According to press reports, today's arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization were all over the map. The Mississippi law at issue bans most abortions after 15 weeks—compared to the current limit in Roe v. Wade of about 23 weeks—and there are several ways the Supreme Court could rule:
- Affirm the current limits in Roe v. Wade and simply strike down the Mississippi law. This is highly unlikely.
- Accept the 15-week limit in a narrow decision.
- Create a new standard based on fetal viability that would have a variable impact depending on both technological progress and subsequent court rulings.
- Flatly overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to do whatever they want.
The legal impact of the Mississippi law¹ is evident in this chart:
If the Supreme Court adopted the Mississippi standard and kept it, it would affect only about 5% of all abortions. In fact, it would be less than 5% since certain late abortions would still be legal and pregnant women would probably be motivated to get abortions earlier if they want them. Call it 3-4% or so.
But that's only if the Court inexplicably agrees to adopt 15 weeks as a permanent limit. That seems improbable, though. If the justices affirm the Mississippi law in a narrow decision, it seems highly likely that it's just the first step toward overturning Roe completely.
In any case, it's probably going to be a messy decision. There are almost certainly three votes to overturn Roe and three votes to keep it in place. But then what? Among Roberts, Barrett, and Kavanaugh are there two more votes to overturn Roe? Or will the three of them adopt three entirely different reasons for accepting the Mississippi law without overturning Roe? And if that happens, what exactly will be the majority holding?
Hold your breath. This is likely to be a convoluted and razor thin split decision when it's released next year.
¹The real-world impact is greater since the law intersects with lots of other state-level policies that impact abortion. But this is very hard to quantify.
Well, its more than "highly likely" that its just one step. Its more or less a certainty.
The anti abortion position is that they don't want any abortions on demand. Maybe some narrow exceptions. Anyone who thinks they are going to stop at cutting back abortions by 5% is smoking some good stuff.
Moreover, anyone who thinks that this same group is going to stop at the issue of abortion, and forget about all the other current "sins" the religious right would love to make illegal are also not paying attention.
Legally, its unclear to me if Barrett, Kavenaugh or Gorsuch believes that the real rule ought to be that the fetus is a person under the Constitution, which has only one benefit, that being that legally any imposition on the rights of the mother are not going to be enough to justify "killing" a "person."
Viability is a completely separate legal standard so maybe that will be it.
I mean, anyone who doesn't think that sitting out the election in 2016 meant that Roe was going down (which it is, either in one swoop or by may cuts), really angers me -- can't we liberals even pay attention to reality? The f ing Repubs have no problem paying attention to total fantasy.
Sheesh.
I still see the occasional "Jill, Not Hill" bumper sticker around which is just astounding.
Do you key those cars?
@Yikes
-- can't we liberals even pay attention to reality?
Like the author of this blog, who recently argued the culture wars are the liberals' fault because liberals go too far.
I don't recall liberals packing the court with hacks to overturn 50 years of "settled" legal precedent protecting fundamental human rights, but maybe I missed something.
"Like the author of this blog, who recently argued the culture wars are the liberals' fault because liberals go too far."
That's not what Kevin said, and the perpetual misrepresentation of what he said is irritating. He claimed neither that the culture wars are liberals' "fault," nor that they went too far. He has some issues with some of the tactics involved, but that's not the same thing.
What Kevin actually said is that the liberals initiated the culture wars by demanding changes in society. The idea that this is identical to saying that it is liberals' fault implies that they were wrong to do so. Kevin, in fact, very explicitly stated that initiating the culture wars in this way was the correct thing to do. If there's fault to be had, it lies with conservatives for refusing to do the morally correct thing and treat gays, women, and people of color as full human beings.
I realize that it has become fashionable among a set of commenters to attack Kevin for being some sort of Republican in disguise, but it's really stupid.
Nope.
Kevin's shunting of the cultural insurgents in the Blackempowermenthomosexualspecialrightsfeminazietc movement to the level of temper tantrum by petulant, overly excitable children is just of a piece with his Warren Democrat position. While La Cacique isn't as loud as Bernie in the contention that neoliberal identitarianism has been the largest (only, really?) roadblock to Big Structural Change in the way of Universalized Medicare, et. al., that would definitely be the white-centered ex-Republican academic's argument.
Really, it's no surprise an Orange County Rockefeller Republican, putoff by the crazier pronouncements of B1 Bob Dornan, Darrell Issa, Devin Nunes, Hello Larry Elder, & the rest, would find a political home with a fellow disgruntled GQPer like Elizabeth Warren.
"He claimed neither that the culture wars are liberals' "fault," nor that they went too far."
For chrissakes, man, learn to read. Of course, he said said the culture wars are the liberals' fault. Here's the title for his little tirade: If you hate the culture wars, blame liberals.
https://jabberwocking.com/if-you-hate-the-culture-wars-blame-liberals/
Abortion has been permitted in France since 1975 up to 12 weeks after conception (and beyond in the case of medical emergency). There are still some opponent but the issue is non existent within the general population except for a Catholic minority.
So I would add to Kevin comments, that the 23 weeks period in the US was one of the most "permissive" in the world even though in real life, women have to face many obstacles in some States.
"Like the author of this blog, who recently argued the culture wars are the liberals' fault because liberals go too far."
Maybe. But at some point, drunk with power and flush with victory that conservatives might do the same thing? They're already starting to.
True believers in the red state legislatures everywhere will be tripping over themselves to ban birth control, gay marriage, weed, pornography, ________(name your sin here) next.
John Roberts is pissed. All he ever wanted was to slowly, quietly snuff out unions and insulate corporations from legal accountability without drawing too much attention the Court’s way.
John Roberts just wants to be a Christopher Shays Republican, same as Drew Magary*. Is that too much to ask in our post-9/11 world?
*My theory of prep school wanker Magary is he grew up in a family of Rockefeller/Bush Republicans, & he just wishes he could throw off the shackles of pronouns & wokeness generally, & go back to being a backslapping ol' boy at the country club like when he was 16 & home on break. Contariwise, Magary's erstwhile (& very short-term) colleague at Deadspin, c. 2008, KKKlay Travis is a heartbroken John Breaux/Zell Miller Democrat, & just wants to be the glib, gladhanding, Chamber of Commerce pol bringing new businesses to the Southland (but no Neil Young, or Canadians generally; they don't need them around, anyhow).
It's not just Bowling for Soup living in 1985.
I don't know...Magary seems to have sincerely and entirely owned his past behaviors/words/etc. and has gone pretty much all in on changing. It's not like he brought off past transgressions once and just rotely apologized before moving on and never bringing up related topics again.
