption correct? Where did evil come from? Did god create evil or is evil bigger than god and was not created by him? Again where did evil come from?
> Something as serious as homicide should be codified at the federal level right? Why would you leave something like that for interpretations between states?
Believe it or not, the exact opposite is true: https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/state-crimes...
> Christians also believe god created everything including designing humans and their corruption correct?
Genesis 3 describes the origin of sin. God created people with the capacity to sin, He even set up a situation where they had complete agency of choice in the matter which is pretty amazing philosophically with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, we used this agency to choose sin and continue to do so to this day.
'Evil' as it pertains to human sin is a choice to behave contrary to God's will. God gave us the ability to be evil but didn't make us evil. In some sense it's part of the dignity of humankind that we have the capacity to do evil at all, but it is also our fall. With the fall in Genesis 3 we opened a rift between God and humankind, basically we ruined the relationship. We believe Christ gives a way to reconcile the relationship by paying the price for our evil on the cross.
Is that what you call someone not believing the same thing as you and trying to get specific answers to logical questions? I am trying to understand why someone seems so fixated on personhood beginning at conception. I personally believe there is no good good line during pregnancy when someone becomes a person, it is a process that takes time, anything we pick is arbitrary to satisfy human law. For instance a zygote can split and become two people (identical twins) so I would think if you believe in a soul as the basis for personhood, ensoulment can not occur at conception.
Roe was a compromise, an imperfect law for a complicated matter where by it got progressively harder to get an abortion as the pregnancy progresses. Not only did it grant the right to an abortion, it also prevented it later in pregnancy, that is now left to the state.
>If you kill someone and no one ever knew including you then law is kind of irrelevant right?
Getting away with manslaughter does not change the fact whether it is a crime. You seem to be avoiding answering the question, do you believe taking birth control that prevents implantation is a crime? Regardless of the ability to prosecute, is it a crime of manslaughter? If not then obviously you do not think the same law applies to zygotes as people.
>Believe it or not, the exact opposite is true
So you are ok with a state outlawing abortion with no exceptions as Louisiana had for some time and there should be no federal protection for that situation?
Do you believe Griswold vs Connecticut should be overturned as well?
>'Evil' as it pertains to human sin is a choice to behave contrary to God's will.
How can the universe and anything it which was created by god act contrary to his will? That makes no logical sense, it was his will to design it as such in every detail. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the buck stops there. He also is omnipotent and knows everything including the actions we will take, or do you believe he does not in fact know everything?
If god has no control over our actions and is even surprised by them then there must be a source of entropy that did not come from god, who created that?
>we opened a rift between God and humankind, basically we ruined the relationship.
How does one ruin a relationship with their designer unless the designer is schizophrenic? If I design a program I do not blame the program for bugs, that's stupid, it is my failing. Perhaps there was an OS or hardware failure that caused the problem, but as god I designed them too! There is no one else to blame, certainly not my creation.
So what should we do in your opinion? Are the unborn entitled to protection by our laws or not?
>Roe was a compromise, an imperfect law for a complicated matter
Roe wasn't a law, it was a legal precedent dehumanizing a class of people for another class's benefit. Now we do have actual laws that are made by legislatures across the country to try to do justice to a complicated subject as you admit it is.
>So you are ok with a state outlawing abortion with no exceptions
Of course not, this is the opposite of what I said.
>Do you believe Griswold vs Connecticut should be overturned as well?
There is a class of 'living constitution' decisions made by the supreme court during this era that are contrary to rule of law and make the supreme court into some sort of super-legislature. I think people should have access to contraceptives, I'm not sure it's guaranteed by the constitution though. Not all contraceptives are abortificients, even those should be accessible for the reasons I gave above, health concerns primarily.
>How can the universe and anything it which was created by god act contrary to his will?
Yeah, it's crazy! Christians think we have real agency even given the sovereignty of God. It borders on paradoxical. God surely knows the path we will go down and judged it necessary for some reason. Apparently He preferred beings capable of deciding to follow Him of their own free will rather than automatons.
>If I design a program I do not blame the program for bugs, that's stupid, it is my failing.
What's more impressive though? Designing a program that can choose between multiple options and determine its fate or designing a program completely constrained to make the choices I orchestrate? And yet, we would be comfortable saying a programmer would be totally justified if they shut down or even deleted a program erring as you've described!
I think Roe was a good compromise affording choice to the mother up to a point while protecting the unborn later. Again why do you fixate on conception, what turns cells merging and replicating into a person and why is it at the point when the sperm and egg merge, not before and not sometime after? Why did you choose that line to take your stand?
>Roe wasn't a law, it was a legal precedent dehumanizing a class of people for another class's benefit. Now we do have actual laws that are made by legislatures across the country to try to do justice to a complicated subject as you admit it is.
Decisions made by the Supreme Court are law regardless of whether you like them or not, specifically case law. Trying to act like it wasn't a real law is a petty argument, it obviously was until overturned. I am skeptical you believe this should be left to the states since because if you truly believe this murder why would you be ok with letting some state allow it. You seem to think this is very simple reducing a person down to a zygote but not a sperm and egg in a very black and white manner.
>I think people should have access to contraceptives, I'm not sure it's guaranteed by the constitution though.
The constitution does not guarantee the right to assault rifles specifically, are you ok with leaving that decision up to the states? Arms is a very open ended term as is the right to privacy this must be interpreted by the court to have specific meaning, currently allowing assault rifles but not nuclear arms and contraception but wire tapping is allowed with a warrant.
>Apparently He preferred beings capable of deciding to follow Him of their own free will rather than automatons.
The distinction between free will and automatons has no meaning to a being that creates everything including free will itself. To have true free will not predetermined by god would require outside input, it would require a source of entropy that was not created by god. The only way god could not control our actions is if there is uncertainty from some other source otherwise we are doing exactly as we where designed. Either the universe is deterministic as god designed or is non-deterministic due to outside input, simple logic.
>What's more impressive though? Designing a program that can choose between multiple options and determine its fate or designing a program completely constrained to make the choices I orchestrate? And yet, we would be comfortable saying a programmer would be totally justified if they shut down or even deleted a program erring as you've described!
This still make no logical sense, did god create everything including all choices possible or not? God created the constraints unless you believe there is something beyond god a greater universe created by whom?
If a programmer creates a sentient AI that makes its own choices I guarantee it will be getting input not created by the programmer that helps form and drive its choices. A programmer is not god and did not create everything, and if he did I would hope he would not be so stupid as to blame his own program for bad choices based on input he created!
>Decisions made by the Supreme Court are law regardless of whether you like them or not, specifically case law.
This is a fair point. I don't want to equivocate on the word 'law'. I was referring to law as codified by elected legislature but you're right that 'common law' is also law in a different sense :)
>The constitution does not guarantee the right to assault rifles specifically, are you ok with leaving that decision up to the states?
I guess? If we throw out the constitution we'd better have a replacement system with an equal force behind it. Otherwise history can dictate what happens next when a power vacuum forms in a pluralistic society: authoritarianism.
Free will is kind of a paradox. If you design a game, you also design the space of possible games that can be played (the game tree). You can also determine a function on the space of these games to label some as 'good' and others as 'evil'. When you create players of the game and they choose to go down an 'evil' tree was that your fault? I think this is where the paradox comes in. You can make fancy arguments about entropy all you want but for a Christian we believe the players in the game have real agency of choice.
Christians aren't the only ones who believe in agency - justice (retributive justice specifically) requires agency, otherwise it makes no sense to penalize someone for wrongdoing as it was their environment that caused their behavior _always_ rather than their own conscious choice. If you want to live in a society with no retributive justice that's a fair and even perhaps logically consistent viewpoint but it isn't one that Christians share. Our worldview holds that the economy of justice is fundamentally retributive justice because we have real agency of choice.
Both the sperm and egg are "alive" so no "life" does not begin there. Any sperm and egg combination together is a unique genetic sequence, both before and after conception. This also cannot be a unique "person" because identical twins form after conception into two unique people. Same with clones, the same genetic sequence does not make a unique person, what ever personhood is comes later, it is a potential person just like a sperm and egg is before conception.
There is no single bright line I can find, as I said any line drawn is arbitrary to satisfy law. I believe Roe to be a good multistage compromise based on trimesters, you believe conception to a be a single line for the law, neither has any scientific or religious basis. During biblical times "quickening" was thought to be when ensoulment occurred, first movement.
>If you design a game, you also design the space of possible games that can be played (the game tree). You can also determine a function on the space of these games to label some as 'good' and others as 'evil'. When you create players of the game and they choose to go down an 'evil' tree was that your fault?
As god you didn't just create the game, you created the laws of physics that allows the game to exist and the players themselves. God designed our brains and how we make decisions.
This isn't a fancy argument this is very simple, did god create everything or not (including evil) and does he know everything or not (including what choices we will make)?
Again its seems rather stupid to blame your own designed creation for making choices that you know they will make in a universe you created for them with laws of nature designed by you. This makes no logical sense unless there is outside influence to allow for surprising choices. Either god understands exactly how everything works because he created all of it, or he doesn't and can be surprised by bad choices and blame this "agency" that comes from somewhere outside of himself.
>If you want to live in a society with no retributive justice that's a fair and even perhaps logically consistent viewpoint but it isn't one that Christians share.
Of course I don't, but it's not hard for me, I don't believe in an omnipotent god that designed me just to punish me for making incorrect choices. There seems to be uncertainty baked into all things that creates agency and choices matter, I have personal responsibility for my choices because they affect the world around me, this is logical. I don't believe things are predestined or known ahead of time nor that some super being designed me and is judging me for how I perform in their sandbox, it is a ridiculous illogical notion.
'Life begins at conception' is just a nominally secularized reference to the doctrine of ensoulment, not a concept that is morally relevant to question of whether abortion should be legally permissible (or even interesting).
