The Roe Countdown

[ponderingturtle]

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

What about going back to the old days of the 80's when in some states oral sex was a felony punishable by up to 20 years? I mean sure the ones who mostly will be targeted by that are the gays but the laws often outlawed oral sex in all cases not just in the context of homosexual sex and they are certainly gunning for those decisions.

 

[ponderingturtle]

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.

If you think birth control pills cause abortions and hence kill babies why wouldn't you try to outlaw them, you seem to think these people are like "Hmm I think this is murder but that is only a problem if I am involved in the murder otherwise you are free to chop chop"

 

[The Don]

What about going back to the old days of the 80's when in some states oral sex was a felony punishable by up to 20 years? I mean sure the ones who mostly will be targeted by that are the gays but the laws often outlawed oral sex in all cases not just in the context of homosexual sex and they are certainly gunning for those decisions.

I'm sure that's part of the GOP playbook - get plenty of restrictive laws on the books and then use them as you see fit to harass and punish certain demographics.

Laws aimed at suppressing the vote will be applied most vigorously in minority areas.

Laws aimed at restricting access to birth control and abortions will be disproportionately applied in poorer areas. The wealthy will still have options for their daughters/wives/girlfriends.

Laws against certain sexual practices will be enforced against certain groups, but not married, white, heterosexual, couples.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

I just wish people would use their skeptic sense sometimes. If it sounds ridiculous, it probably didn't happen.

My skeptic sense tells me Meadmaker really has contributed almost 100 posts to this thread.

My skeptic sense also tells me BobTheCoward really did write this:

There is zero, meaningful difference between a zygote of a species and a fully grown unit of a species. They are both frogs...they are both humans.

My skeptic sense tells me BobTheCoward is probably not a sericulturist.

 

[gnome]

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.

That's my point--the way to get it into a legal opinion is to overturn Griswold under the same reasoning as overturning Roe... saying that it relies on proposing a right, the very same right, not provided for by the constitution. They don't need a different argument. Just a court that accepts that reasoning, which it appears they have. It's already happened, effectively.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

My skeptic sense tells me BobTheCoward is probably not a sericulturist.

I had to look it up:

“The definition of sericulturist in the dictionary is someone who rears silkworms for the production of raw silk.”

Still trying to figure out it’s application here.

Oh, and “obloquy” was a new one for me as well.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

There is zero, meaningful difference between a zygote of a species and a fully grown unit of a species.

My skeptic sense tells me BobTheCoward is probably not a sericulturist.

I had to look it up:

“The definition of sericulturist in the dictionary is someone who rears silkworms for the production of raw silk.”

Still trying to figure out it’s application here.

How long do you think a sericulturist would stay in business if the sericulturist can't see any differences between a silk moth and a silkworm?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Hey guys we're not having the abortion debate again.

We're talking about SCOTUS arbitrarily changing an established precedent for the worse based on nothing.

 

[BobTheCoward]

How long do you think a sericulturist would stay in business if the sericulturist can't see any differences between a silk moth and a silkworm?

I said meaningful difference. That it affects my meaningless life doesn't make it meaningful.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Hey guys we're not having the abortion debate again.

We're talking about SCOTUS arbitrarily changing an established precedent for the worse based on nothing.

You mean finally made the correct decision.

 

[bruto]

Then "being" is meaningless construct

There are words with more than one meaning, depending on what other words they are coupled, with and what common language and tradition imply. The phrase "human being" is something more than the sum of its parts. My fingernail clippings are human in one sense, and insofar as they exist, they have being. But they are not human beings, and that fact does not render the sense of the phrase "human being" meaningless.

 

[BobTheCoward]

There are words with more than one meaning, depending on what other words they are coupled, with, and what common language and tradition imply. A "human being" is something more than the sum of its parts. My fingernail clippings are human in one sense, and insofar as they exist, they have being. But they are not human beings, and that fact does not render the sense of the phrase "human being" meaningless.

agree to disagree and I leave it at that.

 

[Ziggurat]

That's just incorrect as a factual matter.

Sure, there are some people who are OK with infanticide.

But they're a small enough minority as to be irrelevant to the debate, unless someone wants to argue their position. For the rest of us, it does become society's business at some point.

 

[JoeMorgue]

So any idea when SCOTUS will actually put the down the decision? What exactly are they waiting for now? The genie cat is out of the bag-bottle and nobody here is naïve enough to think public backlash is going to matter.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

So any idea when SCOTUS will actually put the down the decision? What exactly are they waiting for now? The genie cat is out of the bag-bottle and nobody here is naïve enough to think public backlash is going to matter.

the decision was to be announced in July.
Not clear if the leak will slow or accelerate things.

 

[Darat]

So any idea when SCOTUS will actually put the down the decision? What exactly are they waiting for now? The genie cat is out of the bag-bottle and nobody here is naïve enough to think public backlash is going to matter.

I am sure they are now reassessing their opinions based on the many rational, legal arguments that have been raised....

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Group claiming responsibility for the firebombing of a Wisconsin anti-abortion office has issued a public statement, promises more and escalating retaliation to state lead assault on reproductive rights and health-care workers.