I could be way off, I don't know the guy, but I don't get any sense that your theory is right.
Nah. Read his last several JAMBAROO! He is clearly ossifying into suburban soccer dad, like his fellow New England prep school son of privilege Bill Simmons.
& if his earlier (c. 2015?) JAMBAROO! entitled "the Reckoning Always Comes" is proof of his contrition, well... he never apologized for anything. He meant what happened was regrettable, but he was young -- that was his fault; he had so much to learn. Being party to KissingSuzyKolber posting the high school softball photos of Peter King's kid, or revelling in the pileon on Holly Mangold was just something that happened, like the raining frogs at the end of the film Magnolia.
And yet, the one person whose sitting out the 2016 election might have made all the difference in the world, chose to run anyway—even knowing that she was the one Democrat that Donald Trump could beat and that, in turn, he was the only Republican she could possibly beat.
Hillary was the worst Democratic candidate since at least Michael Dukakis. She made absolutely no effort to unify the party, she made no effort to reach out to anyone except suburban Republicans, and she couldn’t even be bothered to campaign in the Midwest battleground (previously firewall) states like Wisconsin. And she was politically tone deaf enough that she felt the endorsement of Henry Kissinger was something to be coveted.
Hillary was the one who made the tactical and strategic decisions which alienated significant parts of the electorate to the point where they either stayed home in disgust or chose to take a chance on a manifestly unfit candidate like Donald Trump. If you give her credit for her prescience in understanding the disastrous consequences of a Trump presidency, shouldn’t you also condemn her for running knowing that she was probably the only Democrat who would be vulnerable to him?
Why, then, is the burden of the 2016 loss placed on those who were neither persuaded nor courted by the candidate who only job was to win their support?
"Thanks" for the dumbest take possible.
The person who was voted in polls 22 times as the "most admired woman" (nine more times than second-place Eleanor Roosevelt), which included an unprecedented 16-year run up to and including 2017, had the "gall" to think she had a chance to become president, says Mitch. "How could she!"
Exactly.
Michael "Turkey King" Dukakis list by 300 electoral votes (without checking, I believe Bush won 426, to 112 for the Taxachusetts governor) & an 8% margin (54-46).
The better comparison would be Shrillary Climpton's own husband Bill's race against G.H.W. Bush. 2016, like 1992, was a race decided by third party spoilage, but even as H. Ross Perot more than tripled the combined total of Gary Johnson & Jill Stein, the two heirs to fringe crankery saw their strengths in the marginal states outshine Perot's nationalized appeal.
Also, just like 92, the neoliberal Democrat third waver got more raw votes than the dandyish northeast US born Ivy League millionheir.
Hillary wasn’t running for “most admired woman”, she was running for president. And she knew exactly how much baggage she was carrying and how it would undoubtedly handicap her in ways that were unique to her and would not come into play against another Democrat. She and her campaign were well aware of this which is why they actively hoped for Trump to be the Republican nominee. Yet, knowing all of this and with all of the prescience with which you credit her, Hillary chose to run knowing all of the risks.
And she chose to run as an unbending, uncompromising centrist ideologue who demanded sacrifices from everyone except her own narrow constituency of big business and Wall Street. The reason why Hillary lost was Hillary.
"Thanks" for doubling down on the stupidity.
I don't know why I even waste time responding to such nonsense, but here it goes...
1) After a party has two terms in the Oval Office, the following election is historically a "change election," which strongly favors the candidate of the opposition party while it creates great challenges for the candidate of the president's party. Since FDR, George H. W. Bush has been the only candidate who has defied this trend. That means that any Democratic candidate in 2016, whether Clinton or someone else, would have faced significant headwinds. It was in no way a "given" that a Democrat would win or even have been likely to win.
2) Despite this fundamental challenge -- and despite the most-watched news network's decade-long conspiracy campaign of lies against Clinton -- she was deemed by pollsters, up until just two to three weeks before the election, the overwhelming favorite. 538 at that point was estimating an electoral victory of over 200 points with an 8% popular-vote margin. The site even had an article exploring the real possibility (35% at the time) of a landslide victory. I suspect such independent assessments played a not insignificant role in the Clinton campaign's strategy of attempting to expand upon the Obama states rather than just defending them (and understandably so!). Only in hindsight can that be recognized as a mistake. As multiple postmortem analyses have shown, in addition to the usual narrowing before the election, the combined effects of the unprecedented and counter-to-protocol release of the Comey letter and the coordinated foreign-influence operation of Russia and other agents were the prime factors which suddenly swung public opinion against Clinton during the final two weeks before Election Day. Those were things which were utterly beyond her control and for which she bears absolutely zero responsibility.
3) Every presidential campaign, whether ultimately victorious or not, makes numerous mistakes, but only the losing campaigns undergo any real scrutiny. If the vote had gone 70,000 in the other direction in those crucial states, everyone would have raked the GOP over the coals for having put up such a ridiculously flawed candidate in an election year when things should have gone their way (see point 1).
4) Contrary to your claim, the party platform in 2016 was extremely progressive (which, BTW, Sanders had an inordinate role in drafting). Just a few of the many items which I strongly doubt were popular with "Big Business and Wall Street":
- $15 minimum wage
- 12 weeks paid family and medical leave
- Public Option for the ACA and lowering of Medicare eligibility to 55
- Allowance of drug-price negotiations for Medicare
- Social Security expansion
- Return of Glass-Steagal regulation of banks and Wall Street
- Expanded support for unions and collective bargaining
5) It's absolutely naive of you to think any other candidate (Sanders in particular) would have been immune from GOP and Fox News attacks. You seem to also be implying that, instead of fighting back, Democrats should first preemptively eliminate any candidates from consideration who Fox News audiences might find unacceptable.
Yet inexpicably, she got 3 million more votes than the *hole who was declared the winner. Bad candidate? Bad electoral system. Put the blame where it's due. And read "MindGame"'s take.
As you know, I have commented extensively on the undemocratic nature of our constitution and the electoral college in particular. She's not the first Democratic nominee to get significantly more of the popular vote yet lose the presidency. Nevertheless, her job was to win the election and evidently she was incapable of making the kind of compromises with elements of the Obama coalition that would likely have given her the presidency. To big business and Wall Street, she offered positive inducements but to everyone else she offered nothing and, not surprisingly, a large number of those people just stayed home.
She also couldn't be bothered to even try to save the party's traditional firewall states in the midwest. Famously, Hillary couldn't be bothered to even campaign in Wisconsin and instead took it for granted; just as she assumed that the specter of Trump meant that she was free to ignore the concerns of large portions of the Obama coalition and refuse to compromise with them.