If we cared about the mere fact of life in the relevant way, we'd be interested in legal restrictions on pulling weeds. If the concern was with living tissue with human DNA, we'd be fretting over amputations. Even in the case of human life, not every end to human life is an equivalent of 'murder' to be categorically prohibited to the exclusion of all other considerations. And even if we grant that abortion is always morally wrong, it still does not automatically follow that categorical legal prohibition is a sound social response to the moral issue.
There's an expansive philosophical literature on the ethics of abortion that actually seeks to identify and address the moral core of the issue and its relation to law. The phrase 'life begins at conception' is just a political slogan for a religious dogma that very, very quickly falls apart when you try to use it ss an actual starting point for reasoning about abortion policy. Trotting it out pretty much represents a refusal to engage in good faith with secular thought on the issue.
If murder is wrong for the born, what about the unborn makes that wrong lesser?
Maybe the most clear case comes in this way:
Christians believe that human beings are chosen by God just as much as they choose God (both must be true to be saved). This is most clear in Romans 8:29-30.
> For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
So God does decide who to save, he "foreknows" them, whatever that means. Now there are several examples of people being called by God, many of which happen before they are born.
Jeremiah is called by God before his birth in Jeremiah 1:5:
> Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
Paul is called by God before his birth in Galatians 1:15:
> But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, ...
These are just some examples, there are more references to unborn in the Bible. The argument goes like this: if it's wrong to kill another being imbued with the image of God, fully capable of being foreknown by Him, called, predestined, justified and glorified, it is equally wrong to kill them before birth as opposed to after birth and the Bible makes no distinction between the two in terms of how this process works, evidenced by the above passages.
Weird Calvinist predestination silliness aside.
> As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.
Quite simply, according to the Bible life begins at conception, our capacity for good and evil begins at conception, God chooses us at conception and our status of being in the 'image of God' starts at conception.
The above verses and doctrine are not 'Calvinist', Calvinism is the belief that God's choice is the primary cause of salvation as opposed to man's choice, but that distinction is irrelevant here.
That means the lower taxes and less regulations were likely desired for their own sake not as a trade off.
Christians crazily believe Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and was God incarnate within the womb. As crazy as that may be, it logically follows they would adamantly be against ending human lives before they’re born.
Religious Americans essentially held their noses to vote for Republicans just to get this issue rammed in.
Now that they have gotten what they wanted, are they still going to vote for Republicans with the same transactional decision process? Or are they now going to say the Republicans can no longer offer them anything additional and now the problems with Republicans being immoral and unchristian become too large?
Once Christians have an abortion ban do they become focused on helping the poor and other issues which were pushed by Jesus and whose teachings more closely align with progressive agendas? Or are they hypocrites and will vote for the Republicans to give the Pharisees & Rich of the world more power?
Yes; that's why Thomas's concurring decision openly threatens the gay marriage, contraception, etc. decisions. (He left Loving v. Virginia off the list, though. For some reason.) There's plenty more red meat to throw to the Republican base as far as SCOTUS is concerned.
I'm sorry, Republicans aren't strongly against gay marriage?
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/23/opinion/23bruni-n...
The 2016 and 2020 platform both said that marriage is between 1 man and 1 women, they didn't mince words. Pretending Republicans won't try to overturn gay marriage is about as stupid as the people who said they would never overturn Roe v Wade.
Southern Baptists largely didn’t care about abortion before the 1970s, even seeing it as a good thing in some cases. From The Baptist Press, who of course now spouts the party line that abortion is terrible and this SCOTUS decision is wonderful: https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/southern-...
Next on the list are LGBTQ+ rights, especially hormone therapy for teenagers, and contraceptives that may destroy or discard a zygote or blastocyst. Overturning Roe means allowing government to invade every healthcare decision and apply any arbitrary religious dogma to it.
The fear of abortion was used as a very effective tool for engagement. The more people sit and listen to people "argue" about an "issue" on Fox News or at church, etc., the more politically active they become.
That is misrepresenting the argument. There's a lot of people that believe that abortion is the killing of a human being. And killing another human being is, most definitely, on the list of "bad things" for every flavor of Christianity. For a lot of them, killing one human being (not in self defense) to save another is still on that list; because only God is allowed to end life.
You may not agree that an unborn child is a human life, but the people that are against abortion for actual Catholic religious reasons do believe it. And do believe it is against their religion, and against any reasonable set of morals.
> situations in which someone’s rights will lead to death
Not all people are utilitarians, especially religious people.
For those who believe that abortion is murder, that's it. They don't need to care whether a state's gun laws are compatible with the US constitution.
Not gun owners of course, but the victims of gun violence.
We keep balancing stuff like that all the time. The seeming major difference here is that guns are explicitly mentioned in the constitution, while abortion is not ( and was invented from other amendments ).
>Why are rights to guns more important than life but rights to bodily autonomy aren’t?
This strawman is bandied about a lot, but it deliberately misrepresents what is actually in the Opinions if you so choose to read them.
To be absolutely clear, I'm in favor of stricter gun laws and I don't believe in absolute bans on abortion. I just hate it when people claim that anyone that does want a ban on abortion is a hypocrite or out to control everyone else. There are plenty of people that believe that abortion is murder, and that believe is entirely consistent with their views. They're not all bad people, they just have a different view of the world than us. And anyone that tries to lump them all in the evil bucket IS the problem.
Horseshit, or the religious conservatives would also abolish the death penalty federally. Instead, the more Republican states tend to be the ones who wish to expand the death penalty. Look at the history of the death penalty in Texas, and who has historically been "eligible" for it.
It's all about control. These people believe America to be a "Christian" nation first and foremost. Their ultimate goal is to push America into that direction.
I believe within the lifetime of my generation's kids, we will see a push to repeal the First Amendment, at least the religious part of it. Although knowing how American Christians have historically handled freedom of speech, more than likely they'll try to gut the whole thing.
That's what I meant— it's not as hard to find regular Catholic believers who are consistent in rejecting both abortion and the death penalty as a matter of their commitment to their religion as it is to find politicians who are the same way.
If you understand how the US Government works, then you understand that the Supreme Court cannot establish ANYTHING by removing laws. (ie overturning previous decisions).
What the Supreme court did was allow for the POSSIBILITY of a fully Catholic US State to practice Catholic religion with respect to abortion. It ALSO allows a fully Jewish state to practice Jewish religion however they want with respect to abortion.
They actual problem caused by overturning Roe v Wade is that some states who's laws are already catholic will regain the power to stop abortions in their state. That's it. California, New York, etc, are absolutely and completely unaffected by this decision, for example.
Quite the motte and bailey you've got there. Do you think that this court will make an about-face and suddenly recognize the constitutionality of the Establishment clause? Textualist/originalist, my ass.
Catholic people will make catholic laws. They wont literally be catholic laws.. but common sense would allow you to see them as such. There's nothing wrong with that either. The state does not need to recognize them as catholic laws and requires the laws be articulated and produced independent of the religion.
you cannot make a law that says "You must treat the poor the way Jesus would" but you can make a law that says "You cannot refuse life saving medical treatment to someone for being poor". Under Separation of Church a State can still create their set of laws to be 1:1 with the teachings of their religion. They just have to actually do that.. make the set of laws. they cant say "follow rules in the bible". The laws supersede the bible. Make the laws match the bible if you want people to follow the bible. So that's what these states are doing.
Only, they are saying the quiet part loudly now. And Clarence Thomas has been arguing that individual states can establish religions for at least two decades less three days[1]. Law is semantics.
Right, but that's also the point I was making. People think creating a law based on the beliefs of religious people violates the separation of church and state. It doesnt. the semantic nature of the law is relevant here.
I was highlighting that by saying you could make a state that effectively is a religious state using the current system. since the semantics are still there and must be accounted for, this prevents it from actually being a religious state.
By adhering to the semantics, no amount of religious belief can lead a state to violate the constitution.. even if the state bases every single one of its laws on religion. And if they try to, then the federal government has authority to enforce otherwise.
A lot of them seem to have no problem with killing human beings in war, or in executions, or killing done by police, or the killing of various human beings they hate (from "druggies" to gays to muslims or Mexicans).
As George Carlin said:
"Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to 9 months. After that, they don’t wanna know about you. They don’t wanna hear from you. No nothing! No neonatal care, no daycare, no Head Start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you’re pre-born, you’re fine, if you’re preschool, you’re fucked."
The 'valid Catholic reason' for the a doctrine of ensoulment that prohibits abortion is just papal authority. Different popes, saints, and schools within Catholicism have had different beliefs on ensoulment; it's not like the reasoning has been decisive here.
Fucking up other people's lives for the sake of obeying a series of 'infallible' flip-floppers is in fact embarrassing and not respectable.
And even from a religious perspective, criticizing particular sects of Christianity as unmoored from their own sacred texts and traditions with respect to this issue is a perfectly valid line of critique of those sects and their adherents. That's what the GP is essentially doing, informally asking what the rational connection to the sacred texts and tradition even are on this issue. Just because the Catholic church has an answer to that question doesn't mean it's satisfactory.
As recently as the late 1970s, evangelicals and Southern Baptists were at worst ambivalent about abortion rights. The anti-abortion stance of that particular set of people is tied pretty heavily to opposition to desegregation.
There’s also no indication that people even used to think that life began in utero, and that anything less than a fully formed infant was alive and capable of surviving.
You obviously haven't read a bible to any depth.
God talks about "nations" being in the womb of Rebekah. He opened/close the womb of Rachel and of others in scripture.
Samson was a Nazerite "from the womb".
Job says that God "made him" in his "mother's womb".
I could go on and on. Please read up on this some more, your argument is very ignorant of what scripture actually says about this.
God is omniscient though, so I don’t think that’s a useful standard for the cops to use when deciding who to throw in jail.
“Science”(whatever that means) doesn’t really weigh in on what “personhood” is.
So at least at some distance after conception, yes, medical science supports seeing a fetus as a human, with life of its own.
