• Due to ongoing issues caused by Search, it has been temporarily disabled
  • Please excuse the mess, we're moving the furniture and restructuring the forum categories
  • You may need to edit your signatures.

    When we moved to Xenfora some of the signature options didn't come over. In the old software signatures were limited by a character limit, on Xenfora there are more options and there is a character number and number of lines limit. I've set maximum number of lines to 4 and unlimited characters.

Cont: Roe v Wade overturned - this is some BS part II

I think the democrats were comfortable with the status quo, but were also afraid of losing some votes by codifying Rvw.
 
I think the democrats were comfortable with the status quo, but were also afraid of losing some votes by codifying Rvw.
Here's a question...

Would it even have mattered if the democrats had codified RvW?

Given the current supreme court, I could easily see them finding some excuse to toss out laws protecting abortion rights nationwide. (Remember, these were the people that used legal "knowledge" from a guy who once prosecuted witches in order to revoke abortion rights)
 
Democrats made a poor choice not to do it when they had the power. Who knows when they'll have the power again, hopefully next year.

Both sides were "benefiting" from the status quo of RvW, it was something to campaign on. Now, it is just a mess. It's definitely something to motivate people to vote against the Repugs, but still a was a poor choice (not to codify it when they could) with a high cost to people.

Maybe I'm confused on how passing a law works but when did the Dems have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate? Doesn't it require 60 votes to get around the filibuster?
 
Good point. I hadn't thought of the permanent filibuster. Looks like abortion rights may never get codified. It doesn't mean the Democrats shouldn't try, though.
 
Maybe I'm confused on how passing a law works but when did the Dems have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate? Doesn't it require 60 votes to get around the filibuster?
Well first of all, they actually had a fillibuster-proof majority in late 2009 (after increasing the number of senate seats in the 2008 election, winning a byelection, and having one senator change parties.) That's how they got the affordable care act passed. (Plus, there is the possibility that some "moderate" republicans, like Collins, might have voted in favor of an abortion rights bill, or at least abstained from it.)

Secondly, even if they didn't have a super-majority in theory democrats could have invoked the "nuclear option"... changing the rule of the senate to prevent a minority party from using the filibuster to block legislation (much like Moscow Mitch did in changing the rules to confirm supreme court justices.)
 
Well first of all, they actually had a fillibuster-proof majority in late 2009 (after increasing the number of senate seats in the 2008 election, winning a byelection, and having one senator change parties.) That's how they got the affordable care act passed...

Wrong. Democrats lost their filibuster proof majority before it was time to vote on the affordable Care act and therefore had to do the reconciliation process.

Unfortunately reconciliation cannot be used to make roe v Wade federal law.
 
Wrong. Democrats lost their filibuster proof majority before it was time to vote on the affordable Care act and therefore had to do the reconciliation process.

Unfortunately reconciliation cannot be used to make roe v Wade federal law.

Neither Democrats or Republicans have had a filibuster proof majority in a very long time.
 
AZ has gathered enough signatures to put abortion rights on the ballot:

The Arizona secretary of state’s office said Monday that it had certified 577,971 signatures — far above the required number that the coalition supporting the ballot measure had to submit in order to put the question before voters.

The coalition, Arizona for Abortion Access, said it is the most signatures validated for a citizens initiative in state history.

The issue already is set to go before voters this year in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, New York and South Dakota.

Arizona law currently bans abortions after 15 weeks. The ban, which was signed into law in 2022, includes exceptions in cases of medical emergencies but has restrictions on non-surgical abortion. It also requires an ultrasound before an abortion is done, as well as parental consent for minors.

The proposed amendment would allow abortions until a fetus could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks, with exceptions to save the mother’s life or to protect her physical or mental health. It would restrict the state from adopting or enforcing any law that would prohibit access to the procedure.

Organizers said they initially submitted 823,685 signatures, more than double the 383,923 required from registered voters.

Trump said abortion rights are no longer a big issue.
 
Do what Florida does, just completely ignore it.

We voted Felon voting rights in here a few years back. DeSantis basically just went "LOL whatever" and Felons still can't vote in Florida.
 