The blame for Hillary’s loss rests with her. She was a bad candidate who knew that she had an immense amount of baggage which would make it hard for her to appeal to much of Obama’s coalition but chose to run anyway and to refuse to compromise.It was Hillary’s fault.
_Will_ you shut up, fool?
JIM WEBN WOULD HAVE WON.
(This is actually true.)
To borrow from that famous bigot, William F. Buckley who famously said he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory, my guess is that any of those 2,000 people would've been carrying less baggage and had a better shot against Trump than Hilliary.
Well, sure. How many of the Boston "A's" had been demonized by the vast rightwing noise machine for near 30 years? Most of what people hate about Hillary ain't true.
I think you’re mostly right. But political campaigns are not morality plays. Hillary chose to run knowing that she was the second least popular person ever to run and that she had a lot of baggage.
My point is that whether it was fair or unfair, Hillary knew about her baggage and how it would handicap her against any Republican opponent. Yet she chose to run anyway. Why is she noble for selfishly endangering everyone by running anyway but she who failed to vote for her are the ones responsible for her loss?
Mitch, I have a question for you that I am struggling with. Its a genuine question.
How long do you think the majority in this country will accept the "dictatorship" of the minority? what will be the trigger point?
For demographic reason the situation will not improve... unless Texas!
I really don't know. The problem is mostly that the things allowing minority rule are baked into our political system. We've always allocated political power by land mass or arbitrary political subdivisions rather than population—the states, the senate, and the electoral college are examples. That was always a simmering problem but the recent massive population growth of cities and costal states without a corresponding increase in political representation has created our current crisis.
To answer your question, I don't see anything that can change things short of civil war. It's not a question of when will the majority get fed up. The very nature of minority rule is that those in power see no reason to let go until they're driven out. Because of gerrymandering, voter suppression, the senate, the electoral college, and the Republican claim that state legislatures can determine who represents them in the senate and the electoral college, we're probably no more than one or two elections from the point at which the Republican Party will retain control even if it receives significantly less votes. At that point, we're screwed and probably forever.
a quick fix would be to eliminate the filibuster. that would force both sides to the table.
power has corrupted those who represent us. it is now more important to keep their jobs rather than do their jobs.
You can’t eliminate the filibuster because the two assholes are clinging to it for dear life on the assumption that it will make them seem more something when the Republicans take over. The other Democrats are likely going to lose their jobs, partly through passivity and partly through the machinations of the assholes.
Voting is a political act. You get to vote for whoever you want to, obviously. But politics is all about what is possible and all about compromise. If it was more important to someone to feel super good by voting for Putin stooge Jill Stein instead of Hilary Clinton, that's their right, but that does not mean that the person making this decision is immune from consequences.
Hilary did not make herself the Democratic nominee. The voters of the Democratic party did. And she got the most votes in the general election. Literally everyone thought she was sure to win. The election of Trump was a fluke of our incredibly undemocratic electoral system.
If you voted for Stein or some other candidate that made you feel morally clean in some way at the time because you thought it didn't matter who won the election or you thought Hillary would win anyway, but you feel bad about the consequences of your actions now, well that's life. Rationalize it all you want but your actions are on you.
Voting is a political act but so is running for office. People’s votes are not tribute, politicians need to persuade voters to vote for them—that’s the art of politics and it is ultimately what matters in winning elections. Whatever his faults, Joe Biden reached out to people and tried to win their votes; that’s because he’s a politician and not an unbending ideologue.
You speak of compromise but that’s also a two-way street. Hillary needed to keep the Obama coalition together to win and she couldn’t be bother to even try. She was an absolutely unbending centrist ideologue who went to each constituency of the coalition outside of big business and Wall Street and told them they would be nothing but would instead be expected to sacrifice to defeat Trump. When it came time to choose her vice president running mate, she again snubbed the Obama coalition by choosing a DLC/Third Way centrist retread.
And, again, while it’s certainly true that Hillary won the Democratic primary, it’s also true that she worked studiously for years to clear the deck of more attractive candidates who could have beaten her for the nomination and almost certainly would’ve beaten Trump in the general election.
The number of votes bleed off by Jill Stein or who defected to Trump was minuscule in comparison to the number of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters who simply stayed home. The perception of Hillary’s inevitability obviously played a role but the job of the candidate is to manage those perceptions and to energize people to come out and vote for her. That’s also why she had very narrow coattails; she was running as a centrist and not as someone who would be appealing to the young, minorities, of the left behind and offering them a better future.
As it happens, I voted for Bernie in the California primary but I voted for Hillary in the general election.
"Hillary needed to keep the Obama coalition together to win and she couldn’t be bother to even try. She was an absolutely unbending centrist ideologue who went to each constituency of the coalition outside of big business and Wall Street and told them they would be nothing but would instead be expected to sacrifice to defeat Trump."
I honestly don't know where you are getting this from. You think Hilary ran a bad campaign. Maybe she did. She lost after all. Would Bernie have done better? I highly doubt it but if we could go back and run the election again with Bernie on the ticket? Sure, we'd have nothing to lose. But I am pretty sure someone would have been able to dig up dirt or find issues that worked against the "absolutely unbending socialist ideologue" that is Bernie Sanders. I mean if Bernie was going to be such a great candidate in the general, why couldn't he beat such an obviously flawed (by your analysis) candidate like Hilary in the primary?
I do think that Bernie would’ve won but then I also think that just about any Democrat wiling to do the hard work of keeping the Obama coalition together would have won. There were potentially quite a few very attractive Democrats who probably would’ve beaten Trump if they’d run. And one of the main reasons why they didn’t run was that they were discouraged by the Democratic establishment who thought Hillary was the one. Joe Biden was the most obvious such candidate but he was by no means the only one.
Hillary did, in fact, run as an unbending militant centrist. Until the middle of the primaries, when it was clear that Bernie was a threat, she made absolutely no concessions to liberals or union members. Worse, Hillary was unblushing in quickly repudiating the few concessions she made—most famously when immediately after the convention McAliffe proudly announced that Hillary would “flip-flop” and return to support TPP. https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/27/politics/hillary-clinton-trans-pacific-partnership-terry-mcauliffe/index.html
Similarly, the Russians (and Trump) were able to drive a wedge between Hillary and many Bernie supporters using the leaked emails to show that her supposed “concessions” to Bernie’s supporters on the platform were never sincere. Like Hillary’s Wall Street paydays at a time when she was planning on running and knew those speeches would be politically damaging, this was an “own goal” caused by carelessness, arrogance, and complacency—in my view, the defining characteristics of Hillary’s campaign.