It says no such thing. It says that Adam's life began upon first breath. Adam was also created as a full grown man, so it's clearly not an example for human life as a whole. The Bible doesn’t teach that every man comes to life at first breath any more than it teaches that every woman comes from the rib of a man (from https://www.str.org/w/does-bible-teach-life-begins-first-bre...)
The Bible does say, in multiple places, clearly imply that life begins in the womb. For example, when John leaped for joy in his mother's womb, announcing the coming of the Lord.
I wonder what methodist tastes like. I bet it's something saucy like spicy queso.
It should be about the law, not about politics. They're supposed to put that stuff aside when they take a legal office. Trias politica and all.
https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/justice-ruth-bader-ginsbur...
This is a very misleading reading of that critique.
Ginsburg would've preferred the right to abortion be established a) explicitly a right of women, not a right of doctors to practice and b) via many incremental decisions, making reversal harder.
Practical critique; not "bad law", but "not secure enough to trust". As the recent decision demonstrates quite effectively.
Did the U.S. Constitution give abortion the slightest mention?
No, the right to abortion was inferred from a right to privacy, which was inferred from several amendments that did not explicitly mention abortion or privacy. The Ninth Amendment does makes allowance for rights that aren't explicitly enumerated, but it doesn't really give any guidance on how to know what those are.
Similarly, many Christian denominations recognize that Jesus didn't need to explicitly mention every single moral issue for the Church to develop doctrine around them. Heck, even the doctrine of the Trinity, a core doctrine of mainstream Christianity, requires some level of inference from Scripture.
So if your argument is that Jesus needed to explicitly mention abortion for there to be any justifiable Christian doctrine about it, you're applying a different standard than the standard that was used to define a constitutional right to abortion in the first place.
As far as the constitution goes, amendments are treated as part of the text, not gotchas. The constitution protects your right to keep the contents of your pockets and your home private. Why not the contents of your uterus?
Maybe so, but apparently it's been condemned from the earliest times in Christianity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christian_thought_o....
I don't really know the Bible, but I'm guessing Jesus probably didn't spend a lot of time condemning literal murder either, so it's probably not safe to assume that means he thought preventing greed is more important than preventing murder.
This doesn't at all support the notion that Christianity has always been concerned with abortion as a corrolary to murder, which is at the center of contemporary conservative religious discourse on the issue.
Just poor women. Rich women will still be able to travel out of state (and out of country, if need be) to get an abortion.
They'll also be able to hire a maid, cook, and nurse to do all their household chores for them.
It's the poor who will be most screwed, as usual.
No, its not.
The use of state power to exterminate trans people is the next chapter, and its already well under way. More broadly, much of the next series of chapters is using selective application of “religious liberty” to establish unique and particular entitlement for favored Christian groups across the board, by dismissing the sincerity of other beliefs and/or judging the burdens imposed on them by a different subjective standard in applying the “substantial burden” test than is applied on favored Christian beliefs.
Viewed even more broadly, the focus is on dismantling substantive anti-discrimination protections for non-favored groups extending beyond religion by similar means (as is the case for the above trends, we’ve already seen some elements of this, such as the judicial dismantling of much of the Voting Rights Act; but that is just the beginning, there is much more to come.)
EDIT: Heck, this isn’t even the end of this chapter, if one considers the way this is part of the integrated campaign against sexual and reproductive freedom and the right of privacy established in the line of cases running (through Roe) back to Griswold v. Connecticut, which are all under attack, and span issues beyond abortion to include contraception, same sex marriage, sodomy laws, etc.
I might agree in an abstract manner it is not a final chapter the same way just imposing red flag laws is not the end goal for gun control activists, but the paragraphs that follow are a little out there.
Then you aren't paying attention to the actual legislation being passed in States, the advocacy of leading members of the Republican Party, and even the things explicitly stated in the writings of Supreme Court justices on this case.
> It is on par with Sirius XM Channel channel reacting to the news by saying, and I am paraphrasing, ‘they are going after all our rights next’.
Thomas literally (to anyone who understands the scope and impact of the Court’s substantive due process jurisprudence) said that in his concurrence.
edit re concurrence:
I am going through SCOTUS blog(1) and the actual text(2) and I am not seeing the same thing you do. Could you elaborate a little?
(1)https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/06/supreme-court-overturns-c... (2)https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
What I'm saying is, this happens even without fervent support from the religious right.
This also likely isn't the final chapter, as the opinion also gives thoughts to overturning rulings related to contraception and same sex marriage.
Also check out this film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Months,_3_Weeks_and_2_Days about the reality on the ground.
Congratulations, America! Lots of states will now offer the same reproductive rights as communist Romania during the Cold War. So much freedom!
Also, some US states will now have a stricter abortion law than even some fundamentalist islamic countries. What a great day for American liberty.
Why have a unelected supreme court making political decisions?
The "viability" debate, or the re-branded "when does this ball of cells become a person" debate, has been monopolized by philosophers and religious people. And as a result many women will die due to botched abortions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerri_Santoro or the inability to get one in the case of complications (which are fairly common) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar .
We can absolutely arrive, with a reasonable degree of certainty, when the ball of cells is capable of executing the processes we associate with consciousness. We can track the development of the neocortex, and monitor its activity to derive an answer to the consciousness question. We can do so via careful observation, and comparison with equivalent brain damaged patients, including those that we otherwise pull the plug on.
For what is the moral difference (from a consequentialist, utilitarian standpoint) between taking previously conscious humans with minimal brain function off of life support and an abortion of a non-sentient and non-conscious fetus? There is none, except for the fact that, in the case of a uterus, a human being is forced to act as life support.
Science can answer these questions. And do so with greater precision and accuracy over time. We can draw a map and arrive at a more enlightened conclusion. But the act of doing so, of so clearly putting a line down in the sand, makes most scientists uncomfortable. So they don't. And now many people will die because we created the vacuum that irrational belief filled.
We stopped engaging. They never stopped fighting.
While that's going on in the cytoplasm, the nucleus is a real mess. Sometimes it's 1N, sometimes 2N, sometimes even 4N! If we accept that humans are a species because of our DNA, then there's just no way you could ever call that embryo human in the first 36ish hours post-fertilization. I don't know quite what you'd call it, but it's definitely not that.
Keep in mind that the protections provided by Roe and PP v. Casey only extended to 24 weeks. If scientists gave an answer to the question anywhere past 24 weeks then I don't see how it would move the debate even the tiniest smidge.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210820111042.h...
https://www.illuminateourworld.org/single-post/40-percent-of...
There is one obvious difference: in one case, the person's consciousness has been irreversibly destroyed. In the other case, the person's consciousness is imminent.
From a utilitarian standpoint, the fetus has a considerable upside while the brain dead patient does not.
Utilitarianism is largely unconvincing anyway, IMO. A much more convincing pro-abortion argument is how the unwanted fetus infringes on the rights of the mother.
When a fetus is growing it takes from the womans body. For example, a woman's bones are dissolved so they can be repurposed to to fetal skeleton. The woman is literally giving up her body. The fetus is the woman's body in a literal way. She is not a passive incubator to something like an egg that has all it needs.
There are drugs that will allow women to have illegal abortions that are much much safer than a coat hanger. The important factor will be finding ways to get such drugs to women in states where they cannot be legally used, and ensuring that such a delivery mechanism delivers safe, and authentic drugs.
It's going to be very difficult to regulate all of these drugs.
For example, pills can be acquired safely from outside of the jurisdiction and mailed in.
Or, many such pills have on-label uses that are not abortion related. So there could be avenues to helping people who need them for abortion purposes obtain them from reputable providers for legal purposes.
But, yes, the war on drugs has shown that trying to police drugs out of the system is incredibly difficult.
I'd just like to make sure that, once the war ramps up, we can find ways to keep the delivery of the drugs as timely, authentic, and the use of them as safe as possible.
The next case they'll hear is about Mississippi v Some Nonprofit That Pays For Abortion Flights.
What then?
And not just travel - self managed abortions are cheap, safe, and the most common of all abortions nowadays. They can just mail you the pills, and its literally safer than ibuprofen.
You're going to see a lot of cases about "Can [provider, citizen, org] in [Legal_State, Legal Country] provide [medical care, advice, money, other_help] to [person, organization] in [Illegal_State]"
It's incredibly unfortunate that we'll now have this fight in an era where the Right is ascendant.
We've got 20 years of diminishing women's rights to look forward to.
Devastating to see this outcome. Reinforces the sense that we’ve somehow ended up in a deeply weird timeline.
22-17-5.1. (Section effective on the date states are recognized by the United States Supreme Court to have the authority to prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy) Procurement of abortion prohibited--Exception to preserve life of pregnant female--Felony.
Any person who administers to any pregnant female or who prescribes or procures for any pregnant female any medicine, drug, or substance or uses or employs any instrument or other means with intent thereby to procure an abortion, unless there is appropriate and reasonable medical judgment that performance of an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant female, is guilty of a Class 6 felony. (Section 7 of SL 2005, ch 187, as amended by SL 2005, ch 188, § 1, provides: "This Act is effective on the date that the states are recognized by the United States Supreme Court to have the authority to prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy.")
Source: SL 2005, ch 187, § 6.
are there any states where this is NOT the case?
Sounds like people need to get off their asses and vote now. Voting is more important now that it's ever been before. It's up to individual states how they want to treat abortion and related services.
This ruling isn't an end to anything, unless the populace doesn't care enough to grass-roots the effort to change their state's laws.
Now, go vote. Voting is the only say we have in this tumultuous country.
The fact is, lazy hand wringing house and senate members have been dodging these issues (more than just abortion) and passing them off to the court system for fifty years, or more.
They get good pay, they get good benefits, they should do their stinking jobs!
This all ultimately falls to the ineffectual legislative branch.
That move greatly reinforces Galkovsky's position that USA is now a Latin American country not unlike Brazil; and indeed, Latin American countries also deeply care about this (non)issue and have abortion laws inappropriate to their general level of economical and human development.
The problem being, at least Brazil recognizes that it is Brazil and knows how to run Brazil.
