Roe v. Wade overturned -- this is some BS

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shuttlt said:
At the risk of being naïve, if popularity is the key thing... why even have a Constitution? Constitutions, if they are worth anything, make it difficult for a legislature, elected by the popular will, to get their way. Surely half the point of having a Constitution and an SC is to frustrate the popular will?
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It is one thing to have a constitution that limits the power of the government but quite another to have a court that arbitrarily does the same.
 
shuttlt said:
At the risk of being naïve, if popularity is the key thing... why even have a Constitution? Constitutions, if they are worth anything, make it difficult for a legislature, elected by the popular will, to get their way. Surely half the point of having a Constitution and an SC is to frustrate the popular will?
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It would be, if the Supreme Court hadn't become a political tool of the GOP, interpreting the Constitution at the whim of the evangelicals and the NRA. Now that concept of precedent is out the window, there is no objective understanding of what is constitutional. It'll change every generation or so as we relitigate rights under different courts.

At this point, the Constitution is about as authoritative as a religious text. It will be interpreted by every sect differently but each will have 100% surety that only they have the True understanding.
 
Upchurch said:
It would be, if the Supreme Court hadn't become a political tool of the GOP, interpreting the Constitution at the whim of the evangelicals and the NRA. Now that concept of precedent is out the window, there is no objective understanding of what is constitutional. It'll change every generation or so as we relitigate rights under different courts.

At this point, the Constitution is about as authoritative as a religious text. It will be interpreted by every sect differently but each will have 100% surety that only they have the True understanding.
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That has always been the case. You think when progressive justices where "discovering" new right in the Constitution that was untainted by politics? They were genuinely finding things that were objectively their rather than seeing patterns in tea leaves? Did they often discover new protections that they profoundly disagreed with?

The Constitution has no meaning in the absence of a culture to interpret it. That cultures normative assumptions flesh out the Constitution and make it work. This has always been the case. For a long time the Justices were WASPS and you had their cultural assumptions interpreting the Constitution, then it became much more heavily Jewish and Catholic and the Constitution was interpreted differently. If the justices do not come from a fixed group with a more or less fixed set of cultural assumptions, then the interpretation of the Constitution is necessarily going to swing wildly. This was true when the decisions you like were getting made, and it is true now.

Fundamentally, the rule of law is incompatible with a truly multicultural country since different cultures have different ideas about what is reasonable.
 
psionl0 said:
It is one thing to have a constitution that limits the power of the government but quite another to have a court that arbitrarily does the same.
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There is no Constitution without the court. The Constitution has no meaning without the court. It is just symbols on a page written in funny old timey handwriting. Obviously a court that has different cultural assumptions to you is going to produce results that you feel are unreasonable, just as the court in 1973 produced a result that seemed unreasonable to some other people. This is one of the fundamental obstacles to centralising power.
 
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alfaniner said:
I saw a picture of a woman holding a sign that said "LIFE BEGINS AT EJACULATION".
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If she wanted to start an anti-masturbation, anti-promiscuous sex drive, I would think she'd get quite a bit of buy in from the pro-life crowd.
 
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Upchurch said:
It would be, if the Supreme Court hadn't become a political tool of the GOP, interpreting the Constitution at the whim of the evangelicals and the NRA. Now that concept of precedent is out the window, there is no objective understanding of what is constitutional. It'll change every generation or so as we relitigate rights under different courts.

At this point, the Constitution is about as authoritative as a religious text. It will be interpreted by every sect differently but each will have 100% surety that only they have the True understanding.
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:thumbsup:
 
Upchurch said:
Now that concept of precedent is out the window, there is no objective understanding of what is constitutional.
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It has always been possible to overturn precedent. It's not like this is some shocking "never happened before in the common law" occurrence. The law is not built on precedent being being irreversible. Are you outraged at the damage to the law done by Brown v. Board of Education?
 