Will the Republicans try and block this?
They already did. This is going on the ballot.
Or gratefully abdicate responsibility?
Nothing grateful about it. And it really is impossible for them to walk away from this issue

Trump said abortion rights are no longer a big issue.

Trump says a lot of ****.
Yep. I'm not sure Trump even believes this. Every single time Abortion rights has appeared on the ballot since SCOTUS overturned Roe, they have been passed. Even in the buckle of the Bible belt. I'd be shocked if this doesn't pass in November and very possibly lead to Democratic victories in the state.
 
Do what Florida does, just completely ignore it.

We voted Felon voting rights in here a few years back. DeSantis basically just went "LOL whatever" and Felons still can't vote in Florida.

Are you sure? How does Florida enforce it?
 
One thing that strikes me is the sheer number of signatures that were counted as not verified. That rather suggests a serious attempt to prevent this from qualifying by using underhanded means. Hardly a certainty, of course, but it is pretty suspicious before investigation.

I don't think so. That number dwarfed the number of valid signatures required. It takes time to check that many signatures. That there was another 200,000 plus signatures that hadn't as yet been checked isn't as much of surprise as you might think. They just announced it at the deadline before the ballots were ordered from the printers.
 
I don't think so. That number dwarfed the number of valid signatures required. It takes time to check that many signatures. That there was another 200,000 plus signatures that hadn't as yet been checked isn't as much of surprise as you might think. They just announced it at the deadline before the ballots were ordered from the printers.

I'd say that once they had verified enough signatures to meet the number required it's a waste of resources to continue verifying signatures.
 

Even if we the citizens of Arizona pass it, I have no faith that the GOP dominated legislature will do it. We passed legalization of weed 5 or 6 times before the legislature actually did it. There is little or no actual power with the voter, as far as legislation goes, in Arizona.

I have no idea what the process is since all of these bills listed the exact legal changes that were supposed to be entered into our law, but somehow the legislature always ignored the prescribed changes or blocked them from from going into effect.
 
Last edited:
I don't think so. That number dwarfed the number of valid signatures required. It takes time to check that many signatures. That there was another 200,000 plus signatures that hadn't as yet been checked isn't as much of surprise as you might think. They just announced it at the deadline before the ballots were ordered from the printers.

I'd say that once they had verified enough signatures to meet the number required it's a waste of resources to continue verifying signatures.


To be clear, as I said, it's hardly some certainty. There certainly are innocuous possibilities that would be reasonable to just assume if there was nothing else in play.

The GOP in general and Arizona GOP in particular have very recent and deeply problematic records, though. There's plenty of reason to believe that they would be entirely on board with engaging in underhanded means to try to get what they want, up to and including breaking laws again.

It's not like it's a mystery why Arizona Republicans would employ a wildly unqualified company that just happened to be led by a vociferous election denier to try to overturn an election after having repeated failed to do so using and abusing the normal recount process.
 
Are you sure? How does Florida enforce it?
Basically the state legislature changed the law, so it reads that felons have to pay back all court costs associated with their case before their voting rights is restored.

Since Florida's court system runs on a non-subsidised funding scheme, those costs can be quite exorbitant, leading to few if any felons being able to pay and thus restore their rights.

Thus the letter of the ballot iniative is upheld, but the spirit of it has been taken out back and shot.
 
Are you sure? How does Florida enforce it?

Yes. First they lead plated it by saying felons had to pay off any "court fees" before they would be allowed to vote. No, they weren't gonna tell you what you owed.

Then when a few tried to vote Desantis went on a huge rampage and press whirlwind by arresting a bunch of them and saying he had found voter fraud. Turns out state officials had told those voters they were allowed to vote and Desantis had to quietly drop all the charges - but he got the effect he wanted by intimidating any felons who wanted to vote.

Desantis is facing multiple lawsuits over his antics but what does he care as the state budget will pay if the judges he packed into the courts actually rule against him.
 
Yes. First they lead plated it by saying felons had to pay off any "court fees" before they would be allowed to vote. No, they weren't gonna tell you what you owed.

They didn't necessarily even know what was owed, apparently, on top of a lot of those fees being exorbitant. Makes things ripe for false accusations and extortion.
 
