BREAKING: Roe v. Wade might be overruled or severely weakened by SCOTUS

[R.P. McM]

I think you would see mass mobilisation of pro-choice Americans and a mass drain of demographic and economic drain from states where there would be default anti-choice legislation.

So, Ohio, West Virginia, Missouri, Iowa are doomed economically?

Certainly not! Those states are doing fantastic now. Every day one of my friends at the bagel shop says, boy, I can't wait til my number comes up and I can move to Huntington, WV or Branson, MO!

Glad to see "socialists" express contempt for economically deprived areas.

It's entirely their fault we're in the current predicament. Yeah, the WWC of WV, MO, etc., valued their racial/religious animus above their economic wellbeing. So please, please don't expect me to shed a tear for them. They're getting exactly what they voted for, and exactly what they deserve.

[R.P. McM]

I think you would see mass mobilisation of pro-choice Americans and a mass drain of demographic and economic drain from states where there would be default anti-choice legislation.

So, Ohio, West Virginia, Missouri, Iowa are doomed economically?

I think states with punitive abortion law will see both economic boycotts and a drain of young people. Women have much more social mobility than they did pre Roe.

'Big Pro-Life' is well connected and powerful but it is not popular. Repealing Roe ends the grift.

This is a silly fantasy. Some states with restrictive abortion laws such as Mississippi already have very few clinics not accessible to large swathes of the population. Despite that, you aren't seeing mass migrations of people for reasons of lack of accessible abortion services. As others pointed out, people simply don't move for ideological reasons short of actual persecution for your beliefs.

Admittedly, it's not a huge subset of the population. But given MS's climate and COL, wouldn't you expect them to be doing pretty well? Instead, MS's population increased by ~0.3% over the previous decade. Versus my cold, relatively expensive Midwestern home state: ~6.3%. Yeah, assuming MS outlaws abortion, there's a 0% chance any major MN firm attempts to relocate without incurring significant backlash. Essentially, the employees of said firm would say, "no thanks, I'm not moving to f***ing MS." Which they already say, but it'd be exponentially worse.    

[R.P. McM]

Most likely scenario is a 5-4 decision with any one of the Roberts/Kavanaugh/Coney Barett/Gorsuch group joining the liberals, reversing Roe v. Wade, and ruling that states also cannot legalize abortion.

If the blue states just said no to this, what would happen hypothetically saying, after all who would enforce it?

That's where this is all headed, sadly. Which is why I favor a peaceful partition.

[R.P. McM]

Most likely scenario is a 5-4 decision with any one of the Roberts/Kavanaugh/Coney Barett/Gorsuch group joining the liberals, reversing Roe v. Wade, and ruling that states also cannot legalize abortion.

If the blue states just said no to this, what would happen hypothetically saying, after all who would enforce it?

I can easily see Red State Governors raising militias and invading Blue states to enforce said ruling.

What lmao

Yeah, at the moment, that seems like an extremely remote prospect. But what were you saying prior to the 2020 election? Did you believe that a preponderance of the GOP caucus would vote to overturn the results? Did you anticipate the insurrection? If not, maybe you don't understand the opposition, and your crystal ball is a bit murky.

[R.P. McM]

I think you would see mass mobilisation of pro-choice Americans and a mass drain of demographic and economic drain from states where there would be default anti-choice legislation.

So, Ohio, West Virginia, Missouri, Iowa are doomed economically?

Certainly not! Those states are doing fantastic now. Every day one of my friends at the bagel shop says, boy, I can't wait til my number comes up and I can move to Huntington, WV or Branson, MO!

Glad to see "socialists" express contempt for economically deprived areas.

It's entirely their fault we're in the current predicament. Yeah, the WWC of WV, MO, etc., valued their racial/religious animus above their economic wellbeing. So please, don't expect me to shed a tear for them. They're getting exactly what they voted for, and exactly what they deserve.

JFC. If you folks want to make a bad-faith argument, I'm about the last person on this forum you should attempt to bamboozle. You voted for a racist sexual predator who cut taxes for the extremely affluent and installed an immensely pro-corporate (illegitimate) SCOTUS majority. So I'm not even listening — you're now on ignore.