Your focus on Bernie and his weaknesses is itself illuminating in the context of Hillary’s campaign during the primaries. It’s important to remember that while Hillary had been planning for this campaign for years, Bernie entered late and with no organization or money but was able to reveal that support for Hillary was wide but very, very shallow. The fact that Hillary regarded Bernie’s challenge as a dodged bullet rather than as a harbinger shows how insular and tone deaf Hillary and her advisers were. Even with all of the information flooding into her campaign from about midway through the general election, Hillary was unable or unwilling to compromise with the disaffected elements of the Obama coalition; her last best chance was the selection of her running mate when she could’ve reached out but instead chose a DLC/Third Way centrist. That’s why she lost and it’s why a more able or less militant politician could have won.
Hilarious! Bernie lost in 2016 by over three times the margin Hillary lost against in Obama in 2008 -- over 3 million votes! He lost even worse in 2020. To me it seems like a reasonable expectation that any candidate we run actually win a majority in the primary. Do you really suggest we reform the primary system to hand the candidacy to the person who comes in second place?
And BTW, supporting TPP as a counter to China's growing hegemony was the right thing to do -- another absolutely nonsense point you make!
Will no one rid us of this turbulent fool? Or at the least, block him? A lot of people did that when Kevin was writing for Mother Jones.
Oh, and by the way, there are many Supreme Court holdings where there are in essence split decisions to uphold or strike down a law. I can't think of one of the top of my head but you could easily have, in this case, say three conservative votes who think the Mississippi law is fine based on some viability analysis, and two conservative votes going so far as to uphold the law based on the fact that either the fetus is a person or the right to privacy in the Constitutions does not extend to abortion.
Those areas of the law are problematic, because usually there are then multiple cases based on the alternative holdings.
Part of the issue is that abortion rights just isn’t that big an issue to many people who are fine with women being treated as human beings but will easily set that aside for a better economy or some other issue. That includes many women. Women won’t be treated as a lower class of humans if they are united against that.
We’re going to soon discover that most people don’t care about this issue. They have voted for Republicans for decades knowing full well they would repeal Roe. And they are about to get it. Good for them, I guess.
There is literally nothing republicans can do that would cost them support from the mushy middle. After a brief rejection of trump for president, they will come roaring back into power with a vengeance. Bring it on.
I'm not sure I agree. I think a good 20 to 30 percent just don't think about this issue at all right now because they don't expect anything to actually change. If you really do end up banning abortion outright, you might end up with some people starting to realize they actually do care about this issue. Maybe I'm too optimistic.
Of course. But make ‘em declare what they really believe: women are excluded from the US constitution.
The 60% of Americans who are at the extremes (zero abortion vs. unlimited abortion) aren't going to be swung either way. I think the rest will accept the outcome either way as long as it is not too absurd (for example, the Texas law). I think probably 70% of Americans would be ok with the court upholding the Mississippi law, but retaining Roe in name at least.
You really think the 26% that want abortion excised entirely from Neoliberal America's Kulture of Death & practitioners & recipients of abortion put to death are equaled by a similar percentage of people that want roving bands of radical amateur obstetricians going around performing infanticide under state sanction?
The two fringes might add up to a third of America, with the 26% in favor of Abortion as Capital Crime joined by the 7% solution of trustfund nihilists on the Left that wouldn't mind vivisecting uterii.
Well, we’re about to find out. I think you’ll find most voters comprising the “mushy middle” to be completely clueless. Washington squabbling is just noise to them. They vote Democratic because they don’t want Social Security privatized but they vote Republican because they want to keep “government” out of their Medicare. They don’t like Hillary because she comes off calculated and rehearsed and like Trump because he’s authentic (ie. is a sociopath capable of bullshitting without a nanosecond’s hesitation).
But like Kevin said in an earlier post, Conservatism gets a lot of political cover for not pushing societal change. Well, they’re about to loose that cover.
@ mostlystenographicmedia
+1
I agree this amounts to pushing some societal change, but not a lot. It doesn't affect most people so that's why I think it won't matter. Time will tell. I just can't imagine democrats running campaign ads arguing that Republicans should be voted out of office because... look what they did to ban abortion. Can you?
With 50 year’s worth of status quo upended on one of the biggest hot button issues in American politics, and your sage advice is Democrats should tuck tail and cower in the corner?
Lol. With around 60% public opinion saying they want abortion rights to be kept as the status quo, uh yeah, I think Democrats will run advertisements about Republican radicalization. Heartbreaking ads from real people, not actors.
It would be absolute political malpractice not to.
Obviously you are missing lady parts or you would have a clue. It affects a majority of the US because a majority of the US either has lady parts or isn't as clueless as you are when it comes to those they love with lady parts. This is huge, a big f'en deal, the Supreme Court is about to rule that women do not have the right to bodily autonomy.
"It affects a majority of the US because a majority of the US either has lady parts or isn't as clueless as you are..."
If that were true, then there wouldn't be a republican in elected office anywhere in the US. There are plenty people women who oppose abortion. That's your real problem. The lady parts team is divided. And they have enabled this moment.
I haven't voted for a republican candidate for anything since I became eligible to vote. Maybe a judge or some local official because they ran unopposed. My alleged cluelessness is not your problem here.
I just think folks like yourself vastly overestimate the amount and intensity of support for abortion rights. They say in 2020 "President Trump won 42 percent of women’s votes". Every one of those women voted against abortion rights. They voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. A similar number voted for him in 2016. I'm on your side. Take it up with female trump lovers.
I think a lot of the criticism of Roe is justified, particularly that the viability analysis is much more legislative than judicial (although to some extent that is a defect of judicial review rather than overreaching by the court). Nevertheless, it’s important to remember the social and political environment in which Roe was decided.
To a very significant degree, Roe was the natural extension of Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) and the right wing attack on Roe can easily be seen as part of an ultimate goal of reversing Griswold. It’s interesting that Griswold came up in oral arguments several times both directly and indirectly in discussions of the logic and consequences of overturning Roe.
At this point, if the Democrats can aggressively make people understand that the ultimate goal of the Republican Party is to outlaw birth control, that’s got the potential to be political dynamite even in very red states.
I don't know re: birth control. Lots of men refuse to wear condoms, and just assume any other forms of birth control (including the coat hanger) are "the woman's problem," falling back on the ol' standby of shaming her for being a slut if she tries to come after them in court for child support. In metro areas, that doesn't stop women of course from seeking child support... but in rural areas, where everyone who's friends with the father will shame you everywhere you go (or worse, threaten you)... yeah, a lot of rural women just say "I don't know who the father is" and let it go.
