The Roe Countdown

[Delphic Oracle]

In practical terms, getting rid of Griswold would have no effect whatsoever on birth control. There is no sentiment at all for limiting birth control* in the United States, and it would remain perfectly legal.



If, somehow, Griswold were ever revoked, there might be zombie laws about birth control that would have to be repealed, and they would be. I don't know of any, but they might exist.





*Exception: Morning after pills, and others with similar mechanisms.

Remember when that panel held hearings about birth control with not one woman testifying because it was a "religious freedom" discussion?

Remember when a woman finally did get to testify, relating a story of a college roommate who was refused coverage for hormones to treat ovarian cysts and had to have one surgically removed.

Remember how even though this is a story about someone else going through a traumatic medical condition, the punditry told their loyal listeners what a lying whore she was and that all these disgusting sluts are trying to get us to pay for their dirty, sinful, nightly-if-not-hourly sex, and that makes them prostitutes...

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Then "being" is meaningless construct

No, you've been told the meaning. And in fact you've been told more than one meaning. Which is why you've also been told you're equivocating because you're using one meaning when the other is the relevant one.

And do you have some non-religious way to say that the fertilized egg is a "being" when the sperm and egg that proceeded it weren't? That is, without equivocating.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Because your reply had nothing to do with the statement.

I misread it as "stopped", not "started".

Sorry.

 

[bruto]

I also think they will. I do not think they will ban birth control pills or condoms.

But it will be their choice, their option, a dispensation not a right. If Griswold is overturned the politicians preempt the right to tell everyone what they can and cannot do sexually, at any time and any place. We do not own our privacy, but enjoy it at their pleasure.

 

[BobTheCoward]

No, you've been told the meaning. And in fact you've been told more than one meaning. Which is why you've also been told you're equivocating because you're using one meaning when the other is the relevant one.

And do you have some non-religious way to say that the fertilized egg is a "being" when the sperm and egg that proceeded it weren't? That is, without equivocating.

They can be beings too if you like, I'm indifferent.

 

[TomB]

Well, the explanation they gave was that they just wanted to avoid covering birth control that causes abortions but what actually happened? Looks to me like when someone actually did something they attacked all birth control, not just certain kinds.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/06/trump-rolls-back-obamacares-contraception-rule-243537

Any exceptions there?

And also there is some long standing confusion about how hormone based birth control methods actually work. Do they block fertilization, implantation, or maybe both. The science favors mostly by blocking fertilization but can't rule out that they occasionally block implantation. And, no matter what the science says the anti-abortion crowd is the same crowd as the creationism crowd so who knows if the actual facts will even decide the issue? If they get the wrong idea in their heads about how birth control works who knows what will happen.

First, I already acknowledged I was incorrect about IUDs and which group of birth control some might classify them as about an hour prior to your post.

Second, moving IUDs from one group to the other doesn't really alter my post significantly.

Third, I'm on the same side as you regarding what should be covered by insurance and "religious exemptions," but I consider what insurance should be required to cover and what should be legally available are different arguments.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

First, I already acknowledged I was incorrect about IUDs and which group of birth control some might classify them as about an hour prior to your post.



Second, moving IUDs from one group to the other doesn't really alter my post significantly.



Third, I'm on the same side as you regarding what should be covered by insurance and "religious exemptions," but I consider what insurance should be required to cover and what should be legally available are different arguments.

The other side doesn't see it that way and won't alter their rhetoric one bit. This is all about God's will, sinful behavior, radical feminazis, sluts, and please won't you think of the children?!

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

They can be beings too if you like, I'm indifferent.

So that just means you're the one treating the word as meaningless.

 

[BobTheCoward]

So that just means you're the one treating the word as meaningless.

Of course. Didn't you see the post where I wrote not to base morality on where something falls in a category? This is a silly exercise....but fun

But yes, a human being is a human. So if something is human (like sperm) then it is human. I'm not saying they are or not human, only that if they are human they are human beings.

 

[Meadmaker]

But it will be their choice, their option, a dispensation not a right. If Griswold is overturned the politicians preempt the right to tell everyone what they can and cannot do sexually, at any time and any place. We do not own our privacy, but enjoy it at their pleasure.

When I said "they will", what I was referring to was "going after Plan B", not going after Griswold or going after birth control pills.

What could, conceivably, happen, would be that some state goes after Plan B. If they do, someone will sue, and it will make it's way to the Supreme Court eventually.

At that point, I would expect the Supremes to say, "Well, this is just like abortion, so the states can ban it." However, another possibility that I would consider much more remote is they could say, "We reject the argument that Griswold protects this, because Griswold was a bad decision and we're throwing it out."

That would be bad.

It would be bad for the reasons you say.

I think, though, that Griswold, as well as Lawrence, are fundamentally different than Roe, but I don't get to vote on the Supreme Court, so all I can do is hope I'm right.

Obergefell, though, is definitely at risk. It isn't exactly like Roe, but it isn't exactly like Griswold, either. I could see this Supreme Court throwing out Obergefell. if a case ever presented itself.

 

[gnome]

I have the impression that Griswold is very close to Roe... doesn't Roe cite Griswold's precedent as its main justification? Seems to me they stand or fall together.

 

[bruto]

When I said "they will", what I was referring to was "going after Plan B", not going after Griswold or going after birth control pills.

What could, conceivably, happen, would be that some state goes after Plan B. If they do, someone will sue, and it will make it's way to the Supreme Court eventually.