The only good that may come of this is a return to fighting issues out in the democratic sphere. Libs beloved Supreme Court won't save you now.
How hypocritical that this belief doesn't apply to someone else's right to choose.
One thing I think they don't get, or care about, is the personal and societal consequences of having to keep unwanted pregnancies - mainly how much it makes life more difficult for everyone involved. And that with the difficulty, it comes degraded social relationships, unhappiness, substance abuse and crime.
Another thing I think they miss is that lots of people will have abortions regardless. Affluent people will have the safe abortions, and the less fortunate will have risky, potentially life-threatening, horrible abortions. Where there's a will, there's a way, so again, crime increases, and the desperate women's health will be in danger, becase the procedure has to go unchecked.
The cynic in me sees this as an intended effect. American companies want cheap labor and maintaining an impoverished working class helps provide it.
it would be like if you woke hooked up to another person who was relying on your body to survive. sure they're a person, but you never consented nor have to continue giving consent for them to use you in that manner
Edit: downvoted for stating a fact
In 1954 median house price was 19k and gdp per capita was $2,400 (so 8x)
So yeah I’ll take the current economy please.
Also there are a ton of different stats for median house price and 19k I can only find on a single source, the rest is a lot lower
I'm genuinely curious how those two world views can coexist in the same mind.
So a soldier who kills in the name of their country, even in a conflict that we can all agree was at best morally debatable, like the first Iraq war, or Vietnam. How is that different than a person getting an abortion to avoid a known bad outcome?
As such, I am against the death penalty, against "preemptive" wars (of course defending your territory being invaded is justified), against 2nd amendment, and support women's right for abortion. To me, this is common sense that aligns with Jesus' message.
I cannot picture the loving Christ looking at a 13 year old child pregnant because of rape/incest and go "this new life is a miracle and it was my will". I reject this notion of "every conception was God's will and is sacred".
It's easy to want to paint with a wide brush, especially in times of crisis. One of my teachers was pro-life and anti-war. There's no need for such a conundrum.
Otherwise, frankly, they probably haven't thought about it deeply or support the military for cultural or economic factors.
Much of the good fight remains to be fought!
Let us work diligently to greatly support and treasure – as individuals, local communities, and nations – every woman carrying an unborn child, and continue supporting them and their families as they raise those children to join us as mature brothers and sisters in human society.
And this is what that looks like.
The supreme court doesn't fit into their model because they can't cancel it on twitter. So they just moved on to other stuff they could cancel. Reap what you sow.
They'll gleefully wave goodbye to "states' rights" when it suits them.
https://quillette.com/2019/05/21/rethinking-abortion-advocac...
https://m.soundcloud.com/therightsideirl/interview-coleman-h...
0: https://hwfo.substack.com/p/us-europe-abortion-law-compariso...
If you understand how the US Government works, then you understand that the Supreme Court cannot establish ANYTHING by removing laws. (ie overturning previous decisions).
What the Supreme court did was allow for the POSSIBILITY of a fully Catholic US State to practice Catholic religion with respect to abortion. It ALSO allows a fully Jewish state to practice Jewish religion however they want with respect to abortion.
They actual problem caused by overturning Roe v Wade is that some states who's laws are already catholic will regain the power to stop abortions in their state. That's it. California, New York, etc, are absolutely and completely unaffected by this decision, for example.
The US is an agreement. It is more comparable to the EU than it is Spain, or France, etc. Each state is meant to have autonomy relatively similar to a country, but are united together for purposes of national defense and human rights. that was the initial premise. it's expanded from there, but the constitution was a compromise.. states did not want to join the union just to transfer power from a king to a federal government.
The heart of the Republican platform is upholding that compromise. The heart of the Democratic platform is that was then, this is now, we are a single country and need to centralize more power.
This was actually part of the issue:
> After cataloging a wealth of other information having no bearing on the meaning of the Constitution, the opinion concluded with a numbered set of rules much like those that might be found in a statute enacted by a legislature.
For way too long the entire political argument in the US on way too many things has been punted to the Supremes to let the elected officials get out of any responsibility whatsoever.
I also hate that the pro-bodily freedom Americans have spent 50 years ignoring the shaky constitutional ground upon which this fundamental right lies.
The right wing ghouls are ultimately responsible, but I also heap scorn on the Democrats who failed to solidify the right to abortion in law.
That is precisely what happened. I wish I had kept that article, given how impressively prescient it was. Sadly I don't even know where to start looking.
There is a lot that blows my mind with this. The level of planning involved, and the willingness by the American right to set the country on fire to be able to control women's right is just amazing.
Spare me...
> legal abortion within the first trimester
And one party is pushing to make it 6 weeks (or less) or no abortions at all. Tell me more about "both sides".
A distraction from rampant inflation, censorship, who's responsible, etc.
I have a case pending in the United States Supreme Court that's fundamentally about Medical Freedom: https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/do... (original PDF is readable: https://teslabox.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/220503-Petit... )
tl/dr: my friend is forced by the State of Arizona to take prescription medications that do not help with her genetic condition of requiring methylated forms of Vitamin B-9 (she is harmed by foods with the shelf-stable food fortification folic acid). Her tendency to self-treat malnutrition-caused depression with substances (alcohol, mainly) is worsened by the psychiatric drugs forced on her. The FDA black box warning on one of them is for 'compulsive behavior'. Last January she was 'stabilized' with the medication that the Soviets used to re-educate their dissidents, when all she really needs is sobriety and an adequate diet.
On May 8 2022 she escaped from her guardian's custody, choosing to live on the street instead of a care home. After my petition appeared on the SCOTUS docket I agreed to help her. She got a housekeeping job at that motel. Her manager had no idea her forced treatment with anti-psychotic medications had lapsed.
While my petition is fundamentally about whether the States may perpetrate fraud on the United States Court, the core issue I presented is about medical freedom. From Page 21 [1]:
> While it may not be this court’s place to tell doctors that they don’t always know what they’re doing, it is the requirement of Constitutional governance that doctors be required to respect bodily autonomy. If a citizen of the United States does not consent to being injected with the Soviets’ preferred medication for dissident re-education, doctors should not able to use the courts to force this, or any other drug, approved or experimental, on any person.
> The principle of health freedom requires that people be allowed to make decisions for themselves, without coercion from others. If a person doesn’t want to have their brain electrocuted by their doctor, they shouldn’t be forced to endure this treatment. If a person is concerned they’ll have an adverse reaction to a medication or condition that the experts think is good for everyone, there can be no coercion against people making decisions for themselves, no matter their perceived competency
[1] https://teslabox.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/220503-Petit...
I'm now trying to whip up outrage on the internet about Arizona's use of the Soviet techniques of torture on our most vulnerable. But maybe Medicine is a sacred cow? How do I convince people that doctors and politicians should not be able to make medical decisions for anyone?
Our current technological civilization is EXTREMELY fragile. 5 attackers in 2014 took down a CA power grid and caused millions in damages. They were never caught.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/05/272015606...
I would both participate, and donate to strike support funds.
Obviously a flood of articles and takes coming. I'm just catching what I can here....
SCOTUS ruling: <https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf> (PDF)
EFF Statement on Dobbs ruling: <https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/effs-statement-dobbs-a...>
We’re Not Going Back to the Time Before Roe. We’re Going Somewhere Worse <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/07/04/we-are-not-goi...>
Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade, ending 50 years of federal abortion rights <https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/24/roe-v-wade-overturned-by-sup...>
Overturning Roe vs. Wade could affect IVF <https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-overturning-roe-v-wa...>
Obama Statement on the Draft Supreme Court Decision to Overturn Roe vs. Wade <https://barackobama.medium.com/my-statement-with-michelle-on...>
Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade Abortion-Rights Ruling <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-24/supreme-c...> (Use https://archive.today/ for paywall.)
Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, ending right to abortion upheld for decades <https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1102305878/supreme-court-abor...>
Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade; states can ban abortion <https://apnews.com/article/abortion-supreme-court-decision-8...>
Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade <https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-overturns-...>
Roe vs. Wade Overturned <https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-06-24/supreme-co...>
That's warped by the fact that rural votes count more than urban votes thanks to the electoral college.
edit: My point - since it seems I was not clear - is "rural" people that object to the activities that Roe, Lawrence, Olbergefell, and Griswold allowed can individually decide to not do those things. They should not be able to compel other people to make the same decisions. Abortion was correctly determined to be a federal right. So are same-sex marriage, contraceptives access, and the choice to have oral or anal sex (that's literally what Thomas explicitly talks about wanting to overturn, the right to engage in "sodomy" as determined in Lawrence vs Texas). People that don't like these things should NOT DO THEM and leave the rest of us the hell alone.
That's libertarian BS that misunderstands moral beliefs about collective "how society should be" as individualist "what actions I take." It's also usually hypocritical, as I'm guessing you wouldn't be fine with rural county clerks going about not registering same-sex marriages, since it "doesn't impact you."
This is you dictating how I behave - which I find a much larger pile of BS, personally.
> It's also usually hypocritical, as I'm guessing you wouldn't be fine with rural county clerks going about not registering same-sex marriages, since it "doesn't impact you."
This is not fucking hypocritical - once is a personal moral belief, that a person is welcome to either choose or not (abortion). The other is a clearly defined job you have been hired to do.
It is not hypocritical to insist that you do the job you are being paid to do - even if you disagree with parts of it. If you disagree so strongly that you feel you cannot do the job - Great. Stop fucking doing it.
Societies dictate how their members behave in significant ways according to moral beliefs. It's always been that way and it always will be. The libertarian solution is BS in this context, because it appeals to libertarian morals that aren't actually held by the people who are being complained about.
Of course they do - what we're arguing about is how we divide the pie. How much of your time and actions do you owe to society for the privilege of being a member.
I thought, as an American, it was fairly clear that we had decided that I owe you no part of the pie regarding my religion (1st) nor do I owe you any right to unreasonably search my body or possessions (4th).