Earlier this week the office of a Wisconsin anti abortion organization was firebombed.

I have received a statement from the group claiming responsibility. They call themselves "Jane's Revenge" (a reference to the Jane Collective).

More follows.

The statement was sent to me through an anonymous intermediary I trust. It is hosted on a Tor site (link to follow). The statement is titled "first communique" and opens with the words, "This is not a declaration of war".

They go on to state that this Molotov attack was "only a warning". Positioning themselves in response to lethal attacks on healthcare providers by anti-choice activists, they promise to adopt "increasingly extreme tactics" to maintain control over their own bodies.

They are issuing a 30 day ultimatum for all anti choice organizations and fake clinics (crisis pregnancy centers) to disband. They claim to have the ability to reach multiple states and repeat that the attack in Wisconsin was just a "warning"

They conclude by noting they are made up of several organizations: "We are in your city. We are in every city. Your repression only strengthens our accompliceship and resolve."

https://twitter.com/IwriteOK/status/1523926941572550656?cxt=HHwWgMCigdbeiaYqAAAA

 

[cosmicaug]

From https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/09/chris-murphy-abortion-warning-fox-news-sunday/:

So do you believe that once back in power, they’ll let a trifling procedural relic like the Senate filibuster stand in the way of decisive, absolute, rapturous triumph?

Sen. Chris Murphy doesn’t. If the court overturns Roe, the Connecticut Democrat says, once Republicans take control of Congress and the White House they’ll end the legislative filibuster to pass a national abortion ban with a simple majority in the Senate.

“When the opportunity presents itself, there’s no doubt in my mind that they’ll change the rules to pass a bill criminalizing abortion federally,” Murphy told me in an interview.

[...]

In this context, one has to ask: Even if you accept McConnell’s vow to keep the filibuster, is this a promise he can actually keep?

Imagine that, with Republicans controlling the White House and Congress in 2025, Senate Democrats filibuster legislation banning abortion nationally. Would Republicans really stop there and say, “Oh well, we tried”? As Stewart says, that “seems very unlikely.”

McConnell might also face intense pressure from inside the GOP caucus to end the filibuster, notes congressional scholar Norman Ornstein, a longtime and prescient observer of McConnell and GOP radicalization.

You already see GOP legislatures everywhere preparing to radically restrict abortion rights in anticipation of the court ruling. Despite the myth of McConnell’s tactical supremacy, Ornstein notes, McConnell sometimes fails to control his caucus, and would struggle to keep the filibuster under these circumstances, even if he wanted to.

 

[cosmicaug]

From https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-05-06/abortion-roe-supreme-court-draft-decision-unenumerated-rights

... the question is not whether unwritten rights will be recognized, but which. And that of course requires the court to tell us how it will distinguish what’s in from what’s out.

The Dobbs draft opinion takes a remarkably stingy approach to that question. It relies on the 1997 case of Washington vs. Glucksberg, which held that the Constitution did not protect the right to physician-assisted suicide. That opinion said that unwritten rights would be recognized only if they were “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” This approach effectively freezes an 18th- or 19th-century understanding of rights in place. The draft opinion’s application of this test doomed the right to abortion.

This approach is bizarre because it ignores the changes more recent cases have made to the Glucksberg test. Most prominently, the Obergefell case in 2015 not only made marriage equality the law of the land, but also transformed the role of tradition in discerning unwritten rights. The court rejected the idea that the rights inquiry could be “reduced to any formula.” It instead embraced an approach that “respects our history and learns from it without allowing the past alone to rule the present.” This shift allowed the justices to recognize same-sex marriage as a fundamental right.

As I wrote at the time, Obergefell’s innovation was that it struck the chains of history from the inquiry of which unwritten rights would be recognized. While it did not explicitly overrule the 1997 case, it was manifestly inconsistent with it. As Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s heated dissent in Obergefell observed, “the majority’s position requires it to effectively overrule Glucksberg.”

Without even addressing this aspect of Obergefell, the Dobbs draft opinion seeks to reinstate the shackles of history on the unenumerated rights inquiry. The consequences of that shift cannot be overstated. Will the six conservative justices deem same-sex marriage to be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and traditions”? What about the right to same-sex sexual intimacy recognized in 2003? The right to contraception recognized in 1965? It would be foolish to assume all these rights will be extinguished, as many factors will go into the justices’ decision-making. It would be even more foolish, however, not to see that they are now all freshly imperiled.

 

[Meadmaker]

I think CosmicAug's quote is quite relevant, especially this line:

" It would be foolish to assume all these rights will be extinguished, as many factors will go into the justices’ decision-making. It would be even more foolish, however, not to see that they are now all freshly imperiled."

I've been focusing a lot on the first sentence, as people want to shout that the sky is falling and women will soon be brood mares. However, the second sentence is, indeed, valid.

Nevertheless, I'm not concerrned about the future of many of those rights, because I think there is no push to overturn those rights in the legislatures, and even if a legislature would overturn them, I think most of them are on pretty solid ground intellectually and I think the courts would uphold them, despite the threat.

In all cases, though, I think it's vital to not depend on the courts to secure those rights. Take the fight to the legislatures.