[R.P. McM]

I'm nervous about this ruling but I'm also not going to be too quick to say Roe is DOA. If upholding this 15 week ban does in fact overturn Roe, I see Roberts siding with the liberals and getting one of Kavanaugh or Gorsuch (most likely the former ironically) to side with him on it, as I don't think he'd let that happen given how bitterly divided the country is on the issue and given how dangerously polarized we are as a country at the moment. I think if Roberts is gonna kill Roe v Wade, he's gonna do it by a slow death of a thousand cuts rather than in one ruling. I don't think he wants to further erode people's already eroded faith in the court.

Thanks to RBG's appalling hubris, these decisions are no longer up to John Roberts. Yeah, her legacy will be her personal responsibility for every insane 5-4 rightwing decision moving forward. She was a terrible person (putting yourself above ~300 million others is the very definition of the the concept) and hopefully, the destruction of her reputation is enough to convince Stephen Breyer not to repeat the same mistake.

[R.P. McM]

I'm nervous about this ruling but I'm also not going to be too quick to say Roe is DOA. If upholding this 15 week ban does in fact overturn Roe, I see Roberts siding with the liberals and getting one of Kavanaugh or Gorsuch (most likely the former ironically) to side with him on it, as I don't think he'd let that happen given how bitterly divided the country is on the issue and given how dangerously polarized we are as a country at the moment. I think if Roberts is gonna kill Roe v Wade, he's gonna do it by a slow death of a thousand cuts rather than in one ruling. I don't think he wants to further erode people's already eroded faith in the court.

Thanks to RBG's appalling hubris, these decisions are no longer up to John Roberts. Yeah, her legacy will be her personal responsibility for every insane 5-4 rightwing decision moving forward. She was a terrible person (yeah, putting yourself above ~300 million others is the very definition of the the concept) and hopefully, the destruction of her reputation is enough to convince Stephen Breyer not to repeat the same mistake.

I think the only justices that guaranteed to kill Roe outright are Thomas, Alito, and the Handmaid. Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch are a toss up, and even if they were to do it (and by no means do I want Roe overturned), I think it would be done in a way that leaves the legal status of abortion to the states.

Yeah, that's what the destruction of Roe v Wade means — it's up to the states. Thanks to RBG. Who knows, maybe Gorsuch and Kavanaugh will surprise us. But the broader point is that I trust Roberts to attempt to preserve the legitimacy of the Court (too late), assuming the issue isn't nonwhites voting. Unfortunately, thanks to RBG, he no longer has veto power. Terrible justice, terrible person. All the RBG fans need to buckle up, because she's about to be dragged for the next ~20 years.

[R.P. McM]

Everyone here is mad at RBG, but who you should REALLY be mad at is Anthony Kennedy. That asshole is still alive, but voluntarily retired KNOWING that Donald f--king Trump would appoint his replacement.

I agree RBG should have retired while Obama was still president, but I can't totally blame her for wanting to hold out for the poetry of being replaced by the first female president (and also the wife of the man who appointed her!). Was it worth the risk? No. Can I at least see why she did it? Yeah. Especially considering few thought Trump actually could win at the time.

Kennedy however just completely threw the social liberals he had been helping under the bus, basically. He did it knowingly and deliberately, seemingly with no care at all for whether all the decisions he had passionately defended would be undone or not. Makes you question his entire motives from start to finish.

No, no, no, no, no. Because part of your duty as a political actor is to appraise the opposition. So if they're insane and bloodthirsty and you needlessly surrender to them, yeah, you've F'd up. Equally meaningless: the personal acclaim RBG might've accrued in being replaced by Hillary Clinton. More important than the fate of ~330 million Americans? Only in the mind of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That's what makes her a detestable person — her willingness to value her own historic reputation above the rest of us.

[R.P. McM]

I'm nervous about this ruling but I'm also not going to be too quick to say Roe is DOA. If upholding this 15 week ban does in fact overturn Roe, I see Roberts siding with the liberals and getting one of Kavanaugh or Gorsuch (most likely the former ironically) to side with him on it, as I don't think he'd let that happen given how bitterly divided the country is on the issue and given how dangerously polarized we are as a country at the moment. I think if Roberts is gonna kill Roe v Wade, he's gonna do it by a slow death of a thousand cuts rather than in one ruling. I don't think he wants to further erode people's already eroded faith in the court.