I actually think we literally wrote those things in the MOST BASIC FUCKING CONTRACT we have that spells out how we expect our society members to behave. We call it the constitution.
Additionally I think that vast majority of the members of this society have decided that not only should we be secure in our right against unreasonable searches of body/home/possessions/mind stemming from religious bullshit, we should also be secure in our right to have confidential conversations with the people we literally trust our lives to: Doctors, Lawyers, Priests.
So when you say that my libertarian solution is BS - I'm a tad confused, where exactly did I get this wrong?
What part of this is not religious bullshit dictating how I behave, in a private setting where we have decided you don't get a fucking say? The only people who get a say are the woman who is dealing with the situation, her doctor, and the tiny pile of cells inside her. Turns out the tiny pile of cells makes a really shite debater, and it's only alive because it's sucking energy out of the lady.
So if, for example - that tiny pile of cells is killing the lady, or is going to die inside the lady either way, or is going to be born and then die shortly after, or fuck it... even if the lady just doesn't feel like letting it stay inside her anymore. I think that's a decision she can make for herself. With her doctors help. And without you nosing in like a fucking asshole.
I'm pretty sure that's the expectation for almost every other case of this. Why is this one different? Where did I misread the contract?
"Who cares what they think indeed"
If I want to disband and illegalize the Southern Baptist Convention because I sincere believe they are heretics, who cares about my sincerely held beliefs about what others should do? I should should just not go to a Southern Baptist church.
"In a 7–2 decision, the Court ruled on narrow grounds that the Commission did not employ religious neutrality, violating Masterpiece owner Jack Phillips's rights to free exercise, and reversed the Commission's decision. The Court did not rule on the broader intersection of anti-discrimination laws, free exercise of religion, and freedom of speech, due to the complications of the Commission's lack of religious neutrality."
That said, my moral/political stances haven't changed much, in fact I'm becoming more radical as time goes on. Who knows if it's because of living here or if it would have happened in the city anyway. Probably a mix.
there is a greater sharing of ideas in urban locations. more progression happens. they fail to spread the progression to rural locations.
It is a dynamic and evolving ecosystem and we are failing to educate and / or motivate rural locations to care about these things properly.
Instead urban culture usually acts superior, makes demands, and assume what they believe should be obvious and by not coming to the same conclusions immediately during a confrontation that means rural people are evil.
Rural people double down on the beliefs because at the end of the day nothing really matters and they might as well stick to something that gives them a sense of belonging since they very obviously do not belong with urban culture.
"...at the end of the day nothing really matters..." is the exact kind of worldview that rural people would prefer stay in the cities. If by "educating" me, you want to make me into a solipsistic nihilist, you can keep your education to yourself.
It does however mean someone has the right to choose whether or not they want to be a part of your community, and takes away your ability to use state and federal resources to enforce your choice as being more important than someone else's choice.
Texas and Missouri would like a word.
Texas: snitch on someone who had an abortion anywhere, and get paid.
Missouri: "Conspiracy to commit an abortion" is now a crime. The conspiracy happens when you get in your car or book the flight.
One - no shit, pro-choice has considerably less consequences on the people around you than pro life does.
Two - Nothing is invalidated, I made a sound argument that you are free to disagree with using your own sound argument. Using resources to support someones choice is not the same as using resources to take away someones choice. Abortion can be legal, and your state can still control to what extent resources will be used to support it.
Three - Yes I understand. I directed my previous message at rural people. the ones who decide on the laws. However, you advocate for people to go get an abortion in another state. that is pro-choice in spirit, isnt it? Why do you care if they cross a state border to get an abortion? If you are pro-choice, dont you want your state law to reflect that?
>Need an abortion but can't in your state? Get a flight or hop in a car.
except for the fact that "your" state can put you in jail for committing a crime if you do this.
I agree though that people should try to leave the state (entirely) if it has unagreeable laws and the majority in that state wants to preserve them. I also think the prolifers in my state should stop standing outside planned parenthood and move to a different state also. It's pretty dumb that people try to be a part of their community and improve it rather than move somewhere that already agrees with them, right?
(UK: we have similar issues about 'left behind' towns who are heavily subsidised by large cities)
Then when you don’t have a chance to vote for someone that represents your interests, your second best chance is voting for someone that matches your ideology. And ideology can be easily persuaded. The democratic party’s ideology obviously matches the ideology of the business class (or the coastal elite if you will), so what you are left with is the republican party. And ideology is easily persuaded so you start believing in the conservative talking points they use to pursue your vote.
Now I live in SLC.
I've gotten to know a lot of different people and their perspectives.
Some are obsessively political, and no doubt will be celebrating this decision. They will spend 3 hours congratulating each other for it the day after tomorrow.
Others are quietly moderate. They believe in many of the same Christian values, but don't see it as government's place to enforce them.
A few are more loudly moderate. They will take the time to present a different perspective and actually argue for it.
The combination of these three creates a social dynamic that supports anti-abortion legislation and other conservative political goals. Despite it not being the desire of every person in the community, that is what the community at large will support politically. Those who disagree don't have the means or support to be represented.
Meanwhile, in the city, I walk around the corner to the trax station, and see a handful of homeless people going about their lives. They ask for help finding their way to court or therapy. They ask for change because they can't get it on their own.
What I have learned is that rural conservative communities are self serving. Conservative ideas are promoted, represented, congratulated, etc. Critical perspectives are either silently held, or spoken to deaf ears.
The fallout of conservatism can't make a home there, and must instead walk away to the city where she can beg for begrudgingly given change.
The vast majority of threads are either regarding the interpretation of legal frameworks and their implications, or asserting a-priori values on start of life and following the rational implications thereof.
No-where do I see any discussions, or even caring about, how this affects women directly: the ability to govern their own bodies, their reproductive (and civil) rights. Or just the fact that they are de-jure 2nd-class citizens.
If you're serious, could you explain your claims?
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Societal issues are apparently high up in what good hackers find interesting along with technical things.
I think if you take this to heart, you might interpret what they're saying as a defense of HN readers; that they are more inclined to talk about the technicalities of this decision rather than the effect it may have on women because that is something they can comment on.
Tact may also play a role in why people hesitate to make comments of empathy, especially since simply expressing your disdain for the decision isn't particularly substantive. I'm certain many of the people that are choosing to talk about other aspects of the decision are wholly empathetic to the people this affects.
The result: reading about how yet another person is so mad about the ruling and “so tired of this country” and what a blow this is for women’s rights has gotten repetitive and uninteresting. After a certain point, reading such comments over and over again is just giving in to outrage porn.
Most members of HN recognize this and prefer the intellectual stimulation that comes from discussing more nuanced technical details.
But after spending nine months in woman's body the child becomes the part of her life for twenty next years. Should it rather be "my life - my choice"?
[0] https://www.americanadoptions.com/pregnant/waiting_adoptive_...
There are lots of people raising children against their will with no mechanism to relieve them of that duty, even if they revoke consent to raise the child in any form.
That's unfairly dismissing the possibility that a pro-life position could be motivated by empathy for the unborn, who are completely powerless.
We can do better than demonizing people who disagree.
The parent didn't claim a lack of empathy for all
That’s it. There is no requirement to meet some perceived bar of empathy beyond that for this to be a good faith argument.
“I bet you think shooting innocent people in the head is wrong, but yet you don’t volunteer at the soup kitchen every weekend, so do you ACTUALLY care about innocent people or are you just trying to control others?” Do you see how that’s a ridiculous non-sequitur? That’s the argument you just made against pro life people.
You can have a deep respect for innocent life and not be willing or able to spend weekends in a soup kitchen. You can't have a deep respect for innocent life while working to keep innocent lives from being able to survive.
"Baby murder is wrong" unless it's murder by exposure because the child was homeless, "screw the homeless!" the pro-life say or by starvation because screw the hungry! or by cancer, because screw the sick if they can't afford obscene medical costs! Pro-life people generally, don't care at all about the life of babies. They don't even care about murder. If baby food companies are killing kids by poisoning them with heavy metals they'll still decry any government regulations that would prevent that or hold baby food companies accountable. The Free Market can murder babies all day long. School shootings? No, we can't have sensible gun control laws proven to work in basically every developed nation around the globe! The pro-life say we just have live with those murders, nothing can be done! So tragic!
They want to claim the moral high ground but they are buried deep under their own filth.
- WIC (https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic)
- Food Stamps (SNAP - https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program)
- Medicaid (Health care for poor people) https://www.medicaid.gov/
- Section 8 subsidized housing (https://www.benefits.gov/benefit/710)I believe this is what OP is referring to - the same people who supposedly believe in the sanctity of human life are also the first to cut any programs that support it. So it's difficult to take their "pro-life" arguments in good faith.
"pro-life" really isn't as simple as you're making it sound. Only something like 15-18% of Americans support a total ban on abortion with no exceptions. So if we're limiting "pro-life" to only that position, then it's by definition a pretty extreme position, in fact most people would call it ridiculous: it's so extreme that it's very easy to ridicule.
If we widen a little to allow exceptions, well is that really "pro-life" anymore? Then you get into situations where you have to say, "well I think it's a life, therefore ending that life is killing, but the pregnant person will die if forced to carry the fetus to term, so... I guess killing is OK?". It's pretty weird.
Further, if the goal of pro-life Americans is to lower the number of abortions, here are policies we know work:
- sex education
- access to contraception
- support for parents and children (financial, educational, medical/mental health)
Oddly very very few pro-life Americans support any of this, which forces us to question their motives.
This Supreme Court has also just thrown out Miranda rights out the window and stomped on New York’s attempt to limit concealed weapon carries.
States rights my foot!
It’s unfair that Obama couldn’t even get Merrick Garland appointed with two terms in office, but Trump GOT THREE JUSTICES JAMMED THROUGH IN ONE TERM! Unprecedented and dangerous. They all lied to congress about their intentions during confirmation too. Immoral!
You will surely reap the whirlwind from what you sowed
> That’s it. There is no requirement to meet some perceived bar of empathy beyond that for this to be a good faith argument.