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psionl0 said:
Er - wasn't there a constitutional amendment that specifically outlawed slavery? I don't recall any SC ruling that emancipated slaves (at least not prior to the 14th amendment).
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Perhaps so, but the Supreme Court did rule against segregation, laws forbidding interracial marriage, and laws forbidding birth control, decisions that many of us would consider consistent with American values, but which the states were, obviously, not prepared to do.
 
shuttlt said:
There is no Constitution without the court. The Constitution has no meaning without the court. It is just symbols on a page written in funny old timey handwriting. Obviously a court that has different cultural assumptions to you is going to produce results that you feel are unreasonable, just as the court in 1973 produced a result that seemed unreasonable to some other people. This is one of the fundamental obstacles to centralising power.
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Unreasonable to a minority. And now that minority has finally got the reversal it wanted. Is that how a society progresses, by being held back by the minority? Is that democratic? Is a centuries old Constitution forever to be rigidly adhered to? Even when the framers explicitly recognized the necessity of its review and amendment at least every generation?

It seems to me that many folk think the SC is required to interpret the Constitution in the way Bible studies groups try to divine the meaning of the Biblical text. As though there is some as yet not fully divined understanding. Such thinking overlooks the real purpose of a Constitution; the provision of guidance as society evolves. To keep true to basic tenets while accommodating the changing mores over generations. Otherwise a nation might as well remain frozen in time, like a Amish village.

This revocation of a right borne of popular sentiment, and still popular, recognizing the primacy of a woman to make a decision for herself on a matter of the most personal nature, is a heinous step backward. A revealing lurch toward religious control, where bodily autonomy is hijacked. Where the supposed disdain for government intrusion is revealed as an outright lie. Other rights hard won are soon to fall. The path to the Christian version of modern Iran under the Muslim Mullahs is becoming well paved. A State religion will soon enough be implemented. All hail our Christian overlords!
 
Lurch said:
Unreasonable to a minority. And now that minority has finally got the reversal it wanted. Is that how a society progresses, by being held back by the minority? Is that democratic? Is a centuries old Constitution forever to be rigidly adhered to? Even when the framers explicitly recognized the necessity of its review and amendment at least every generation?
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Sure, but it hasn't been amended to create these rights. What we are talking about is the judicial branch "discovering" new rights in the constitution, and "discovering" that rights they thought were in the Constitution are not in fact there. For the past 100 years that process has mostly favoured progressives, this is an unusual instance where it hasn't.

Lurch said:
It seems to me that many folk think the SC is required to interpret the Constitution in the way Bible studies groups try to divine the meaning of the Biblical text. As though there is some as yet not fully divined understanding.
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Isn't that how Roe vs Wade was decided? A new right was discovered that nobody had thought was there? Or Brown vs Board of Education. Interpretation of the Constitution is just like interpreting the Bible.

Lurch said:
Such thinking overlooks the real purpose of a Constitution; the provision of guidance as society evolves.
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Who interprets what that guidance means in an ever changing world?

Lurch said:
To keep true to basic tenets while accommodating the changing mores over generations. Otherwise a nation might as well remain frozen in time, like a Amish village.
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Right, but if the Constitution itself is going to be reinterpreted for each generation, then each generation needs to have some common agreement on "the good". There clearly is no such agreement. The rule of law breaks down in a truly multicultural country because nobody will agree what the right accommodations are to changing times.

Lurch said:
This revocation of a right borne of popular sentiment, and still popular, recognizing the primacy of a woman to make a decision for herself on a matter of the most personal nature, is a heinous step backward.
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So you think. Other people disagree. The Constitution and the SC are intended, and functioning as, a restraint on the power of the popular will. If you want the popular will to be supreme, then you really don't want to live in a Constitutional Republic.

John Adams said:
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
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You need a unifying cultural set of moral assumptions for the system to work. If you strip that out it was expected to fail from the start.

Lurch said:
A revealing lurch toward religious control, where bodily autonomy is hijacked. Where the supposed disdain for government intrusion is revealed as an outright lie. Other rights hard won are soon to fall. The path to the Christian version of modern Iran under the Muslim Mullahs is becoming well paved. A State religion will soon enough be implemented. All hail our Christian overlords!
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Your vision of progress isn't an intrinsic part of the direction of the system. If your vision of progress doesn't win, it doesn't mean that the system is broken.
 
