The Roe Countdown

[JoeMorgue]

Also I have a gut feeling that any Republicans who do have any reservations (and I don't think that number is high)
have already developed this vague, half formed internalized excuse that the "right" people will still be able to get abortions if they "really" need them, so any negative consequences can be largely rationalized away and then, as is tradition, aggressively and intentionally never thought about again.

Like has been said your Republican Congressman's Mistress will always be able to find an abortion.

 

[Upchurch]

I don't think there's any secret that a significant number of people believe the latter, and have believed that since the day the ruling was issued.

That would assume 50 years worth of bad faith from the justices, which is kind of the point.

 

[Ziggurat]

Another result of overturning Roe: the impact on military service.

It's going to have very little effect. That's why the author has to conflate rape with sexual assault. Only a fraction of the latter consist of the former. Furthermore, a number of states have exceptions for rape, and a number of states also specifically allow morning-after pills to prevent/terminate pregnancies. Which, if you've been raped and don't want to be pregnant, is probably a good idea anyways. Most of the states with looming abortion bans have one or both of these exceptions. So the number of pregnancies in the armed forces caused by rapes which could not be terminated due to these laws is going to be pretty small. It's not going to really matter for military readiness of our armed forces.

Of all the arguments against overturning RvW, this has to be one of the weakest ones. There are far better ones available.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I don't think there's any secret that a significant number of people believe the latter, and have believed that since the day the ruling was issued.

Not really, that is a bit of a myth that evangelicals tell themselves and everyone else. They didn't care about Roe for several years when they needed a political issue with better optics than keeping the blacks out of their schools while remaining tax exempt. The modern fight against abortion really started with Coit v. Green not Roe v. Wade.

You can't talk about the real history of the fight against abortion without talking about segregation academies.

 

[Ziggurat]

Who is saying it is a wrong decision?

Not you. That's kind of my point. You are arguing everything EXCEPT the merits of the actual decision.

I find that strange.

 

[Meadmaker]

That would assume 50 years worth of bad faith from the justices, which is kind of the point.

It doesn't require any assumption of "bad faith". It requires an assumption about prevalent judicial philosophies.

In reality, I do think certain justices have such strong biases toward desired outcomes, as opposed to interpretation of the law, that I would accuse them of bad faith, but I would say that of certain justices on both the left and right.

Most, however, just have different legal philosophies. It's that whole "originalist" versus "textualist" versus what you referred to as "fairness and justice".

 

[Upchurch]

Not you. That's kind of my point. You are arguing everything EXCEPT the merits of the actual decision.

I find that strange.

That's because there isn't an actual decision. Not yet, anyway.

We can argue about the leaked decision, which I've tried to read. Most of it has very little to do with the actual Dobbs situation and seems to be more just a critique of Roe. To my untrained eye, the specifics of Dobbs appears to be largely inconsequential to the decision and it is largely just "Roe bad".

[/IANAL]

 

[Ziggurat]

That's because there isn't an actual decision. Not yet, anyway.

We can argue about the leaked decision, which I've tried to read. Most of it has very little to do with the actual Dobbs situation and seems to be more just a critique of Roe. To my untrained eye, the specifics of Dobbs appears to be largely inconsequential to the decision and it is largely just "Roe bad".

[/IANAL]

The reason it doesn't have a lot to say about the specifics of Dobbs is because it's not really a ruling on Dobbs. It invalidates a lower court ruling on Dobbs explicitly on the basis that Roe was wrongly decided. And that obviously does require quite a bit of focus on Roe. But it doesn't substitute its own ruling regarding Dobbs, but instead sends it back to the lower court for further consideration. Since they aren't actually presenting a final ruling on Dobbs, the lack of much Dobbs-specific analysis isn't really an issue. The final ruling on Dobbs, whether it's by the lower court or even if it gets kicked back up to the SC again, will have much more Dobbs-specific analysis.

 

[JoeMorgue]

One day I hope I'm as good at and dedicated to anything as people are at and to finding reasons why evil is "technically" this or that.

Women should be allowed to make their own bodily decisions. I don't care about anything beyond that in this discussion in that context.

I'm so tired of evil wrongness always have some higher discussion to appeal to.

 

[Warp12]

Women should be allowed to make their own bodily decisions.

Back to square one of how this all got started. People aren't debating her bodily decisions, so much. Every time I hear "my body, my choice", I picture a murdered 5-month-old fetus. So much for Roe being just about "her body".

 

[JoeMorgue]

Well yes because you are wrong and your entire personality, top down, is 100% based upon being impossible to talk to.