You seem to be saying that because the argument is simple, it's in good faith, but this is not how good faith arguments work, nor is it aligned with the common understanding of "good faith".
Pregnancy is not simple. The circumstances surrounding conception are often not simple. The post-birth reality for many kids is anything but simple. Our medical/scientific understanding of the development of a fetus is anything but simple.
To simply ignore the 2nd and 3rd order effects that result from the "simple" position of a pro life person is to willfully ignore the complexity of this issue. This willful ignorance by definition renders the argument unqualified to be considered good faith.
The simplicity of an argument is not an excuse for ignoring the complexity of the issue. In general, a "good faith" argument is built from a foundation of common understanding between all involved parties. A good faith argument acknowledges complexities and offers its own solutions. A good faith argument isn't made by covering one's ears and pretending those complexities don't exist.
To claim that "X argument is good faith because it's simple" is in itself a bad faith argument, or at best, uninformed about what good faith is generally expected to mean in discourse.
Exactly when it stops being a bundle of cells that can be removed without thought or empathy and becomes a "baby about to be born" where it should not be treated so negligently is in my mind the real question here. And don't ask me to tell you where that line is, because I have no idea.
I just hate that there is no room for nuance on this topic, no matter which "side" you talk to.
I avoid that issue entirely by leaving it as a matter of viability. As I've said elsewhere: As long as the mother's body is needed to sustain the life of the child, that life is subject to her whims. Her house. Her rules. The moment it can be removed and sustained without her, she should no longer have the right to abort it, only to surrender it.
It doesn't matter if it's a baby or just a clump of cells, if it's literally living in and feeding off of another living person that person should have a right to decide to continue or to stop allowing that. The child's right to exist against the wishes of its mother start as soon as it can do so without her.
It's easy to have empathy for people like you or that you agree with, but the real test is having empathy for those who aren't / you don't.
As for the reproductive rights, as long as contraception is legal (and who knows what will happen next) isn’t the choice at conception? Contraceptives should be untaxed and widely available.
People talk about Roe v Wade as if women spontaneously get pregnant against their will and are forced to care for the baby.
That being said women who are raped should be able to get an abortion imo
I actually find abortion a much trickier subject because there's an eviction involved, and it becomes a trickier subject because some physical force is typically needed to remove the entity.
Anything else is absolute horror of biological control and loss of bodily autonomy, and should be rightfully ignored, and anyone that thinks differently needs to think about minding their own business and not making a difficult thing more difficult. Those that use the legal system to enforce their hatred of women? Get off the planet please.
Personally I see no moral difference between abandoning life before or after birth. Neither wrong, but abandoning before birth requires a forceful eviction.
>The only person it is tricky for is the mother, who is the only person in the universe whos opinion matters on abortion, and we must abide by the decisions of the individual.
I mean to frame it as only involved life as the mother I think is disingenuous. Perhaps the fetus is not viable but it has to be at least considered in this equation, even if only to decide offspring has no rights to compel their parent to keep them alive.
That is, if you play by the rules of finding nations and constitutions to be legitimate :)
Is there ever a time between conception and birth where you’d call it baby murder?
anything else is none of your business.
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/sta...
I think it is unlikely that Griswold will ever be overturned – simply because it is unlikely any state will enact a total contraception ban. To overturn a precedent, it is not enough that a majority of Supreme Court justices think it was wrongly decided, you also need a case – which requires a state to enact and seek to actively enforce a law violating the precedent. But almost nobody wants such a law now. 1965 (when Griswold was handed down), 1873 (when the law it overturned was enacted) was a very different world – when most Christians still believed that contraception was a sin. Nowadays, the vast majority of non-Catholic Christians (Protestants, Orthodox, etc) accept contraception as moral at least in some cases. And while the Catholic Church teaches artificial contraception is inherently sinful, it displays no signs of any interest in having the government make that sin illegal (unlike the situation with abortion). You might find some crazy Catholic integralist advocating it, but the Bishops and the Vatican aren't going to.
The bans on (allegedly) abortifacient contraceptive methods could be challenged, but I expect SCOTUS will uphold them – and the majority will probably just uphold them as state regulation of abortion, not overturning Griswold itself. However, I think a lot of groups are going to refuse to support challenges, on the grounds that they don't want to give this SCOTUS an opportunity to overturn any more precedents they support, rather save it for the day (whenever it may come) when there is a SCOTUS majority more amenable to their views.
You don't need a new law that seeks to ban all birth control to challenge and lead to a repeal of Griswold. Maybe a former court would have tried to limit scope, but Dobbs vs Jackson wasn't about a total abortion ban, it was a ban at 15 weeks, and yet here we are.
Griswold isn't a political symbol to anywhere near the same extent. And even people who think contraception is a sin, don't get anywhere near as emotive about it as they do on the abortion issue.
Here’s a good indicator:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/24/politics/abortion-ruling-gay-...
Spoiler: it looks like contraceptives are likely next for SCOTUS.
> He emphasized a line the majority opinion that said "[n]othing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion." "We have also explained why that is so: rights regarding contraception and same-sex relationships are inherently different from the right to abortion because the latter (as we have stressed) uniquely involves what Roe and Casey termed 'potential life,'" Alito said.
75% of Americans want restrictions on abortion (beyond just Roe v wade’s shaky constitutional basis).
The vast vast majority of Americans are ok with contraceptives, same sex marriage has firm constitutional basis, etc these aren’t going away
When Clarence Thomas says "here's the slope I think we should slide down next", we're not in fallacy land anymore.
> these aren’t going away
Don't worry! They won't go away. It'll just be up to the state governments currently passing laws forcing women to carry rapists' babies to term to decide if you can have sex outside of marriage or not. States rights!
Across-the-board bans on contraception aren't happening, because almost nobody wants such a ban.
But overturning Obergefell? I think it is likely. According to 2021 polling data [0], there is still majority opposition to marriage equality in Mississippi (55% oppose) and Arkansas (52% oppose). It looks like the state government trying to overturn it would be a vote-winner in those two states – especially considering that people who actually vote often skew older and more conservative than the population in general, so opposition to it in those states may be even stronger among voters. There are other states where support is still quite weak, such as Alabama (49% support, 47% opposition) and South Carolina (50% support), so the same might be true for them as well. It only takes one state to act to get a case before the Supreme Court.
Except the Catholic Church, and 6 mostly conservative members of SCOTUS happen to be Catholic.
Also, much of the success of the movement to restrict abortion has been because it has been a cross-faith alliance - Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, Orthodox Jews, among others. The same winning formula won’t work for a general ban on contraception, because Catholics are the only member of that coalition who believe that artificial contraception is inherently sinful-the others view its moral acceptability as more situation-dependent.
The trigger laws that just went into effect in several cases would appear to ban some contraception, like IUDs (or, rather, criminalize it when they work), since they result in termination of pregnancy as the laws define it. (Because they use fertilization, not implantation, as the definition of the start of pregnancy.)
Of course, there's a proof issue for any actual prosecution for homicide, but that's a practical barrier to enforcement that doesn't affect what the law prohibits.
As for me, I say no. If a woman can terminate the pregnancy. a man should be able to waive his part in it. That still leaves the issue of a man losing a child he wants if she doesn't, but that issue, as well as the issue of abortion, will be solved once we find a way to transplant the fetus to an artificial womb. Until then there are no perfect solutions.
> As for the reproductive rights, as long as contraception is legal (and who knows what will happen next) isn’t the choice at conception?
Contraceptives can and do fail. Even if you're doing everything right. Contraceptives help, and comprehensive sex ed promoting the correct use of contraceptives goes a long way to help prevent unwanted pregnancies (as evidenced by higher teen pregnancy rates where they only provide "abstinence only" ignorance) but it doesn't solve the problem.
> People talk about Roe v Wade as if women spontaneously get pregnant against their will and are forced to care for the baby.
"spontaneously" or not, women do in fact get pregnant against their will. They also can get medical complications that require them to terminate willful pregnancies in order to protect their health and their lives. The loss of Roe v Wade means that more women will die. needlessly. More women will cruelly suffer. More children will cruelly suffer as well.
Indeed, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not against abortion. The situations you’ve mentioned are good reasons to have it.
My point is that the choice that people want already exists other than rape. Abortion should be legal, but not because reasons, but for medical necessity and for situations in which the choice that a woman does have is made for her (rape).
At any point, prior to where the fetus could be viable without its mother, the mother should have every right to terminate that pregnancy for literally any reason at all. Anything less would deny women their right to have control of their own bodies and lives.
Again, plenty of people end up pregnant against their will. Others will have fully intended to have a child, but their circumstances suddenly changed. It needn't always be due to some medical necessity. As long as the mother's body is needed to sustain the life of the child, that life is subject to her whims. Her house. Her rules. The moment it can be removed and sustained without her, she should no longer have the right to abort it, only to surrender it.
Contraception can and does fail.
>"..as if women spontaneously get pregnant against their will and are forced to care for the baby"
I would refrain from judgement at late stages of pregnancy but early on it is not your business what they do. Mind your own business and do not stick nose where it does not belong.
Also if you are so pro life why not to go and right away imprison every official whose action (like sending people to war when not directly attacked) cause death.
Pro choice is doesn’t literally mean “pro choice in all situations”, it’s shorthand for “abortion is a an individual choice and should be protected as such”.
Likewise pro life doesn’t mean “save all lives in all situations at all costs”. It’s short hand for “abortion is murdering babies, that’s wrong and should be outlawed like any other murder”.
This is exact my point of view, not sure what your overall post suppose to mean.
It's not so simple, when it comes to contraception, because various forms are controversial as well (even IUDs) and can also possibly become illegal.
In a submission that was posted and flagged for unclear reasons, it refers to an article that discusses some of the complexities and gray areas involved, like abortion pills or women being accused of murder because they had a stillbirth under "suspicious circumstances" (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/07/04/we-are-not-goi...). It might be worth a read, to see how various women can be looking at this issue, from a practical standpoint.