At that point, I would expect the Supremes to say, "Well, this is just like abortion, so the states can ban it." However, another possibility that I would consider much more remote is they could say, "We reject the argument that Griswold protects this, because Griswold was a bad decision and we're throwing it out."

That would be bad.

It would be bad for the reasons you say.

I think, though, that Griswold, as well as Lawrence, are fundamentally different than Roe, but I don't get to vote on the Supreme Court, so all I can do is hope I'm right.

Obergefell, though, is definitely at risk. It isn't exactly like Roe, but it isn't exactly like Griswold, either. I could see this Supreme Court throwing out Obergefell. if a case ever presented itself.

Quite possibly so. I would be pretty surprised if someone does not go after Obergefell. How that does is anyone's guess. It's my (admittedly limited) understanding that Obergefell relies on different principles, similar to Loving, regarding equality of protection, which might be harder to slice up. Both Roe and Griswold are based, at least partly, on the principle of privacy, and if the principle of privacy used for Griswold is not overturned it would seem to be definitionally impossible to ban one form of birth control while retaining others.

Not that I'm in any way condoning the idea that abortion should be illegal, or that legal personhood begins at the moment of conception, but I would think that there is a serious and fundamental difference between an abortion that is initiated after conception, and a method of birth control which, before the moment of conception, prevents implantation. To bar that is, I think, absolutely and irretrievably a violation of a fundamental right of ownership of one's own body.

And once again as often, I feel compelled to add that I think it is so, even if one sincerely objects to abortion, and even if one is right in so doing. To make criminal a person's effort to make her own body unreceptive to implantation is an act of meddlesome, misogynistic bigotry for which no obloquy is adequate.

 

[Meadmaker]

I have the impression that Griswold is very close to Roe... doesn't Roe cite Griswold's precedent as its main justification? Seems to me they stand or fall together.

There is a lot in common. I haven't read either opinion in a very long time, so I can't say for sure how each one is reasoned out. However, Griswold cited a "rite to privacy" that Roe built on.
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However, there is also a huge difference, and this does matter to people who might be inclined to throw out Roe.

Both of them deal with the basic idea that if it's none of the government's business, the government can't stop you from doing it. So, two people want to have sex, but they don't want to have babies. None of your business if they use birth control. You can't stop it.

So, that's basically what's going on in Roe, too, so what's the difference?

The difference is that there's an additional organism involved. That fetus/zygote/embryo/baby is....something. Is it ok to kill it?

And here we go back to what I asked Upchurch yesterday. When a woman is about to go into normal delivery, is it ok to kill it? Almost everyone would say no. What about moments after it is fertilized? Most would say yes, some would say no. At what point in the process that begins at fertilization and ends at birth does it cease being ok to kill it? At some point, almost everyone would say that protecting its life ceases being "none of your business." But when?

I don't know how to answer that question. I have opinions, but so does everyone else. What makes one opinion better than another? More importantly, how can a court make that determination? There's nothing in the Constitution, so they have to depend on the law. The only alternative is to substitute their own opinion as the legal opinion.

So, to summarize. In the case of birth control, most people would say it is never society's business whether or not you use it. In the case of abortion, everyone agrees that at some point it is in fact society's business. That makes the two fundamentally different.

 

[gnome]

I think you might be mistaken in assuming the sincerity behind the pressure to overturn. I personally think the animus is specifically against that "right to privacy". Advocates for getting rid of Roe want to significantly weaken the federal government's ability to overturn state actions. This includes allying with sincere pro-lifers... but I do not think it is the primary goal.

 

[Meadmaker]

I think you might be mistaken in assuming the sincerity behind the pressure to overturn. I personally think the animus is specifically against that "right to privacy". Advocates for overturning want to significantly weaken the federal government's ability to overturn state actions. This includes allying with sincere pro-lifers... but I do not think it is the primary goal.

Could be. But they still have to work it into a legal opinion somehow. I suppose they could just completely abandon all substantive due process adjudication and say that states can do anything not expressly forbidden, or conversely that the feds can do nothing except what would be specifically enumerated. Certainly there are people yapping on the radio that say exactly that.


I don't see it happening, though. I guess we'll find out.

 

[mumblethrax]

In the case of abortion, everyone agrees that at some point it is in fact society's business.

That's just incorrect as a factual matter.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

There are two fundamental fallacies almost all abortion critics fall prey to:
1. That a woman ought to have children
And
2. That the State should have a say in when that should happen

 

[Meadmaker]

That's just incorrect as a factual matter.

Given a health, full term baby whose mother is in labor, are there people who would say that the baby has no right to life? There undoubtedly are such people, so when I said "everyone" that isn't absolutely true.

Make of that what you will.

 

[mumblethrax]

Given a health, full term baby whose mother is in labor, are there people who would say that the baby has no right to life?

Yes. There are people who say an infant has no right to life, including many among those who think about it for a living, because an infant does not possess the properties necessary to make such a moral claim upon us.

But I don't think abortion during labor is terribly plausible.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Given a health, full term baby whose mother is in labor, are there people who would say that the baby has no right to life? There undoubtedly are such people, so when I said "everyone" that isn't absolutely true.

Make of that what you will.

Wrong way to put the question, IMO:

What I'm asking is: who has the right to defend any right the Unborn might have against the will of the pregnant person?
Before you can talk about Rights, you should talk about Standing.