Supreme Court Draft Opinion on Abortion Rights

[little bongo]

My body, my choice?

I'm all in, but rings a bit hollow when we have seatbelt laws, motorcycle helmet mandates, prohibition on certain drugs, prostitution ban in most places, and an inability to sell your kidney. Ladies, if you're on board with all those things I'm on your side. If you aren't, I still agree with choice but won't be joining you in the picket line. Have fun with authoritarianism aimed in your direction!

That is an incredibly ugly, patronizing, condescending thing to say.  I am incensed that you say Have fun with authoritarianism aimed in your direction!  How dare you make light of  a legal decision that undermines much of what women and minorities have gained over the past 50 years.

I'd just like to point out that there are women, including minority women, who are pro-life. Whether human rights should begin at birth is a legitimate question for discussion.

Hawkeye to Charles on M*A*S*H: "Charles, you don't have to state the incredibly obvious. The extremely obvious will do."

[marshwiggle]

My body, my choice?

I'm all in, but rings a bit hollow when we have seatbelt laws, motorcycle helmet mandates, prohibition on certain drugs, prostitution ban in most places, and an inability to sell your kidney. Ladies, if you're on board with all those things I'm on your side. If you aren't, I still agree with choice but won't be joining you in the picket line. Have fun with authoritarianism aimed in your direction!

Those laws are designed to protect the health and safety of a person and the people around them.

The right to choose whether or not to be pregnant and/or give birth is also about protecting the health and safety of the person who needs to decide about the impact a clump of cells will have on their lives.

So if a woman gets pregnant and wants to have a child, and her male partner doesn't, and decides to clandestinely feed her a date rape drug so she aborts, is he just guilty of being a jackass, like he would be if he fed her brownies laced with ex-lax  since both will probably only make a few days discomfort? (I'm sure it would be easy to come up with something that could remove as many cells without causing any long term damage. Should any "clump of cells" have the same legal significance?)

[Istiblennius]

My body, my choice?

I'm all in, but rings a bit hollow when we have seatbelt laws, motorcycle helmet mandates, prohibition on certain drugs, prostitution ban in most places, and an inability to sell your kidney. Ladies, if you're on board with all those things I'm on your side. If you aren't, I still agree with choice but won't be joining you in the picket line. Have fun with authoritarianism aimed in your direction!

Let's not attach any legitimacy to the logical fallacy of conflating practices that are equally applied to everyone with practices that impinge on the rights of half the populace only.

Let's also not fall into the trap of calling this bs "pro-life". It's pro-birth. Most of the folks who are out there fighting to take away my rights would have no interest in providing any kind of meaningful social safety net to support the forced-birth children. Let's also not forget that many abortions are medically necessary to either protect the life of a parent or prevent incredible pain and suffering of a very much wanted child.

[Parasaurolophus]

I'd just like to point out that there are women, including minority women, who are pro-life. Whether human rights should begin at birth is a legitimate question for discussion.

Yes, women are not monolithic. But 70% of Americans support the right to choose in one form or another, and 81% of American women support it, according to Gallup. So...

So if a woman gets pregnant and wants to have a child, and her male partner doesn't, and decides to clandestinely feed her a date rape drug so she aborts, is he just guilty of being a jackass, like he would be if he fed her brownies laced with ex-lax  since both will probably only make a few days discomfort? (I'm sure it would be easy to come up with something that could remove as many cells without causing any long term damage. Should any "clump of cells" have the same legal significance?)

Drugging people against their will is illegal, and rightly so. Last February, a bride was arrested in Florida for clandestinely lacing her wedding dinner with cannabis. And rightly so. These scenarios look entirely the same to me; the clump of cells in question doesn't enter into it.

[dismalist]

Yes, women are not monolithic. But 70% of Americans support the right to choose in one form or another, and 81% of American women support it, according to Gallup. So...

And they all live in different places and will be able to vote accordingly, something they are not allowed to do now. People differ.