> ...women who are raped should be able to get an abortion imo
That's another part of the problem, when extremism gets involved, it can dissolve the issue into a total ban.
> ...do you believe that a man who gets a woman pregnant should have to support the child?
That's a good point, as various "Men's rights" have arguably been buried in the U.S. In various countries, an abortion can only happen if the father agrees or can't be found. To include other countries, where if a woman has a child against the will of the father, they allow or are proposing to allow men to renounce or give up their paternity rights or parental responsibility. Which is also kind of like how women are allowed to abandon (safe surrender) or give up a child for adoption, even against the will of the father, in various states and countries.
They have never been forced to care for the baby, but will now be forced to birth the baby - that still doesnt mean they will care for it, even if it is in the same home.
To the other point, women get pregnant from male sperm, yet it is somehow the female who has been burdened with trying to police this - any male partner/husband can now force a pregnancy though subterfuge leaving the female with little no other option then to carry out his will. Women can have sex all day long, every day of the week with multiple people and they will never get pregnant so long as a male does not ejaculate his sperm inside of her. Yet males are not held accountable for irresponsible ejaculations - maybe they will be monetarily accountable 10+ months later
The burden of un/wanted pregnancy falls onto the female, males have a choice to provide comfort and support (emotional, monetary) if they chose, males can still choose to be absent deadbeat parents too - they are not forced to pay, they can chose not to and depending on their lawyer situation can do so and keep their money, or not do so and have to take steps to hide their money.
Also, contraceptives fail and males don't have to care because the full physical health burden falls on the female. Like this whole topic, wanting a yes or no on something like this or if males should have to support a child just doesnt do it justice, there are too many ways in which that happens - but if a female has the choice to easily get an abortion without all of the burden, then if a male does not want a child and a female does, he should be free from it - but before that can happen - the female must be able to have the choice to carry it or terminate it without burden.
Banning abortion only makes access to safe abortions harder - if the right wing want to reduce abortions, making contraceptives freely available has been proven to dramatically reduce the abortion rate as evidenced in Colorado[1].
[1] - https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2019/06/05/aborti...
To anyone who is convinced abortion is baby murder, this is what you just said. This argument only ever makes sense if you treat the fetus like a non entity and believe the opposition to abortion is purely hatred of female autonomy. The vast majority of Americans in favor of some abortion restrictions (which 75% of Americans are) have that opinion not because of the above but because they believe that fetus becomes a person at some point between conception and birth.
I (and the vast majority of people) agree that contraception is important and should be widely available. You’re argument against abortion restrictions is completely incorrect though and that’s the point I made
But of course the slave owning framers of the constitution didn't care about that, considering the whole slave thing, so the federalist society judges that have been placed on the supreme court won't either
The legal argument is simple:
- The Constitution enumerates federal powers.
- Abortion is not enumerated federally (Article 1 Section 8)
- 10th Ammendment states that anything not explicitly enumerated to the federal gov or explicitly denied to the States is the legal territory of the States
This reversal doesn't ban abortion across the US. It returns the decision to the states, where it should be legally.
If we want a federal solution, we need an ammendment. This is exactly the same as how prohibition required an ammendment to ban alcohol.
Emotions, morals, etc., while important for driving the end result, still must comply with the legal system.
Can't wait for SCOTUS to apply the same logic to drug prohibition, which is also not at all an enumerated federal power (assuming the same logic that alcohol regulation isn't one either).
Oh they won't, because they're activist judges with an agenda not some impartial arbiter of the constitution
Though the one point I will make is that the federal government is enumerated the power to regulate interstate commerce, so while they can't ban the substances, they could make it illegal to transport them over state lines. Such is the reason you still can't take mj from one legal state to the next.
We should still be able to have bodily autonomy and consume whatever substance we want. Just like women should have bodily autonomy and not be forced to carry pregnancies against their will
This is exactly backwards
I'm arguing that those things should drive policy and laws, but we can't implement contradictory laws, and we can't just ignore existing laws when making new ones.
Instead we need to revise, rescind, or modify laws in compliance with existing ones. Otherwise there is no point to having laws to begin with.
But we do have some notes from judges such as the following:
As Justice Scalia observed, “the [ Ninth Amendment’s] refusal to ‘deny or disparage’ other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them, and even further removed from authorizing judges to identify what they might be, and to enforce the judges’ list against laws duly enacted by the people.” https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-9/n...
IMO, Congress should attack this from a Constitutional ammendment which makes its legality clear: abortions cannot be outlawed. Anything else is just another ticking time bomb, especially something contingent on a 9th ammendment interpretation.
Edit: after rereading the 1st ammendment, the wording of an ammendment should be consistent, so something like, "Congress shall make no law prohibiting the seeking or procedure of abortion."
Thinking more on the 9th, one would have to consider the right to destroy an unborn person, not just the right to bodily autonomy. This becomes a moral or philosophical exercise, perhaps. With the 14th ammendment, it now becomes a question of personhood, which I don't believe the Constitution defines. So I think I am content with my request for an ammendment and not 9th Ammendment guesswork.
Final edit: Turns out we have prior rulings that state that the 9th ammendment does not cover assisted suicide, which may be applicable to the case (potentially Person definition pending).
Washington v Glucksberg https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/521/702/
I see this frequently repeated, but it's clearly sophistry, similar to the language trick in a comment below where "It's not a baby, it's a fetus" is used to subvert reality.
Women can very well govern their own bodies, but a 6 month old baby is definitely not "their own body" and one can very well understand why large portions of society would want to see it protected against abuse.
This isn't a gendered issue, it's a worldview one. There's a very small skew towards males preferring it be illegal, but it's not enough to write off all opposition as male:
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opini...
Women favor legality by +28 percentage points
Men favor legality by +17 percentage points
That's...not a particularly small gender skew.
63 percent of women say abortion should be legal in all/most cases.
58 percent of men say abortion should be legal in all/most cases.
That's an ~5 percentage point gender gap, not a 10 percentage point gap.
I was thinking of it this way: Hallucinaut assumed that armitron was male, because a female would never make that argument. However, 46% of people who believe that abortion should be illegal in almost all cases are female, which makes Hallucinaut's assumption very bad.
Your approach is valid in other contexts, but I don't think it's the most relevant to the question I was addressing.
A fetus in the first or second trimester isn't capable of life outside the mother's womb. A vanishingly small percentage of people are even considering late-term abortions, but that's what you seem to be fixated on in all these threads.
Today a woman can be compelled to use an organ in her body to keep another person alive.
What’s to stop the court from ruling that if you have 2 kidneys you can be compelled to donate one to keep someone else alive?
What happens when a deadbeat dad is the only match for a child with organ failure? Why shouldn’t they be compelled to give up an organ to keep their offspring alive?
Libertarians should be in the streets protesting the loss of bodily autonomy. And all of us should be afraid.
Is your opinion that anyone can reneg on known consequences of their actions?
Don’t misunderstand, women should have a choice in what their bodies are used for. My assertion is, other than rape, they already have it with respect to having a kid or not.
> sex leading to kids is hardly some unknown fact
Oh, I'd wish. There are people who still - in the 21st century - do not have like basic knowledge about sexual wellness and have very weird (and sometimes very dangerous) ideas about contraception, safety and risks of pregnancy. I mean, it's hard for any educated person to believe in this shit, but I've met or read some pretty insane opinions. Like people who genuinely believe really weird nonsense such as that virgins cannot get pregnant their first time. And they aren't malicious folks (well, maybe some are, of course) - just awfully misinformed.
Humanity is in a very weird place. On the one hand we've walked on the Moon and about to conquer nuclear fusion power, but on the other hand we've just climbed down from the trees and learned how to make a fire.
For example birth control pills are 99% effective. From the NHS:
> When taken correctly, the pill is over 99% effective at preventing pregnancy. This means that fewer than 1 in 100 who use the combined pill as contraception will get pregnant in 1 year.
So, if you're in a relationship for 5 years, that's 1 in 20. For my group of people I know, this matches up pretty well.
That's ridiculous. Many people engage in sex using contraceptives design to prevent pregnancy, but we all know that contraceptives aren't 100% reliable. So the possibility of any given sex act leading to kids is absolutely an "unknown".
And that's before getting into the point about how, in many places in the world, knowledge of (or access to) contraceptives is withheld from portions of the population to begin with. For that matter, there are some (mostly very young, I expect) who don't understand the whole "sex leads to kids" thing.
For example birth control pills are 99% effective. From the NHS:
> When taken correctly, the pill is over 99% effective at preventing pregnancy. This means that fewer than 1 in 100 who use the combined pill as contraception will get pregnant in 1 year.
So, if you're in a relationship for 5 years, that's 1 in 20. For my group of people I know, this matches up pretty well. I have one friend who has three children. They were all conceived while on birth control.
That's usually how medical treatment works, yes. We don't tell people who fall off a ladder, slice their finger chopping vegetables, or break a bone playing sports "You knew the risk, you're just gonna have to live with the consequences of your choices"
That's a separate question from whether that loss of bodily autonomy is justified.
> Women choose to have sex consensually, no?
Well, yes, sometimes. Maybe you could be more explicit about how you think that justifies the loss of bodily autonomy?
For example, maybe you have a principle like "If you played a necessary role in the creation of a person, then you can be compelled to use your body to support their life." Do you think fathers should be compelled to donate blood or organs to their offspring?
No more or less than eating certain foods or consuming certain beverages.
Being forced by the State (ie at the point of a gun) to carry a pregnancy to term is not an inevitable "consequence". It's a choice.
Women have a long history of using abortifacients to terminate pregnancy, so there's nothing "natural" or inevitable about forced birth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion
In Roman times, Silphium was such a popular abortifacient that the plant was over-harvested to extinction.
Your argument is effectively that people should be able to reneg on the consequences of actions if those consequences are not desirable.
I think you've gone a little too broad with that principle. If I ask a taxi to take me somewhere, I can get out if I notice the driver is drunk. If I accidentally spill a glass of water, I can clean it up. And so on.
