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The Roe Countdown

When will Roe v Wade be overturned

  • Before 31 December 2020

    Votes: 20 18.3%
  • Before 31 December 2022

    Votes: 27 24.8%
  • Before 31 December 2024

    Votes: 9 8.3%
  • SCOTUS will not pick a case up

    Votes: 16 14.7%
  • SCOTUS will pick it up and decline to overturn

    Votes: 37 33.9%

  • Total voters
    109
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It's adorable that you think SCOTUS isn't going to stop at overturning Roe V Wade.

Just because you live in a hippie state doesn't mean you're safe.

Is this quote directed at me? Because I didn't say that.

I didn't say that abortion access in Colorado will continue forever. I have no crystal ball.

For the SC to ban abortion nationwide would take another case. Someone will sue a woman to prevent her from getting an abortion - we can expect to see many such cases as they position this issue for the legal challenge. They'll try to appeal that up to the Supreme Court and to get the court to rule that a fetus has a constitutional right to life - but that challenge will take years to wind its way up to the Supremes. In the meantime, abortion will continue to be accessible in many states.

I support the right to have an abortion, the right of a woman to make her own choices regarding her own body, the right of a woman to have reproductive freedom. But that does not mean that I can't also consider the legal aspects of the situation. This is one of those issues where the basic legal aspect of the situation can potentially be out of sync with actual moral and ethical considerations. I honestly don't know whether or not they made the right legal decision - but even if it is the right legal decision, it is still morally abhorrent.
 
The most obvious way would be to find the law is not within the powers of congress. All federal laws need constitutional authorization. A law legalizing abortion would almost certainly use the interstate commerce clause as justification (the vast majority of these sorts of laws including the civil rights act of 1964 uses this as their authorization).

One of the missions of the present majority is to weaken the control of the Feds in general, and "abortion is not commerce" is a pretty juicy rhetorical hook to selectively gut the commerce clause.

More grim would be a finding that abortion itself is unconstitutional as it violates the rights of the unborn.

There would be more danger in the court finding that some act is not within Congress’ authority than in finding that a)life begins at conception and b) a zygote is entitled to protection under the 14th amendment. The later is just dumb, but quite limited in scope, while the former would fundamentally alter our method of governance. It would lead to a real crisis that might not be survivable.

I believe the gravest danger that the composition of the current SC posses is the erosion of trust and the possibility that it may start a conversation about eliminating the unimpeachability of or life appointments of justices.
 
They are lawyers. None of these are statements that they will not overturn Roe.

I mean, at one point Plessy v. Ferguson was all of those things and any of the judges in Brown v. Board could and probably would have said these things.

There is plenty about all of this that is deplorable, but this angle is silly.

True, "None of these are statements that they will not overturn Roe."
 
Because if the way I'm understanding is true then this country really is ****** because it doesn't matter what Congress does. SCOTUS is the ultimate and final word and, in essence, runs this country. If they say no, then it's no.

So that's just it? We're done then. All over, there's no ******* way abortion can get passed at a federal level because the SCOTUS will tell the entirety of government to **** themselves? Then what's the ******* point of congress? lol. Just have the SCOTUS run the country. I have to be missing something here.



No, I get that. I would just like an instance (maybe something from the last 50-60 years) where the SCOTUS overturned a law that passed through all 3 branches of the government. That's it. Marbury doesn't make sense to me. I'm sure others see the connection, but I'm not especially adept at law. I was hoping someone could explain it easier, but that might not be possible here.
There is a check on the SCOTUS: the constitution can be amended.

Now, the SCOTUS could ignore amendments and just do what they want. That can always happen. But so could police refuse to enforce a law. Prosecutors could decide not to prosecute police who refused to enforce a law that the SCOTUS accepted even though it was contrary to an amendment, etc etc etc.

But a check is still there
 
I believe the gravest danger that the composition of the current SC posses is the erosion of trust and the possibility that it may start a conversation about eliminating the unimpeachability of or life appointments of justices.

It's one of those things that from a very broad historical perspective this would probably be for the best. Had Thomas Jefferson won out and judicial review not been a thing we would likely be better off as in the long run this judicial power has been used for more harm than good.