Uh, no. Just no. This:
Is wrong. Wildly wrong. Roe vs Wade was a compromise where neither the proponents or opponents were happy. This drivel we hear today is just them trying to move a well-defined line. In other words -- and as usual -- this is just right welshing on the deal that was made decades ago. Jeeze Mitch. And I'm not even a lawyer.
I don’t think It’s wrong and your own description of the process is essentially legislative rather than judicial. Partly a problem with the way judicial review is structured but also a problem with weather that the right to privacy was anchored in Griswold.
Yes, Mitch, we know you don't think you're wrong. Ever. I was simply correcting your ignorance about why RvW came out the way it did, which most supposedly was not 'arbitrary'.
What kind of law do you practice that you can't even be arsed to look up the history of this decision before forming an opinion?
Mostly I did criminal law. But I’m not sure that you understand the issues with Roe. The first is something that has dogged all of Griswold’s progeny. There was very little agreement among the seven justices in the majority about the source of the right to privacy and (as both dissenting justices pointed out, no principled way to determine it contours and limits). The was something for which Justice Douglas was heavily criticized even in liberal circles.
Also, unlike the other Griswold progeny, Roe has an undeniable legislative and arbitrary element as to the scope of the woman’s right; equally there were arbitrary choices about viability that limited the woman’s rights in ways in which other rights were not limited. An example would be Bowers v. Hardwick where there was a simple declaration that the state could not criminalize oral and/anal sex between consenting adults.
Again, by contrast, in Roe the court made scientific determinations and created arbitrary limits and arbitrary protections for a woman’s right to choose. To me, that’s always seemed wrong. If the right to an abortion is grounded in the larger right to privacy identified in Griswold, then why is an abortion only available in the first trimester? If there’s limits that are permissible, it seems to me that having the justices hash it out among themselves is probably a very poor idea.
My guess, based on some reading but mostly on speculation, is that Justice Blackmun’s convoluted “trimester framework” was based on some kind of horse trading to get to seven. But there’s no analytical basis for it in Griswold or anywhere else. It’s just what these seven people thought was a good idea on that particular day. Which is why I and others have criticized the “trimester framework” as essentially legislative in nature and inappropriate.
Eventually, post Roe, some woman* somewhere will die from a pregnancy she was forced to keep - as has happened in Ireland, Poland, etc. where they had/have total abortion bans - and the tide will turn here in this country too towards legalizing abortion through referenda.
*Of course, it'll probably need to be a blond, virginal-looking, morally-impeccable woman for it to take hold and become a National Media Megastory.
& their have a beer with test is even more flawed: George W. Bush is famously a recovering alcoholic who claimed not to have had a drink since 1986, while El Jefe Maximo is a self-asserted teetotaler (unlike his neer-do-well brother Freddy, who got what he deserved).
This just might -- might! -- turn out the youth vote next November. And middle-aged Republicans who happen to be women.
I think most of the pro-choice middle aged women fled the GOP post trump. If they are still in the GOP, either they are not pro-choice or they are in the don't care I want my tax cut group.
The questions and discussion of Griswold suggest to me that the conservatives target is well beyond abortion rights. The target is contraceptives and sexual behavior which a lot of those nice middle class Republican women might be very about if only someone would tell them what they personally have at stake.
As an aside, I think some enterprising reporter might want to see how the Log Cabin Republicans feel about the very strong hints that the court’s next target should be Griswold v. Connecticut. Remember, if Griswold is overturned then there’s obviously no Bowers the. Hard wick so may be that some thing all those gay Republicans should be thinking about, too. Just like all those Republican housewives who like to use birth control.
+2
And they're leading themselves down that path. A libertarian or an actual "conservative" would be more than satisfied simply having the states decide abortion policy. But those in anti-abortion movement will not be satisfied until all abortion is declared unconstitutional and that is a societal change in an extreme fashion will cause a majority people discomfort. And that's when they start to resist.
There is literally nothing republicans can do that would cost them support from the mushy middle.
Persuadable voters, though not a big portion of the electorate, aren't non-existent, either (most credible estimates I've seen claim they top out at about 15% of the electorate). These voters do in fact regularly switch sides, so, it's not inconceivable that the overturn of Roe will raise the salience of an issue they've mostly ignored until now.
I just cannot imagine abortion will be the issue which makes them switch. It's an icky culture war social issue. No one wants to think about rape and incest. No one wants to think about severe birth defects or serious threats to the health of the woman. Thoughtful and politically engaged people do that. Mushy low info voters do not.
When they hear the term reproductive rights, they think that some loose young (and poor person of color) woman got knocked up after a hook up and decided it was inconvenient. And really... who gives a crap about them?
These are the very crude outlines of the debate about abortion. You can get people to think differently about it depending on your framing of the debate. For these reasons, I think on balance, it's an issue that works against democrats for the mushy middle. It's another one of those things that other people argue about but doesn't really affect me personally.
And to say that out loud gets you accused of being a Neanderthal by uppity women. Which, you know, you probably are.
Yep a guy without ladyparts so he has no clue how it feels like to be late when you are a 19 year old college student.
Again, it seems to me that the political play for Democrats is less about abortion and much more about access for even married couples to birth control. The questions/remarks by both the Mississippi lawyer and several Republican justices were very clearly aimed at Griswold and made it clear that’s their next target. I predict Griswold will feature strongly in the dissents.
I don’t think it’s occurred to anyone that their access to birth control is in danger. But I believe it’s potentially a powerful issue for the Democrats if they can ruthlessly exploit it (which they won’t, naturally).
Heavily Catholic countries voted in referenda to legalize abortion after high-profile media stories of women dying from pregnancies that they weren't allowed to have. The same will eventually happen here. Even if the issue is "icky," nobody wants to see lots of media stories about blond, attractive women forced to carry a baby until they died in childbirth.
Or go to jail either. And do you want the authorities to start opening your mail to see if you were shipped abortion pills?
Then why is Chief Supreme Shakes the Clown so scurred of a total annihilation of abortion rights by judicial overreach in a 5-4 decision written by Amy Coney-Barrett? (You know Clarence Thomas, as senior in the majority, will assign the woman to write the opinion that ends Roe. Though Clarence himself will likely add a concurrence that is simply worded "fuck you, Anita" (shortest Supremes opinion ever?).)
Lol
The phrase "abortion in demand" should be banned from this discussion.
And I doubt that those of you who have never been women have any idea of just how many women are still being treated as lesser individuals without the same rights as men. The "human infrastructure" in some southern & other rightwing-ruled states (i've lived in 3, plus DC) remains dishonest & contemptuous of the rights of women. There is NO rational reason for anyone to claim the right to overrule any woman's rights over her own body. It is all about forcing some hypocrites' religion on others & is therefore unconstitutional. Period.
content://com.sec.android.app.sbrowser/readinglist/1201192605.mhtml
Sorry, didn't copy the right sequence for a link to a Rubin column in The Washington Post.