Here is a shorter defense of the draft on constitutional grounds, from the Atlantic, no less.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/alito-roe-opinion-abortion-states-rights-constitution/629755/

[downer]

It isn't plausible that there's a strict distinction between interpreting what the law is and deciding what the law should be. Maybe there are some clear cases, but most of legal interpretation is in the penumbra of disputed cases. Judges are making law, not just interpreting it, and are very often guided by their own moral and political inclinations. It happens on both sides. It couldn't be otherwise. Literalism and originalism about law are just naive positions.

The patriarchal fascist right have plotted carefully and have won this round. I see lots of people saying how shocked they are. I don't know why. It was very clear this was the plan.

[dismalist]

It isn't plausible that there's a strict distinction between interpreting what the law is and deciding what the law should be. Maybe there are some clear cases, but most of legal interpretation is in the penumbra of disputed cases. Judges are making law, not just interpreting it, and are very often guided by their own moral and political inclinations. It happens on both sides. It couldn't be otherwise. Literalism and originalism about law are just naive positions.

The patriarchal fascist right have plotted carefully and have won this round. I see lots of people saying how shocked they are. I don't know why. It was very clear this was the plan.

Then the patriarchal fascist right look to me like a bunch of weak reeds: They have not prohibited abortion. They said people could vote on it.

It will be State by State and the people inside States are more homogeneous than the population at large.

Here's how the cookie is predicted to crumble: https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/map-23-states-ban-abortion-post-roe-america-rcna27081 [three of those 23 entities are possessions, not States.]

And, free movement of people will mean that it becomes slightly more expensive for some to obtain an abortion, nothing more.

[Istiblennius]

I read an op ed the other day with a title that resonated - "Let's stop calling it the culture wars. This is religious tyranny". Spot on.

[Parasaurolophus]

Yes, women are not monolithic. But 70% of Americans support the right to choose in one form or another, and 81% of American women support it, according to Gallup. So...

And they all live in different places and will be able to vote accordingly, something they are not allowed to do now. People differ.

The whole point of having the trigger bills in place, along with hefty gerrymandering, is to ensure that they can't vote on it.

Here is a shorter defense of the draft on constitutional grounds, from the Atlantic, no less.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/alito-roe-opinion-abortion-states-rights-constitution/629755/

I don't know about "no less"--it's a pretty awful publication IMO, given to clickbait and the Slate school of hot takes rather than substance.

This defense is more of the same. I don't have the time to go through it and refute it point by point for you, so I'll content myself with observing that the defense, like the opinion, makes absolutely no effort to address the nature of the common law and the role of stare decisis, and it perpetuates the fiction that Roe is substantively different from Obergefell, Loving, Griswold etc. Those decisions all rest--transparently so--on the right to privacy, which is precisely what's being denied in Dobbs. They have nothing to do with questions of consent--indeed, to frame Roe as a question about a foetus' consent is to beg the question. The pretence that the Court is taking no substantive position on whether abortion should be legal is transparent bullshit. In fact, this "defense" is basically indistinguishable from the opinion itself. I see no analysis here, just regurgitation.

There's no question that the right to privacy is an ill-fitting justification for Roe and the other cases. That doesn't make the opinion worth the paper it isn't printed on.

Incidentally, those five justices perjured themselves in their confirmation hearings.

[dismalist]

Yes, women are not monolithic. But 70% of Americans support the right to choose in one form or another, and 81% of American women support it, according to Gallup. So...

And they all live in different places and will be able to vote accordingly, something they are not allowed to do now. People differ.

The whole point of having the trigger bills in place, along with hefty gerrymandering, is to ensure that they can't vote on it.

Here is a shorter defense of the draft on constitutional grounds, from the Atlantic, no less.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/alito-roe-opinion-abortion-states-rights-constitution/629755/

I don't know about "no less"--it's a pretty awful publication IMO, given to clickbait and the Slate school of hot takes rather than substance.