Thanks to RBG's appalling hubris, these decisions are no longer up to John Roberts. Yeah, her legacy will be her personal responsibility for every insane 5-4 rightwing decision moving forward. She was a terrible person (yeah, putting yourself above ~300 million others is the very definition of the the concept) and hopefully, the destruction of her reputation is enough to convince Stephen Breyer not to repeat the same mistake.

I think the only justices that guaranteed to kill Roe outright are Thomas, Alito, and the Handmaid. Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch are a toss up, and even if they were to do it (and by no means do I want Roe overturned), I think it would be done in a way that leaves the legal status of abortion to the states.

Yeah, that's what the destruction of Roe v Wade means — it's up to the states. Thanks to RBG. Who knows, maybe Gorsuch and Kavanaugh will surprise us. But the broader point is that I trust Roberts to attempt to preserve the legitimacy of the Court (too late), assuming the issue isn't nonwhites voting. Unfortunately, thanks to RBG, he no longer has veto power. Terrible justice, terrible person. All the RBG fans need to buckle up, because she's about to be dragged for the next ~20 years.

And for the next ~20 years, we'll point out that society would rather blame the loss of womens' rights on a woman for dying rather than the three/four misogynistic men who made the decision. RBG's "mistake" would never have been a mistake if the person 56% of women voted for -- Hillary Clinton -- was rightfully elected.

Well, personally, post-Civil War, I would've preferred that the South was either denied Senate representation altogether (world would be a better place), or combined into one state with two senators. But that's not political reality, now is it? Sorry, but we can't operate oblivious to reality, especially if we're nominated to the nation's highest court. RBG made an incredibly reckless decision given the transparent nature of the opposition, and now her reputation is going to be dragged through the trash. Deservedly.

[R.P. McM]

For the record, I agree with John Dule's take regarding fetal personhood, but I'd like to add that, due to the bodily autonomy argument I mentioned earlier, it is simply not satisfactory for pro-lifers to just insist that fetuses are equal to humans and leave it at that. Even if true, that would not really mean anything of consequence (beyond my moral assessment of a given mother), and it certainly wouldn't mean that abortion ought to be banned. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that even if Christ himself descended from heaven and told me that fetuses are human beings with thoughts and feelings equal to those of an adult human being, I would not consider that to be reason to change our abortion policy in the slightest until He also sees fit to allow fetuses to live without inflicting harm upon the mother. In a way, I think we've already lost the debate when we start arguing over fetal personhood, because pro-lifers' minds will simply never be changed on this. However, all too often we allow them to get away with simply saying "I believe fetuses are people" without explaining why that should affect policy even if it were true.

As far as I'm concerned, whether fetuses are or are not people is a matter of personal opinion which is none of my concern. If you believe they are people, more power to you. I grew up in a Southern Christian family myself, so I understand that this belief can be deeply held. I'd encourage you to consider that educating women of how to avoid unwanted pregnancies and making birth control as widely available as possible would be among the most effective methods of preventing abortions, if you truly do see them as tragedies. However, this is state policy, and to be legitimate it must be subject to certain rules about when it is and isn't appropriate, and it seems pretty clear that this is not one of those times.

You're both right, and I agree wholeheartedly. Hell, a decade ago, we could've had a productive discussion. But now, power is the only thing that matters. So your philosophical analysis of the issue is entirely irrelevant. The contemporary right is neither willing nor able to engage in a good-faith argument. You're debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin with the audience of OANN. What's the point?

[R.P. McM]

Dule , shouldn’t you as a libertarian support the individual states right to pass their own abortion laws

By the same logic, shouldn't a libertarian support a state's right to abrogate the First Amendment? No, obviously, almost all of us, of any ideological disposition, hold certain principles above federalism. 

[R.P. McM]

Dule , shouldn’t you as a libertarian support the individual states right to pass their own abortion laws

By the same logic, shouldn't a libertarian support a state's right to abrogate the First Amendment? No, obviously, almost all of us, of any ideological disposition, hold certain principles above federalism. 

Nope,  cause the first amendment is clearly written in the constitution so even by Ron Paul interpretation of the constitution, the states wouldn’t have powers to limit speech

Completely ahistorical. You might want to brush up on the incorporation clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because the point you're missing is that this isn't a discussion of the current state of the law, it's a discussion of what a libertarian should theoretically support. And if a libertarian believes that the First Amendment isn't subject to the whims of a state government, s/he is perfectly justified in believing the same applies in the case of abortion.