Comment from Barbara Streisand.
Streisand...said on Friday following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade that the court used "religious dogma to overturn the constitutional right to abortion. This Court is the American Taliban." Fox. yes FOX, News link
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Religious dogma is the reason some states have outlawed abortion for victims of rape or incest. Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt said the quiet part out loud recently in an interview with Fox News in defending no exceptions for victims of rape or incest..
Stitt said, “We believe that God has a special plan for every single life and every single child...” Rolling Stone link
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smartcooky said:
Isn't remarkable how duplicitous Republicans are, the party you support, the so-called "Party of Small Government" that wants the Government to stay out of people's lives, but is quite happy to have that same government...

- Control a woman's right to exercise her own health choices.
- Control a persons right to love/marry/ whom they choose.
- Control the education of young people to prevent them from learning the inconvenient truth about their history.
- Control businesses whose messaging conflicts with the government's messaging.
- Control schools' efforts to prevent transmission of disease by banning mask mandates
- Control business' efforts to keep workers safe by banning vaccine passes and vaccine mandates

This is what American Freedom really looks like, the ripping away of human rights to satisfy a political agenda...

America.. The land of the free (free to do and say anything you like so long as we agree with it)
America.. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, but only if they're white and Christian!

While the rest of the civilized world progresses to greater and greater freedoms and liberties for its peoples, the USA takes a step back towards the dark ages. When the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court of the United States, uses the opinions of jurists from centuries ago - opinions that were used to justify the prosecutions and execution of witches, you know they have lost the plot, and the end is near. It won't be long before y'all will be burning witches at the stake again.
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It's really adding up, isn't it. :(:mad:
 
mikegriffith1 said:
I simply cannot see any moral or humane justification for abortion after the baby has a heartbeat and brain activity, except in cases of rape, incest, and endangerment. I think states should encourage rape and incest victims to have their babies and give them up for adoption, but I can understand why many victims would not want to do that.
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Spoken like a person who doesn't have a uterus or vagina.
 
Lurch said:
If the SCOTUS goes on a tear to hand back control of more and more rights to the States, the already dis-United States of America will only become further Balkanized. I just cannot see how such a hodgepodge could remain as a homogenous nation working toward a common future.
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Why would they do that? They have not done it with firearms. They'll rule for "state's rights" if it serves their ideology and if it serves their ideology they'll also rule for expansive federal powers and against "state's rights" even if it conflicts with some precedent that they may have set the day before.

Seriously, do you really think that if we ever get a federal abortion ban & it gets challenged the SCOTUS will call it a state matter & strike it down?
 
Possible actions by Congress:
NC scholar: With Roe gone, Congress should suspend the Supreme Court
I had hoped, intensely, this wouldn’t actually come. But the Dobbs case has been handed down. Unvarnished. Lawless. Dishonest. Heedless of the damage that will now immediately ensue. Hideously ideological, unelected hacks have moved to inflict their politics and their religion on a non-consenting nation. Now we all reap the whirlwind. ...

So, in Washington, Democrats must act. First, the party must clearly state the mission. It must demand, therefore, the enactment of legislation codifying Roe v. Wade. Now. The bill should be as clean and sparse as possible to build the broadest coalition. It’s not time for a Christmas tree. ...

The elected branches of government must fight back. So next, as has occurred before in our history, the Congress should pass legislation postponing the next term of the Supreme Court. A quick and bold shot across the bow; declaring this will not stand. ...

Next, after Roe is codified, the Congress should remove the jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court to hear abortion cases. The constitution grants such power. And the Court that handed down Dobbs will not be hesitant to invalidate a new statute codifying Roe – though it has no conceivable authority to do so. ...

And, it is obvious to state, if these steps fail, the Supreme Court should be packed. Happily. These faux-judges can’t be allowed to do what the Confederacy couldn’t. And if we can’t get Democratic politicians to do all this, we have to get some new ones who will. Immediately.

I concede this sounds extreme. But the fact is, this is the trauma we face. Pretending otherwise won’t help. The clock is ticking. Democracy calls.
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Reading the whole article is worthwhile. There's a lot more I didn't quote.

Also, the comments are full of right-wing trolls. They could use a few more intelligent replies.
 
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