+1
Although there is no equivalent to be found on the side, it is inconceivable that, were the burden of bearing a fetus to term to fall to the male gender, that ANY state-enforced limitations on abortion would be considered. But then again, if men had that role in the reproductive process, they probably never would have become the ruling sex they are today.
I wouldn't be happy even if it did only affect 3-4%. Those women deserve their bodily autonomy, too.
I'm with you.
Barret was put on the court to overturn Roe. She knows this and so does everyone else. Why would she not vote to overturn it at the first opportunity.
I think it's basically a certainty that the court votes to overturn Roe completely this term and then starts laying the groundwork for banning abortion nationwide.
I don't think they will quite yet. Nibble around the edges maybe to get the people used to atrocity. But I suspect the hammer won't really come down until after the mid-terms. Wouldn't want the wrong people riled up for the wrong reasons turning out to actually, you know, vote.
Don't get sucked into the trap of writing or opining about complicated opinions. Either women have a constitutional right to the privacy of their own decisions about their bodies or they don't. That's the only subject under discussion. Don't let Roberts convince the crazies that because 5 months before a midterm is not the time to make sure all women vote Dem, they should issue some mealy mouthed thing saying each state can decide about women's rights. Either women are full citizens in the US under the constitution or they're not. Make 'em say "they're not". Gonna be crazy, gotta own it.
The way they are acting seems like a set up to me. People think they will fully overturn Roe and when they don’t it will be a bit of a relief (at least amongst the editorial pundents). I think they will want to give a bit of cover to Susan Collins too.
So I think it will go as one of the “death by a thousand cuts” decisions. But I do think this cut will be a deep one.
It’s weird to think that Joe Manchin has a big role in this decision. All it would take is for him to say that if Roe was gutted he would rethink his opinion on ending the filibuster. I’m pretty sure that would rein the Trump court in a bit. They are counting on him not doing so, and I’m sure they are right.
Yes I think you’re right. They think they can Youngkin their way through this with distraction. So I say: don’t let ‘em.
Joe Manchin is a pro-life senator for a pro-life state. He's not for overturning Roe, but he's not going to change his filibuster stance over it..
The question, should they choose this route, is whether the anti-abortion zealots will settle for 5% of a loaf, with the promise of getting more slices in the future. They rallied to Trump in part because he promised to appoint judges that would overturn Roe. They aren't likely to be patient with less-than-half measures after decades of feeling that Republican appointees have betrayed them.
I bet there will be an Insurrection 2: Misogyny Boogaloo at the Supreme Court in June 2022, as the Supremes are readying to release the verdict in Jackson Women's Health. This time, the gallows will be for Shakes, & Ginny Thomas will be in Jake Angeli Drag.
You said what I just said both earlier and better. I blame the comment system.
All I want is those people who celebrated "Notorious RBG" for six years to hang their heads in shame.
I think she definitely should’ve resigned to give a Democratic president the opportunity to at least try to replace her with another Democrat. But it’s not clear to me that it would have made a meaningful difference. There’s no way that Mitch McConnell would allow a Democrat on the court and the Democrats would have complained to the referees but that’s about it. And since it turns out there are no referees, there is no reason why McConnell should let the Democrats ever confirm another justice and the reality is that he probably won’t.
I think the problem is that everyone, especially Mitch McConnell, knows that the Democrats will whine about it, but they won’t retaliate. That means there’s really no risk for the GOP. The Democrats never retaliate and, after the 2023 midterms, it’s highly unlikely that they will ever be in the majority again. It’s that simple.
Democrats held a majority in the Senate in 2014, when people were pressing her to retire.
Not filibuster proof.
I agree. But, as we saw with Merrick Garland, the Democrats can neither fight for their nominees in the Senate nor are they willing to make Republicans pay a political price for obstructing their nominees. So, on balance, while I absolutely do agree that she should've resigned, in the end there still wouldn't be another Democrat on the court; we'd simply have an eight-person Supreme Court until 2025 when the Trump restoration will fill the vacancy.
I listened for a couple of hours today. I read a few reactions from people who can read the court with fair degree of reliability. Though nothing is certain, here's what I expect:
1. The court will overturn Roe v. Wade, ending after 50 years a woman's right to choose
2. Red states will outlaw abortion next year
3. Purple states will outlaw abortion soon after
4. Blue states will have abortion outlawed for them once Republicans regain power in DC (directly or indirectly, Rs will find a way)
The crux is a woman's constitutional right to choose. I don't sense there are five votes on the court to uphold that right.
Once that's gone, the end of legal abortion in America is nigh.
Do women have equal rights in this country or not? Don't let them change the subject. Make them say "no, women do not have equal rights."
So you're saying red and purple states can exercise states' right to ban abortion. But then blue states will be overruled by some national legislation? That's bold.
Red and purple states will act first, where they have GOP legislatures / governors.
Federal law won't change until GOP gains power in DC. But if federal law outlaws abortion, that will apply in blue states as well.
I don't know if saying that is "bold." It's straight out of the oral arguments today. Kavanaugh, for example, suggested Congress could be the arbiter of abortion rights four times. One occasion:
"In other words, that the Constitution is neither pro-life nor pro-choice on the question of abortion but leaves the issue for the people of the states or
perhaps Congress to resolve in the democratic process?"
While it's a relatively low-probablity outcome, I feel in my bones that you are very much right on that one. "Tired of being on the defensive with your liberal associates? This year we're taking the culture wars to them!" will be the ad campaign of the day. Anything to stoke conservative resentment; seems to be the only thing that motivates them, really.
And we all thought we had come a long way (baby). Every day it seems like we are taking giant steps backward. This isn't the end of it. We will all be reading the bible in school next, like it or not.
I hope they will start with Ezekiel 23 (The two adulterous sisters):
>>19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. 21 So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled.[c]<<
They'll skip that like how the Congress skipped the 3/5 Compromise when the House opened its 2015-17 session -- after the Second Obama Shellacking -- by reading the full text of the Constitution.
There’s a Lot’s (daughters) in the Bible that will have to be censored too.
Supposedly, Ebonics -- I mean, African-American Vernacular English -- is in the Bible. I heard a Black woman comedian on a VH1 I Love the 90s installment say that, as in, in the New Testament, Jesus said, "I be he".
Ironically, 'Eubonics' was that favored pronunciation of their Cavalier masters back in the day.