At first before Rowe was overturned I thought maybe it would be a good idea to see what the people in a different states really believed in but now that women have lost a lot of Rights in many states I think overturning role was a bad idea and we need Federal guarantee for a certain minimum level of abortion rights in the entire country.
 
At first before Rowe was overturned I thought maybe it would be a good idea to see what the people in a different states really believed in but now that women have lost a lot of Rights in many states I think overturning role was a bad idea and we need Federal guarantee for a certain minimum level of abortion rights in the entire country.
Being Pedantic It's Roe. But some of that is probably autocorrect.

Otherwise I agree. But the partisan in me doesn't mind how this has been affecting political races across the country.
 
Congress should make the regulations set forth in Roe v Wade, Federal law.

At the bear minimum, elective 1st trimester abortions should be legal in all 50 states.

The bear minimum would be zero bears, depending on weather the null set is conditional.
Either way, I agree with republicans that bears should not perform abortions
 
Even if we the citizens of Arizona pass it, I have no faith that the GOP dominated legislature will do it. We passed legalization of weed 5 or 6 times before the legislature actually did it. There is little or no actual power with the voter, as far as legislation goes, in Arizona.

I have no idea what the process is since all of these bills listed the exact legal changes that were supposed to be entered into our law, but somehow the legislature always ignored the prescribed changes or blocked them from from going into effect.

I don't know where you got this information. Medical marijuana was finally approved by Prop 203 with 50.1% of the vote. Prop 207 was approved in 2020 with 60% of the votes.

The abortion rights measure is an amendment to the constitution. It's a little different than the acts passed by voters regarding marijuana.
 
It’s a few days old now but the Indiana DA has dropped their harassment “privacy” case against the doctor that told a newspaper that a 10 year old was pregnant.

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/indiana-abortion-lawsuit-ohio-patient-privacy/

It's kind of funny because they played it off as, "She did what we told her to do without talking back, so we're dropping this lawsuit because she's a good girl."

When in reality she didn't agree to or change anything. The hospital is doing the same training it always has, their policies are staying the same, and the only disciplinary actions he suffered was the medical board telling her not to share patient information.
 
From https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-abortion-ban-amber-thurman-death

[...]

After reviewing Thurman’s case, the committee highlighted Piedmont’s “lack of policies/procedures in place to evacuate uterus immediately” and recommended all hospitals implement policies “to treat a septic abortion on an ongoing basis.”

It is not clear from the records available why doctors waited to provide a D&C to Thurman, though the summary report shows they discussed the procedure at least twice in the hours before they finally did.

Piedmont did not have a policy to guide doctors on how to interpret the state abortion ban when Thurman arrived for care, according to two people with knowledge of internal conversations who were not authorized to speak publicly. In the months after she died, an internal task force of providers there created policies to educate staff on how to navigate the law, though they are not able to give legal advice, the sources said.

In interviews with more than three dozen OB-GYNs in states that outlawed abortion, ProPublica learned how difficult it is to interpret the vague and conflicting language in bans’ medical exceptions — especially, the doctors said, when their judgment could be called into question under the threat of prison time.

[...]
 
I remember some thriller movie I watched sometime before chemo, where there was a strict one child per woman rule. One woman and her partner had a stillbirth, which counted, and when she got pregnant again they were fleeing the country so she could keep it. They were caught at a scanning station checking for pregnancy, her husband was shot, and she was taken off to some kind of OBGYN prison for violators of the one child law or those who murdered their unborns. Her cellmate was a woman who'd had a miscarriage, when it went wrong she went to doctors and they reported her to police. She had taken a 'baby bomb', like she was charged with, but what strikes me now, is doctors saved her life. They weren't afraid they'd be in trouble if they didn't let her die, that's the biggest difference between the movie and now.
 
From https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-camp-says-state-menstrual-surveillance-programs-are-a-ok

One of the most toxic and politically explosive parts of the current abortion rights debate is tied the complexities and perhaps inanities of leaving national abortion policy up to individual states. And a comment yesterday from Trump spokesman Jason Miller put the question right back into the center of the campaign.

[...]

But yesterday in an interview on Newsmax of all places, a host asked Trump spokesman Jason Miller whether Donald Trump supported or wouldn’t aim to prevent states from enforcing their own menstrual surveillance regimes. It was one of those Fox-like interviews in which the host seems to go out of his way to signal what the right answer is. You wouldn’t do this, right?