This defense is more of the same. I don't have the time to go through it and refute it point by point for you, so I'll content myself with observing that the defense, like the opinion, makes absolutely no effort to address the nature of the common law and the role of stare decisis, and it perpetuates the fiction that Roe is substantively different from Obergefell, Loving, Griswold etc. Those decisions all rest--transparently so--on the right to privacy, which is precisely what's being denied in Dobbs. They have nothing to do with questions of consent--indeed, to frame Roe as a question about a foetus' consent is to beg the question. The pretence that the Court is taking no substantive position on whether abortion should be legal is transparent bullshit. In fact, this "defense" is basically indistinguishable from the opinion itself. I see no analysis here, just regurgitation.

There's no question that the right to privacy is an ill-fitting justification for Roe and the other cases. That doesn't make the opinion worth the paper it isn't printed on.

Incidentally, those five justices perjured themselves in their confirmation hearings.

The trigger bills have been passed by the State legislatures. They were voted on.

I read the opinion differently.

No perjury, according to an article in the Guardian, no less. [Can't re- find it.]

Roe is well-nigh universally looked upon as bad court decision making. [Casey riles me even more.] It's the outcome that many people like. For almost everybody, the outcome will not be different if Roe goes.

[downer]

It isn't plausible that there's a strict distinction between interpreting what the law is and deciding what the law should be. Maybe there are some clear cases, but most of legal interpretation is in the penumbra of disputed cases. Judges are making law, not just interpreting it, and are very often guided by their own moral and political inclinations. It happens on both sides. It couldn't be otherwise. Literalism and originalism about law are just naive positions.

The patriarchal fascist right have plotted carefully and have won this round. I see lots of people saying how shocked they are. I don't know why. It was very clear this was the plan.

Then the patriarchal fascist right look to me like a bunch of weak reeds: They have not prohibited abortion. They said people could vote on it.

It will be State by State and the people inside States are more homogeneous than the population at large.

Here's how the cookie is predicted to crumble: https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/map-23-states-ban-abortion-post-roe-america-rcna27081 [three of those 23 entities are possessions, not States.]

And, free movement of people will mean that it becomes slightly more expensive for some to obtain an abortion, nothing more.

As I said upthread, I agree that the actual consequences from the decision will be less dramatic than people are saying. Women in the 23 states are going to find all sorts of ways around the law. They always have. There's plenty of advice online about how to get abortion pills.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/884m9x/how-to-do-your-own-abortion-with-pills

I'm sure the right would implement a federal ban on abortion if they could find a way. And maybe they will. And they might declare the US to be a Christian country. Democracy in the US is minimal and fragile as it is, and the political world is likely to become increasingly chaotic and unstable.

[Parasaurolophus]

The trigger bills have been passed by the State legislatures. They were voted on.

They were voted on by gerrymandered state legislatures, not by the general populace. Moreover, electing those legislators was not a referendum on the issue.

For almost everybody, the outcome will not be different if Roe goes.

...how do you figure? Texas has already been charging women with homicide.

[dismalist]

I'm sure the right would implement a federal ban on abortion if they could find a way.

Better keep the filibuster! :-)

[dismalist]

The trigger bills have been passed by the State legislatures. They were voted on.

They were voted on by gerrymandered state legislatures, not by the general populace. Moreover, electing those legislators was not a referendum on the issue.

For almost everybody, the outcome will not be different if Roe goes.

...how do you figure? Texas has already been charging women with homicide.

Looks like charges were dropped. It is not a crime to have an abortion in Texas. But the people of Texas can decide, not you or me, seeing we don't live there.

Gerrymandered? Are you against the dictatorship of Parliament? Not the general populace, not a referendum ... .

Correct. That's how the enterprise was intended. No tyranny of the majority.

Where you see problems, I see solutions. Where you see solutions, I see problems. You and I are different. We can't both be right, but we can both be wrong.

[marshwiggle]

I read an op ed the other day with a title that resonated - "Let's stop calling it the culture wars. This is religious tyranny". Spot on.

Ah, so all of the opposition comes from a single religious group which controls a majority of the country. Who, exactly, would that be? (As far as I know, Christian denominations support a broad range of opinions on this, so any denomination would at most have a hold on a minority of voters, even if all of the people in the denomination voted the way they were "told".)