You're still at square one because you won't leave it. Everyone else moved on years ago.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Back to square one of how this all got started. People aren't debating her bodily decisions, so much. Every time I hear "my body, my choice", I picture a murdered 5-month-old fetus. So much for Roe being just about "her body".

Yes, they are. Pregnancy is a medical condition. Anti-abortionists want to take the freedom of making one's own medical choices away from women.

 

[Upchurch]

The reason it doesn't have a lot to say about the specifics of Dobbs is because it's not really a ruling on Dobbs. It invalidates a lower court ruling on Dobbs explicitly on the basis that Roe was wrongly decided. And that obviously does require quite a bit of focus on Roe. But it doesn't substitute its own ruling regarding Dobbs, but instead sends it back to the lower court for further consideration. Since they aren't actually presenting a final ruling on Dobbs, the lack of much Dobbs-specific analysis isn't really an issue. The final ruling on Dobbs, whether it's by the lower court or even if it gets kicked back up to the SC again, will have much more Dobbs-specific analysis.

That doesn't explain why it's overturning it now, with this case. The only difference are the addition of justices specifically appointed to overturn Roe. That isn't deciding a case on it's merits, but by who is in charge.

 

[Meadmaker]

One day I hope I'm as good at and dedicated to anything as people are at and to finding reasons why evil is "technically" this or that.

If JoeMorgue wrote Supreme Court Opinions:

Justice Morgue delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court:

Abortion ought to be legal. If there's a law out there that's against it, it's a no good law and you can't have it.

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They would be a lot more clear than they are now. Those darned things go on for pages and pages.

 

[Ziggurat]

One day I hope I'm as good at and dedicated to anything as people are at and to finding reasons why evil is "technically" this or that.

Women should be allowed to make their own bodily decisions. I don't care about anything beyond that in this discussion in that context.

I'm so tired of evil wrongness always have some higher discussion to appeal to.

You're begging the question. Abortion opponents see you excusing murder, and murder is evil, isn't it?

What you refer to as "higher discussion" is really just more abstract discussion. If you don't want to have that discussion, fine. But there are good reasons to engage in it. One of those reasons is that going more abstract can actually help you understand the nature of disagreements. If you want to hold on to your axiomatic moral foundations and refuse to acknowledge the possibility that anyone could legitimately have different ones without being irredeemably evil, then best of luck to you. But that's both incredibly illiberal and practically speaking exhausting. And it will also prevent you from being able to understand people with different views than your own.

 

[Ziggurat]

That doesn't explain why it's overturning it now, with this case. The only difference are the addition of justices specifically appointed to overturn Roe. That isn't deciding a case on it's merits, but by who is in charge.

What's the alternative? Again, how long should an incorrect decision stand before it's overturned? None of this speaks to whether the decision itself was right or wrong.

 

[JoeMorgue]

If JoeMorgue wrote Supreme Court Opinions:




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They would be a lot more clear than they are now. Those darned things go on for pages and pages.

I hope every right you have is one day taken away and the only response you get is some technicality or philosophical discussion.

 

[Meadmaker]

I hope every right you have is one day taken away and the only response you get is some technicality or philosophical discussion.

At the Supreme Court level, I do hope to hear about technicalities and philosophical discussions. That's their role.

From politicians, I encourage clarity, even down to the sloganeering level in some cases. From the courts, I expect something different.


There's nothing wrong with your simple, direct, and easy to understand opinions, but they wouldn't make for good case law.

 

[JoeMorgue]

At the Supreme Court level, I do hope to hear about technicalities and philosophical discussions. That's their role.

From politicians, I encourage clarity, even down to the sloganeering level in some cases. From the courts, I expect something different.


There's nothing wrong with your simple, direct, and easy to understand opinions, but they wouldn't make for good case law.

Easy to say when it isn't happening to you.

That's why I hope it does.

 

[Paul2]

Why should "precedent" protect a wrong decision? And why does a right decision need "precedent" to protect it? How long must a wrong decision stand before it can be overturned? Is overturning a right decision OK if you waited long enough to do it?

If RvW was decided wrongly, then that's compelling reason to overturn it. The current pending decision argues that it was. If the current decision's argument on that point is wrong, if RvW was decided correctly, then that's an argument against the current decision on its merits. If that's what you believe, then make that argument. You don't need precedent, or "minority opinion", in order to do that.

Precedent can't be ignored; otherwise, every time the members of the court change, there's the potential to change a decision, and the law then runs the risk of flip-flopping back and forth. It's in society's interest to have stability in the law. So there's a tension between what a court thinks is wrongly decided and the need to not be flip-flopping. IANAL so don't ask me where the perfect balance is, but there should be some sort of balance.