Pretty f'ing sick, even in the KJV:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel%2023&version=KJV
The decision doesn't have to be convoluted and the majority doesn't have to get into any arguments at all for or against abortion - they can just say that Roe v Wade was incorrect because it was not justified by the Constitution. The Constitution does not mention abortion or a right of privacy either. This would put the matter up to the states and Congress. However some of the Republican Justices will not like to face the political burden of completely negating Roe v Wade, so they may come up with some partial decision that keeps things up in the air.
But if Roe v Wade is actually negated it would not do away with the issue as an activator for the Republican base as some people seem to think. Banning abortion would still have to be fought out in the blue and especially purple states and maybe nationally. If the filibuster is done away with, a national ban on abortion is something that Republicans could pass.
The Constitution also does not mention "The Right to Self Defense."
The Constitution does not mention abortion or a right of privacy either.
The arguments I heard today did not mention the "right of privacy," but "liberty" as described in the 14th Amendment.
Republicans will kill the filibuster in a heartbeat if that's all that stands between their ability to outlaw abortion. Legal abortion in America will be over.
Until ... Democrats regain power? Thinking it through, if a woman does not have a right to choose, then it's entirely up to legislatures (and presidents/governors). Abortion could be sanctioned or outlawed whenever a new party takes office. Overturning Roe will not lessen the contentiousness of abortion as an issue. It will increase it tenfold.
The only resolution would be a non-conservative SCOTUS or an amendment to the Constitution. Neither is likely anytime soon.
I don’t think there’s five votes to formally overturn. I don’t think Roberts will allow an outright overturning this close to an important midterm election where his party will take control of the Congress unless there’s a massive wave. As with Obamacare, I can’t see him taking the risk of jeopardizing the GOP chances so my money is on some cute and clever formula that effectively makes getting an abortion impossible in red and purple states.
I think he’ll allow Roe and maybe even Griswold to be formally overturned in 2025 or 2025 when the GOP is impossible to dislodge even in a huge wave election and Trump’s back in the White House.
You may be right about Roberts but he's only one vote. With Obamacare, that was the swing vote. With this case, his vote is meaningless unless he gets one of the other five conservatives to protect a woman's right. I suppose anything can happen, but I don't really see that.
I think he’s still the key. And I think he can get at least one other to join him. Remember, his going isn’t to protect a woman’s right to choose but rather it’s to protect the Republican Party from something that might tigger enough of a backlash to stop the party from taking control of Congress. Depending on how the opinion is crafted, I see at least two votes who would be amenable to guidance whispered in their ears by party grandees.
My money is on something that indirectly allows states to effectively ban abortion but without formally overturning Roe.
The key to Roe is a woman's "right to choose." Does a woman have a constitutional right to control and make decisions about her body, inc. the right to abort a previable fetus? If the Court says no, then the road to banning abortion is open. Legal abortion will be over.
I think it's a yes or no thing. Good luck to Roberts et al. finding an intermediate path, but I can't see how they protect the essence of Roe if the right to choose is overturned.
I would like to clarify: my argument is not that Roberts wants to defend a woman’s rights to choose or even to use contraception. My point is that his objective is to defend the Republican Party’s ability to take control of Congress in the forthcoming election even as he throws red meat to the party’s base. I therefore believe that he will follow a path which I described earlier, namely, to make abortion (and perhaps birth control)practically impossible to obtain in red states and difficult to obtain in purple states.
Later, once his party is firmly in control and no longer fears a wave election or even a series of wave elections, I believe that his will join with the other Republicans on the court to overrule Roe and probably Griswold. It’s politics that’s going to stop Roberts, not the constitution.
I fully agree with you. Also, note over at TPM Josh Marshall points out that several states including Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona currently have laws on their books outlawing abortion. Those laws are inactive based on Roe, but if it is wholly overturned the laws would be in effect. I do believe that something like that would be very shocking and harm the Republican Party in the upcoming election. I really do think Robert’s will prevail and for the reasons you indicate. But who knows? The others might just see it as an opportunity they can’t pass up.
If memory serves, Louisiana also has such a law which has never been repealed. I agree that even in very conservative, very Catholic Louisiana the outright reversal of Roe would be politically damaging even in the river parishes where it’s easy to talk about being “anti abortion” but it’s not that easy to live without contraception and you’ll notice that was a big feature of oral argument.
These people either have never heard of or disagree with the tethered violinist scenario in moral philosophy. Boy, I wish they had given that one the same treatment they gave the trolley problem on The Good Place.
Now there was a good show!
@Mitch
Yeah, you may well be right. Roberts is a political animal. Sebellius was a good example of a classic Robertsesque "with politics in mind" ruling.
This is a race between two technologies:
1) Extremely fast and easy to detect pregnancy. (Like on a wristwatch.)
2) Viability outside of the womb.
Number 1 will win.
If the court overturns a woman's right to choose and a state outlaws all abortion, it won't matter how early a pregnancy is detected.
No state government can realistically stop women from using abortifacients.
You mean, like condoms & the pill?
Dana-
That is certainly interesting. A watch that could detect levels of nCG which double daily until the level reaches its peak in the first 8 to 11 weeks. Well within the 15 week period that Mississippi law allows for.
Could it be done?
At THAT point would the hypocritical republicans ban the sale of those watches?
I say that with a jaundiced eye towards various Christian factions within the republican party that equate pregnancy with loose morals. Namely Bristol Palin who was advocating for abstinence then got pregnant out of wedlock. OOps.
Look, I'm old and male and the Mrs and I were faced with the abortion question during our second pregnancy. It was one of those things where the ONLY questions we had were - could she conceive again should this one fail, and her well being to be protected at all costs. We went ahead and took the pregnancy to as full a term as we dared. Lost one of the twins. Had our 3rd daughter 3 years later when we decided 3 girls was enough. To this day being faced with that decision still raises questions in our minds.
Republicans seem to think that abortion is used as birth control which it is not.
They want to believe that abstinence works - it does not as a policy.
They believe that the average Medicid recipient is young, female and black when in actuality its a 54 year old white male.
They also believe a good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun. Good grief.
They also believe we've ALWAYS been a Christian nation because of "one nation under god" as stated in the Pledge of Allegiance.when in fact the under God part was added in 1954.
The republicans have an epidemic of mendacity among them.
But in this case? I believe that many of the baby boom women are decidedly against abortion because they believe, deep down that they instilled "good girl genes" in their daughters and "Oh, no my daughter would NEVER have premarital sex"
They are so naive. But the watch would drive them bonkers if it caught pregnancy within the time frame allowed under Mississippi law
Did Barrett really try to claim that women could just give up the child for adoption, so there's no need to terminate pregnancies???