“But he wouldn’t support monitoring pregnancies, even if a state decided to do that?” the host asked.

Miller responded that “he’s [i.e., Trump’s] made it very clear that he’s not going to go and weigh in and push various states on how they want to go and set up their particular rules and restrictions. That’s going to be up to the states.”

So he went there. It’s totally up to the states. Trump’s “leave it up to the states” approach applies to all these menstrual surveillance and travel restriction regimes as well. It’s a new opening for the Harris campaign to focus attention on an issue that hasn’t yet gotten enough attention — not just abortion rights as a general issue but states and county sheriffs’ effort to restrict women’s travel, access their medical records and current state of menstruation or gestation, and bar access to legal medications.

[...]
 
From https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-emergency-abortion-texas-bf79fafceba4ab9df9df2489e5d43e72:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a decision barring emergency abortions that violate the law in Texas, which has one of the country’s strictest abortion bans.

Without detailing their reasoning, the justices kept in place a lower court order that said hospitals cannot be required to provide pregnancy terminations that would violate Texas law. There were no publicly noted dissents.

The Biden administration had asked the justices to throw out the lower court order, arguing that hospitals have to perform abortions in emergency situations under federal law. The administration pointed to the Supreme Court’s action in a similar case from Idaho earlier this year in which the justices narrowly allowed emergency abortions to resume while a lawsuit continues.

The administration also cited a Texas Supreme Court ruling that said doctors do not have to wait until a woman’s life is in immediate danger to provide an abortion legally. The administration said it brings Texas in line with federal law and means the lower court ruling is not necessary.

Texas asked the justices to leave the order in place, saying the state Supreme Court ruling meant Texas law, unlike Idaho’s, does have an exception for the health of a pregnant patient and there’s no conflict between federal and state law.

[...]
 
I'm thinking this isn't constitutional.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is threatening TV stations that air ads in support of an abortion rights ballot initiative with criminal penalties, including jail time.

DeSantis and his allies are already spending large sums of taxpayer dollars to fight Amendment 4, which would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution if voted into law in November. His “election police” have interrogated and intimidated residents who signed petitions to put it on the ballot. His administration created a publicly funded, state-run website condemning the amendment, and has run ads promoting the current law, which bans abortions after six weeks.

Now, however, DeSantis is escalating the battle: On Oct. 3, his Department of Health sent a letter to at least one local NBC affiliate suggesting that prosecutors could bring criminal charges against the TV station for airing ads that encourage residents to vote for the amendment. The letter, first reported by investigative journalist Jason Garcia, asserted that the ads violate Florida’s “sanitary nuisance” law and that stations may commit a second-degree misdemeanor by carrying them, subjecting their employees to a 60-day jail sentence.

DeSantis is a sanitary nuisance.
 
Last edited:
I'm thinking this isn't constitutional.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is threatening TV stations that air ads in support of an abortion rights ballot initiative with criminal penalties, including jail time.

DeSantis and his allies are already spending large sums of taxpayer dollars to fight Amendment 4, which would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution if voted into law in November. His “election police” have interrogated and intimidated residents who signed petitions to put it on the ballot. His administration created a publicly funded, state-run website condemning the amendment, and has run ads promoting the current law, which bans abortions after six weeks.

Now, however, DeSantis is escalating the battle: On Oct. 3, his Department of Health sent a letter to at least one local NBC affiliate suggesting that prosecutors could bring criminal charges against the TV station for airing ads that encourage residents to vote for the amendment. The letter, first reported by investigative journalist Jason Garcia, asserted that the ads violate Florida’s “sanitary nuisance” law and that stations may commit a second-degree misdemeanor by carrying them, subjecting their employees to a 60-day jail sentence.

DeSantis is a sanitary nuisance.

There are a number of states that people need to pay attention to because I am certain that the GOP is looking at them as models for what could be implemented nationwide (but turned up to 11). Wisconsin over the last 20 years (for political machinations to maintain a minority rule) is one such state. Florida under DeSantis (for straight up fascist tactics) is another.
 
Back
Top Bottom