We are just carrying around the legacy of the Warren court as if it wasn't a brief exception to the court being used as a repressive block to progress.

This court will probably torpedo Chevron deference at some point and that could literally lead to the end of civilization because it would make environmental regulations all but impossible. As well as in any practical sense creating a libertarian dystopia.
 
What part of them being the ones who get to decide what is constitutional are you having trouble with?

They can create whatever contorted arguments they want to use. They are only limited by their imagination.

However, it doesn't take any imagination whatsoever. It only takes recognizing fetal personhood to be able to say that the 14th Amendment applies from conception onward (while ignoring the competing rights of the motherincubator) and to also say that that makes any law allowing or guaranteeing the choice to have an abortion unconstitutional.

To further elaborate, Alito is making the case that, though the same sorts of reasoning would apply to Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell, these cases should not be considered at risk. While I think it would be naive to take Alito at his word (that is to say, I don't buy that & I believe that these other precedents are at risk), it should indicate that there is something different about this case that makes it so that we can overturn Roe v. Wade even though we must respect precedent for these (allegedly) also wrongly decided cases. I believe this has been even pointed out to me by someone here (but I'm not going to look for it); and that that difference is... baby.

Whether Alito really means it or not, he is making the distinction; and you can't make the case that Roe v. Wade is different from all these other cases because BABY without inserting fetal (zygotal?) personhood somewhere in the middle of the discussion at some point (heck, the Mississippi law explicitly refers to "unborn human beings").
 
To further elaborate, Alito is making the case that, though the same sorts of reasoning would apply to Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell, these cases should not be considered at risk. While I think it would be naive to take Alito at his word (that is to say, I don't buy that & I believe that these other precedents are at risk), it should indicate that there is something different about this case that makes it so that we can overturn Roe v. Wade even though we must respect precedent for these (allegedly) also wrongly decided cases. I believe this has been even pointed out to me by someone here (but I'm not going to look for it); and that that difference is... baby.

Whether Alito really means it or not, he is making the distinction; and you can't make the case that Roe v. Wade is different from all these other cases because BABY without inserting fetal (zygotal?) personhood somewhere in the middle of the discussion at some point (heck, the Mississippi law explicitly refers to "unborn human beings").

Even looking at this in terms of legal reasoning is getting off track. The essential question is whether a result would further the conservative agenda. This is a lukewarm maybe but probably not for gay marriage. Maybe slightly warmer maybe for trans rights. It's a flat no for birth control, sodomy, interracial marriage, etc.
 
Even looking at this in terms of legal reasoning is getting off track. The essential question is whether a result would further the conservative agenda. This is a lukewarm maybe but probably not for gay marriage. Maybe slightly warmer maybe for trans rights. It's a flat no for birth control, sodomy, interracial marriage, etc.

This was never part of the conservative agenda because it is some sort of deep tenet of conservatism that abortion is wrong. It has all come from a dynamic of mutual, codependent pandering between the GOP and a useful constituency —a useful constituency (the religious right) which, to be honest, also did not initially hold it as a deeply held tenet that abortion is wrong (much less, something that they deeply care about given that when this particular political strategy developed, the only ones to whom this would have applied were conservative Catholics)
 
Some commentators are noting that this SC could easily find grounds to overturn such a law.

The ruling said send the decision power back to the states. SC would have to rule strictly on the bases the federal government has no authority over the states. That would be another whole can of worms.

Otherwise, there is nothing in the Constitution that can interfere. That's how they wrote the ruling isn't it? Nothing in the Constitution guarantees the right to an abortion so by that logic, nothing denies the right either.

Next they are going to rule the fetus is a person. Whoops, that means pregnant women get two votes and get to go in the carpool lanes.

They made a huge mess. This court needs to go. What will it take for Biden to get more justices? He needs two more based on being robbed of Obama's nominee and one because they rushed Amy CB through. That leaves Roberts as the swing vote. Two more might make the GOP weaker trying to block the move.


Yes, I'm wishfully thinking.
 
//ETA// Hey guys can we lock this thread so the conversation doesn't keep jumping back and forth between this and the new one?
 
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