Talk about "privilege".... Did she realize not all people actually get paid time off? If you're job requires you to stand for 8, 10 or 12 hrs straight--pregnant women will be fine with that. If the pregnant women is the sole bread winner, she and her other kids could lose their apartment and be homeless because she could stand for 12 hrs straight, so lost her job and didn't have enough money to pay rent. But that shouldn't be a burden for her.
Over 4 million pregnancies in the US per year.
Over 2 million live births
Under 1 million miscarriages
Under 1 million (induced) abortions
Pregnancies due to rape: ca 30K/year.
Maternal mortality at ca. 1000/year, mostly women of color.
Actual number of fertilized eggs much higher--what studies that have been done indicate most do not implant.
should add: ca. 750K teen pregnancies per year.
from ACLU: ca 80% unintended; ca 55% live births; ca 15% miscarriages; 30% induced abortions.
Teen pregnancy rates are down--but still high. Was children having children even part of today's discussion?
At least if they overturn Roe it will be a few months before the midterms and it will completely change the trajectory of the elections.
I’m not sure that’s true. The GOP is guaranteed to take back the house even if they get fewer votes than in the previous election and my assumption is that Republican controlled state legislatures will not allow a Democratic senator to be seated. Wisconsin and deeply entrenched one party rule is the most likely future.
They have also in a number of cases rewritten election laws over the past year so legislatures, or partisan election boards, can simply nullify an election if a Democrat wins and/or refuse to approve Democratic electors for president.
Exactly. And those state legislatures are increasingly being gerrymandered so that Republicans can win smaller and smaller shares of the votes without worrying about being ousted from office. My very subjective opinion is that Roberts won’t jeopardize that by jumping the gun on Roe. He will deliver for the base by gutting Roe but I don’t believe he Roberts will allow it to be overruled until 2025 or 2026 when an electoral backlash will no longer matter.
If Faucci was correct and we get another protection evading wave in spring or summer the Republicans could be in big trouble if they try to limit at home voting
THAT would hurt them more than the DEMs
I think all these Covid-19 prolonging disruptions are a semi-calculated risk. At one level, you’re right that blocking vote by mail ought to hurt the Republicans because older GOP-leaning voters have been using vote by mail for decades. If they are reluctant to vote in person it could be disastrous, especially since a low base turnout is probably the one thing that would put the GOP takeover of Congress at risk. So I agree it seems self defeating.
One the other hand, one of Biden’s main pitches was that he would get Covid-19 under control and return life to normal. If I’m correct in saying that the actions of GOP controlled state governments are blocking that effort it’s possible that voters will be discouraged by the lack of progress.
Overall, though, I think you’re right. I think the big steal stuff is self defeating but the Republicans can’t seem to quit it.
You've articulated a doomsday scenario. Are republicans in the states really brazen enough to just outright steal these Senate seats and the presidency?
And if so, what will we do about it? It reminds me of that right-wing guy from Idaho who said we are living in tyranny and asked, "When do we get to use the guns?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJvwqoSxres
This is, sadly, a question that perhaps Democrats will have to think about some day. We won't do anything, of course. It's not in our nature to do anything but appease this enemy. We often can't even bring ourselves to describe them as the enemy. And they know it.
I agree that the problem is as much the Democrats inability to even stand up for their own jobs as it is Republican authoritarianism. The way out was for the Democrats to use their power to undo Republican gerrymandering and fight voter suppression. I don't see any way out until the current Democratic leadership is gone and by then it will almost certainly be too late.
Roe has long since been nearly overturned in all but name if we're talking about a national, constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. Mississippi is home to a single healthcare facility that performs abortions.
Let's be blunt: returning this issue to the states won't change much.
What it might, do, though, is finally force Republicans to pay a political price for the their anti-woman, anti-healthcare stance.
Let's be blunt: returning this issue to the states won't change much.
Overturning a woman's right to choose, as protected by the Supreme Court and 50 years of legal precedent, changes everything.
What it might, do, though, is finally force Republicans to pay a political price...
Or not.
Overturning a woman's right to choose, as protected by the Supreme Court and 50 years of legal precedent, changes everything.
Shrug. We must be living in very different universes. The America I'm familiar with is one in which Red America has long since ceased to follow and implement that right.
Anyway, I guess time will tell how the politics shakes out.
The change I am hoping for would actually result in an even worse division than at present, but I see no way around it.
At the moment, there are far to many Libs who (understandably, since they live in metropolitan areas where you can go millions of people in any direction before running into a Trumpist) assign blame to Trump and Republican leadership who are only to happy to be a Trump lap dog.
Appropos of yesterdays "Texas is for assholes" comment (sheesh, one of the best on the boards in awhile :)), the benefit should be for the liberal side to realize just how evil and unwavering the right is in its positions.
We tend to think that when Trump said 'why don't we build a moat on the southern border and just shoot them?" that it was some sort of gag -- no, it was not a gag, had the wind been blowing just a tad the other way, the machine guns would have been set up, because (again, although its hard to believe) millions of our fellow Americans (what a ridiculous phrase that sounds like), would happily carry ammunition and donuts to the machine gun emplacements.
No, we are down to the millions who believe abortion is killing. They are not going anywhere, and are not susceptible to any discussion.
They don't really have any other countries in the first world to move to where abortion and all their other list of sins are illegal, so they are here.
They have to be outvoted, that's it. Discussion is pointless.
If this wakes up a few libs, well, it should. It should have woken them up awhile ago, but libs tend to think that a sound policy will always win people over.
We do not have that set up anymore with respect to current Trumpists.
And since I don't want to ruin the rest of my day I will just try to say this once.
Its so incredibly depressing to listen to NPR's take on this on my commutes. They actually have people on from abortion rights groups, including the lawyers on the S.Ct. case who go on and on about the effect this ruling would have on women.
I mean, as if the other side gives any sort of a rat's ass about the effect on women! The anti abortion people believe, religiously, that women who have abortions are murderers and the doctors who perform them are accessories.
Mississippi was already down to ONE CLINIC, and I can just imagine the permanent protestors who were staked out there! I may have heard that that one clinic, or maybe it was one in Lousiana, had to import doctors from out of town because no local doctor could take the abuse.
You know how we know this is the case? If it wasn't the case all the "anti abortion" people would be all-in on a morning after pill, and birth control, for any women the minute they are physically capable of sex and possible pregnancy. They aren't, and they won't ever be.
The one-sided discussions on the left are understandable, since present conservatives won't discuss anything anyway, we have to talk amongst ourselves because its the only way to figure anything out.
But to act as if public discourse can solve this is just wrong. We have to understand that current Republican rhetoric is not "rhetoric" - is stuff they will actually do if they can pull it off.
My question is, if abortion goes away, how will Scott des Jarlais afford child support?