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Comment by mmaunder | Hacker News Reader

I strongly recommend reading Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s thoughts on Roe v Wade in 1992 - expressed about a year before she became a Supreme Court justice.

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...

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this may come across as emotional, and I suspect it is, so feel free to downvote me. but that person, dead or alive, is completely non-grata to me. she is a big part to blame for allowing the court to become so heavily conservative. if she had stood down in Obama's early years, when she was asked to, it would be a 5-4 split, and a good chance that they wouldn't have had the balls to follow through with this

Agreed. RBG's refusal to step down was a massive blunder. She had too much of a cult of personality around her, and it went to her head.

I'll try my best to phrase this delicately, as I understand it's an emotional topic for Americans right now, but perhaps RBG chose not to step down because she knew that the action of stepping down was inherently political, and after years on the court, had decided to avoid setting a precedent of Blue/Red judges tactically stepping down when their respective party is in power.

Who knows what her real reasoning may have been, but that's my interpretation.

This is an interesting take I haven’t seen before. It is intriguing.

That doesn’t change it from being a blunder since it IS inherently political and the consequences were the same.

I agree. In her shoes, I would not have done the same.

I am not American, so forgive my question, what is the context? Was she expected to step down due to age, so Obama could appoint a new judge? Rather than dying by age under a different president?

If she had stepped down before 2016, Obama would have been able to appoint another liberal judge to replace her, and the political balance of the court would have remained unchanged. Instead, she died in 2020 and Trump replaced her with a far more conservative judge, which is indirectly one of the reasons why Roe v Wade was just overturned.

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.

Roberts' concurrence did not extend to overturning Roe - he stopped at Casey.

In your hypothetical, Roe would still be the law of the land today.

yeah, thanks for the link and i recall (from years ago) reading about her thoughts on the subject. roe v wade was a sweeping judgement that (depending on how you looked at it) guaranteed women's rights at the expense of state autonomy WRT laws.

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

It should have been codified into law decades ago, but EVERYONE with few exceptions loves to fundraise off of it.

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.

That's an overly dramatic take. My prediction is that Republicans will now begin losing seats in red State legislatures precisely because of this decision.

'now begin'

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).

It could be felt in November, or in 2024. 2026 at the latest.

The republicans have already indicated they are done with democracy. Why would they care if the voters don’t like it? They’ll just change the electors to whoever picks what they want

No they wont

They believe they can. They tried last election and they'll try again as they had zero fucking consequences. If you think they wont try you are either one of them or have your head in the sand.

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!

Really? I was under the impression that we've split enough geographically that the citizens of red states would support this decision.

>That's an overly dramatic take. My prediction is that Republicans will now begin losing seats in red State legislatures precisely because of this decision.

Unlikely.

cf.:

https://www.cesifo.org/en/node/60300

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/13/least-thr...

https://www.evcnational.org/partisan-gerrymandering

https://changetherules.org/gerrymandering-united-states/

> It should have been codified into law decades ago,

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.

From Kavanaugh's concurrence:

"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 disappointed with the decision, but it's an obvious reaction to what conservatives view as "the extreme left/progressives" pushing too far/hard. "...when the pendulum swings too far in one direction it will go back" (RBG)

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.

This is sadly true. Within one hour of the decision, I had spam text messages from both parties trying to raise money against the decision

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