SCOTUS overturns Roe megathread (pg 53 - confirmed)

[Torie]

You know, Lindsay Graham was on to something regarding the 15 week thing. The only fly in the ointment is that his proposal is to ban abortion after 15 weeks, rather than protect it on a national basis up to 15 weeks. If he had done the latter, he might have actually proved to be some positive use in the public square. As it is he continues to be irritating pandering noise.

[Torie]

You know, Lindsay Graham was on to something regarding the 15 week thing. The only fly in the ointment is that his proposal is to ban abortion after 15 weeks, rather than protect it on a national basis up to 15 weeks. If he had done the latter, he might have actually proved to be some positive use in the public square. As it is he continues to be irritating pandering noise.

Indeed.

Infact, I think democrats should work towards exactly such a bill. Guaranteed right to abortion the first 15 weeks, no questions asked. States are then free to have whatever restrictions they wish after 15 weeks. I'm pretty sure that such a federal law would be widely popular.

The other option is to have a national bill that also deals with after 15 weeks, restricting it to issues related to protecting the mother from significant physical harm or where it is clear that the fetus will not survive outside the womb. That is the grand compromise in fact that I have favored since Roe came down believe it or not. I thought Roe was bad law. But Lindsay Graham in reverse is better than what we have now (obviously), and I would take what I can get.

[Torie]

You know, Lindsay Graham was on to something regarding the 15 week thing. The only fly in the ointment is that his proposal is to ban abortion after 15 weeks, rather than protect it on a national basis up to 15 weeks. If he had done the latter, he might have actually proved to be some positive use in the public square. As it is he continues to be irritating pandering noise.

Indeed.

Infact, I think democrats should work towards exactly such a bill. Guaranteed right to abortion the first 15 weeks, no questions asked. States are then free to have whatever restrictions they wish after 15 weeks. I'm pretty sure that such a federal law would be widely popular.

That's 90%+ of all abortions that were happening last year.  Why would pro-lifers agree to that when they could have total state bans for decades?  I do think they would accept a federal 6 or 8 week law that would override total state bans, but it would have to be well short of 15.  Libertarian Republican influence would have to grow dramatically for this to work out.

There's also the matter of whether federal abortion legislation would even be constitutional.  Supporters would most likely have to argue that it's interstate commerce, but the conservative justices have generally sought to narrow the scope of the commerce clause for decades.  Roberts even joined in on this in the first Obamacare case, and there is an earlier precedent that a sexual assault case that occurred within one state was not interstate commerce.  In light of this, I'm not sure any of the 6 conservatives think abortion is interstate commerce that can be regulated at the federal level.  I'm particularly confident Gorsuch and Thomas don't.

There is effectively a zero chance SCOTUS would find the provision of abortion services outside the purview of interstate commerce - zero. This is on top of SCOTUS knowing that balkanized abortion laws is terrible public policy, and yes public policy does influence how SCOTUS interprets text.