Well, yes.
Why did you say "other than rape (in which abortion should be allowed imo)"? Either you think the foetus has value and needs to be brought to term, or you don't. That makes it seem that you aren't deciding based on the value of the foetus or the importance of all life, but rather want to assert superiority and punish women for having sex. What difference does it make to the importance of the foetus if the pregnancy was rape or not? Why does that make more difference than whether the pregnancy is wanted or not?
You can eat meat from murdered animals every day, you can pierce or tattoo your body or kill brain cells with alcohol, you have the right to return a $5 plastic toy for a refund, but if your birth control fails you can't kill 10 cells. Has it any more soul or value at that stage than the hair or fingernails you cut off without a thought, or the dead skin you shed, or the spit you spit? Why does it have more value than the woman?
That's literally the entire basis of modern medical intervention, yes.
Induced abortion has, from documentary evidence, been a thing for at least ~3500 years, and even without induced abortion very many pregnancies historically ended in miscarriage (still the case) and/or maternal death (much less the case, now, but still a concern.)
We do have still work to do in making the end of the pregnancy the desired one (healthy baby), yes.
I think you mean something other than “inevitable” here, since “inevitable” means “cannot be avoided”, such that if A and B is the inevitable consequence, than B must happen with 100% certainty.
But childbirth isn't even approximately an inevitable consequence of pregnancy.
I'm still curious what principles you think justify the enforcement of the latter, and especially why they don't cover things like the OP's forced organ donation scenario.
Edit: Just to expand on the first point, I think there's some circular reasoning going on here.
If the claim is "people should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term," you can't support that with "because people should endure the consequences of their actions" if "consequences of their actions" means "being forced to carry a pregnancy to term."
Because then you're just saying "people should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term because people should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term."
If you can come up with a way to loan someone an organ for 9 months and then get it back when you're done with it, then this argument would be coherent. As is, I'd re-evaluate it if you have any intention of persuading someone on the opposite side of this issue.
I agree, but I also tend to think this battle was lost when the SCOTUS refused to reject the "individual mandate". When you've reduced the notion of individual agency to the level that the State can dictate what items you must purchase, this is an entirely logical consequence.
This is why I'm a Libertarian who largely opposes abortion on a purely personal level, but is 100% pro-choice on a political level. But at the same time, I can respect those who hold the other position based on the NAP. I'd just argue that with no objective way to resolve the dispute, it's best to not bring the State into it.
The fetus is welcome to continue living. It simply can’t live in this particular womb.
If ‘pro-life’ people genuinely cared about the unborn (rather than controlling women) they would have invested in researching artificial wombs and pregnancy transfers. But they don’t.
Here's an analogy: if you're flying people somewhere in your helicopter, are you allowed to push them out, or are you required to "sacrifice" your own helicopter to keep them alive until you land safely?
> The fetus is welcome to continue living. It simply can’t live in this particular womb.
Your passengers are welcome to stay in the air. They simply can't in that particular helicopter.
> If ‘pro-life’ people genuinely cared about the unborn (rather than controlling women) they would have invested in researching artificial wombs and pregnancy transfers. But they don’t.
If people genuinely cared about helicopter passengers (rather than controlling pilots), they would have invested in jet packs and antigravity devices. But they don't.
You are right though that more people overall - even those who skew conservative and pro-individual rights, should realize that if you take away rights from women, and then homosexuals, and then people who want to be married to someone of a different race... where does it end in terms of stripping away individual rights? I'd argue that if you view women's health care as a matter of individual freedom and rights, then is that not the same argument being made in interpreting the 2nd amendment as not about militias (IE: a standing army) but the rights of the individual? If I can tell women they can't have a set of health care services, what's stopping the government from telling men that they can't have a different set of health care services?
We can argue that it should be, but now we're talking about an ammendment, which is legally necessary and the real conversation the nation should be having.
*I don't think it could ever qualify as a right. Rights are negative, not positive. You could not guarantee the right to an abortion because now you're guaranteeing someone to the right to have someone else do work for them. Instead, it would need to be enumerated as a negative right, meaning that there would be federal protection against the outlawing of abortions.
Militia does not mean standing army. From the Supreme Court Heller decision https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf, page 2:
"The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved."
You can read pages 1 and 2 of that decision to see the summary of the Supreme Court's argument for why 2nd Amendment rights are individual rights.
"United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes."
It is also about time that we abolish all laws that makes distinctions based on gender and sex. That way there won't be any 2nd-class citizens encoded in law that is based on gender.
I'm a woman and extremely poor. I've been a member for nearly thirteen years.
It's possible but challenging to present a female point of view here. Reproductive issues and what I generally think of as human sexual morality are always hard to talk about anywhere.
I think for a lot of women, this is a very threatening turn of events. That's going to make it challenging to discuss it in the rational style required by HN guidelines even before accounting for the gender ratio here.
I'm quite fond of HN and have come to see a lot of the practices here as not male per se but as best practices for public discourse and I have come to believe that women tend to be raised to engage in a fashion more appropriate for private discourse.
So I think there's a somewhat steep learning curve involved for most women that gets conflated with sexism and complicates attempts by women to give voice to a female point of view here.
If you can express yourself in accordance with best practices for public discourse, you can be heard here. Trying to figure out how to do that while not spazzing about sexism ...well, it's challenging and I think most women lack sufficient reason to keep at it, so they tend not to.
Right?
"Dang. Poor Dang".
Just vote with the people that won't ban abortion.
Imagine if it was something else like marijuana legalization and whatnot.
That really depends on when those laws were passed, and whether attitudes have changed since then, doesn't it?
Most of these laws weren't passed last year, and the issue has been legislatively moot for 50 years, so you're going to have a very hard time convincing me that those laws represent the current will of the people in every state.
> you are wanting to subvert their democratic process, no?
Yes. I believe there are and should be restrictions on what the majority of a state can pass.
I do want to subvert the democratic process in some specific instances. For example, if the majority of a state I didn't live in wanted to legalize slavery, I would say that they do not get that choice and that they may not.
It's not like this is groundbreaking. There are all kinds of federal laws that preempt state laws on various topics.
Pretty sure CA just had the will of its voters thrown out just yesterday relating to their gun laws, so maybe it's not so sacrosanct.
https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/prior-elections/statewide-e...
http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout...
It's not that easy.
Roe vs. Wade is a classical example of judicial activism. The right to privacy clearly doesn't have anything to do with abortion.
I have thoughts I'd like to discuss, but apparently this isn't the place to do it.
I blame the downvote mechanism for rewarding echo chambers and punishing outlier opinions.
/Shrug.
There you go.
It is also quite clear that the Supreme Court of the United States doesn't care about their feelings. All you get here is reactionary takes, outrage, screeching and a mixture of trillions of emotions on display.
If you don't want to move, then when you get pregnant, go to a state where it is legal.
American's cannot be inconvenienced. These 1st world problems are terrible.
And there's nothing stopping states from criminalizing traveling out of state for an abortion.
Except there are laws that allow one state to prosecute abortions in another. And SCOTUS will absolutely uphold these laws. They've already upheld the right for private citizens to sue people that they believe have had one.
Just make stuff up why don't you.
EDIT: Abortion is not in the Constitution in any way, it's not a right.
The second that Republicans have a majority in Congress and the Presidency, they will pass a federal ban on abortion in all the states.
They may want to. I’m skeptical. But it’s unconstitutional.
The members of the Court that claim to be pick and choose which material they're originalist or textualist regarding, particularly in this case. Others are just idealogues nominated and confirmed to be political tools of the Republican party. You should not have faith in them, their credibility is shot.
"reproductive healthcare", correct.
"mothers killing their own babies in the womb", also correct.
Echoes of Babel.
EDIT: I'm not sure what you mean by that. Are you upset about SCOTUS citing common law tradition? Most of our law works that way, you have to build on something. Even "reason" needs axioms and you have to find a way to pick those.
EDIT2: There are a surprising number of people who want to decriminalize theft and even murder in some situations (look up "mutual combat" in Chicago.)
Wasn't there just a thread here a few days ago that had a bunch of people arguing that the decriminalization of shoplifting in San Francisco is a good thing?
Missouri tried. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/03/us-abortions-t...
Also if you keep calling conservatives Nazis eventually they might start wondering why, they might start remembering and noticing things you'd rather they forget.
That's the difference between rights and privileges -- As of this week I can't vote away your your right to carry concealed weapon in my city, but you can vote to take away my access to abortion, or even contraception in yours?
SCOTUS has said that states may decide how to regulate it. Individual states will either ban, or not, as their constituents wish.
The next step is clearly to advocate for explicit legislation.
The Supreme Court invented a personal right to bear arms from a 250 year old amendment during my lifetime and is now not only ignoring words that are in there but adding words that aren’t
Anyone trying to apply logic to this is just facilitating nonsense because these decision are based in ideology not logic. Don’t launder it for them.
So there you go, freedom for Christian's not for anyone else, a good Christian nation! /s
The current administration had a majority in both houses, knew this decision was coming, yet did nothing.
Does nobody read history anymore?
To blame this on Christians/Catholics is singling out a religion, a protected group similar to blaming Blacks or Jews. In fact its exactly the same - its literally a protected class.
1) Abortion (in my opinion) should not be a constitutional right. I can't name a country that has abortion as a constitutional right. More generally: the constitution should care about super-general, universally-agreed values, let's leave everything else to the legislative branch!
2) Roe v. Wade was a bad decision. Before you downvote me, read the 14th Amendment: how the judges could infer from it at the time a right to abortion is beyond me! I can squint my eyes a lot, but the right is simply not there!
Edit: downvoters, go read the 14th Amendment, and tell me if you can honestly read a right to abortion in there.
See: The 2nd amendment.
However, notice the difference: the 2nd Amendment is extremely clear in granting the right to bear arms, whereas the 14th Amendment needs to be twisted in an almost comical way to get out of it a right to abortion.