SCOTUS overturns Roe megathread (pg 53 - confirmed)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

look I know mr x can be disingenuous but its obvious what he's talking about. As I said above, people in this thread are fear mongering about the SCOTUS using the same logic to overturn Griswold/Obergefell/Lawrence. That's absolutely concern trolling

Obergefell and Lawrence sure, but how is Griswold not under threat from this decision? I'm hardly a legal scholar, but from my skimming of the draft opinion and prior knowledge of both cases, it seems like Griswold and Roe were decided on similar bases. Wouldn't a decision overturning Roe necessarily indicate that Griswold is suspect?

They really weren't, and while the logic of the Griswold decision has probably been attacked more than Roe, the actual outcome is not particularly controversial (or at least is supported by normie conservatives).

Also depends on what you mean by "under threat". If you mean that the Court was once much more afraid of making decisions that would anger the American progressive movement than it is now, then lots of things are under threat, since this is clearly absolutely no barrier to anything.

By contrast, the way that Alito worded excerpts I've read I would have to think overrules Obergefell (it not-very-subtly hints that this would be a correct decision). Lawrence is sustainable if you assume something along the lines of a right to privacy (and similar concepts really do go back all the way to the beginning), although if you insist that such a right only covers things that would've been protected in 1787, or are extensions of such things, then you could be internally consistent and overrule Lawrence.

The real reason I think Griswold and Lawrence aren't going anywhere is simple: There's no drive to get a state to pass laws in contravention of them and challenge the decisions. The Republicans have to take a rather extreme position on abortion because it's what their base wants, but there's no longer (and really hasn't been for decades) a similar to push to ban all forms of birth control or sodomy, and it's hard to see a state actually following through and banning them thus creating the needed case. Also why Loving v. Virginia is an even bigger stretch, what state is actually going to want to ban interracial marriage today?

I agree, and particularly on Griswold I truly can't imagine it, but the thing is that there are lots of positions in the conservative legal world that are held by maybe 75% of people. These can't get through when you have a 5-4 majority, and only have a shot when you have 6-3, but they become likelier the more the conservative majority grows. Given realistic prognoses of Senate composition we can expect the conservative majority to grow unless something very unexpected happens, and that will come with an ideological ratchet effect.

(Consider that, per 538 charts, the distance between Gorsuch and Kavanaugh was as large as the distance between a conservative and a liberal, and they're just different kinds of conservatives. This meant that the 5-4 majority made the court unexpectedly liberal; there were multiple terms over the 2010s in which most of the 5-4 decisions took the form of "one conservative defects", and that was never a terribly rare outcome. This means there's a lot of stuff a 6-3 court could overturn. There would be more that 7-2 would target, and so on.)

What I'm saying is it's probably moot because such cases would never make it to the court to begin with. Like what state is going to ban birth control to challenge Griswold and interracial marriage to challenge Loving?

[jamestroll]

ENOUGH.

Wait till there is an actual ruling, why don't we?

Stop the freak outs.

[_.]

8 pages on this in two hours and real issues like inflation are lucky to get two

Abortion, regardless of your view on it, is a very real issue unless you're a smugly sheltered male who can afford to not care. Does that describe you?

Yeah sure smugly sheltered whatever lol I don't care

I don't get the rich part though. Don't you mean "afford to care"?
Most everyone else is getting hit in their wallet because of these prices.

You have to be a certain level of wealthy to consider this an important issue

[It’s so Joever]

It’s the height of hypocrisy of the same “pro lifers” to then fight against expanding the social safety net for prospective mothers. If you do not support universal healthcare and guaranteed paid maternal leave at the VERY minimum, I don’t want to hear pro life out of your mouth. I am pro life, 99% of the rest of these “pro lifers” only want to get high off their power.

I agree with the sentiment, but I think this type of gatekeeping does a disservice to the movement. You can lock arms with people you think are hypocrites.

HARD NO!
One cannot live without the other. This is not negotiable, this is human life.

[jojoju1998]

It’s the height of hypocrisy of the same “pro lifers” to then fight against expanding the social safety net for prospective mothers. If you do not support universal healthcare and guaranteed paid maternal leave at the VERY minimum, I don’t want to hear pro life out of your mouth. I am pro life, 99% of the rest of these “pro lifers” only want to get high off their power.

I agree with the sentiment, but I think this type of gatekeeping does a disservice to the movement. You can lock arms with people you think are hypocrites.

HARD NO!
One cannot live without the other. This is not negotiable, this is human life.

By the way, Republicans will never support paid family leave, universal prek and childcare, because all they care about is power. They don't care about life. They don't care about the dignity of work, of every human person.

[Schiff for Senate]

Guys I think if we put our minds to it we could get this thread to 40 pages before midnight Pacific Time. Definitely we could get it to 30.

[John Dule]

Oh my god, stop with the stupid semantic arguments about human beings. A fetus is a human life in an extremely early stage of development. Only a fool would deny that. The issue is whether or not we want the government legislating away women's bodily autonomy over an unviable fetus.

We're well on the way to conservative legislation that requires police-state oversight of all female behavior during pregnancy, all in the name of making sure the fetus is preserved. If you care about individual rights and liberties (which we all know conservatives don't) then this is terrible news.

If that's the first argument, then the second argument is whether the best way to protect this right is by (A) Passing a Constitutional amendment or other federal law, or (B) Having five unelected elderly people in robes read a 250-year-old document in such a way so as to construe a nonexistent right and then hope that five other unelected elderly people in robes don't someday decide otherwise. I know which approach I prefer.

Hopefully this cause outweighs your desire to ban circumcision or religious child-rearing.

I have no interest in using the power of the federal government to ban such things. Those would be unconstitutional.

[Ferguson97]

You have to be a certain level of wealthy to consider this an important issue

That's almost the exact opposite of the truth.

Rich women will be able to fly to New York and California to get abortions. Working class women will be out of luck.

[Saint Milei]

8 pages on this in two hours and real issues like inflation are lucky to get two

Abortion, regardless of your view on it, is a very real issue unless you're a smugly sheltered male who can afford to not care. Does that describe you?

Yeah sure smugly sheltered whatever lol I don't care

I don't get the rich part though. Don't you mean "afford to care"?
Most everyone else is getting hit in their wallet because of these prices.

You have to be a certain level of wealthy to consider this an important issue

Yeah it looks like most of the outrage is coming from UMC white women

[emailking]

Well I mean red states like OK have more or less already flouted Roe with their recent laws. All this will do is make that more commonplace in solid red states.

Also it's interesting - I get it's a hot topic, but I always thought trans issues were what generated multipage threads on here. However, this thread was posted like 3 hours ago - less than that - and it's already on its fifteenth page. Other threads about transgenders usually have a hard time making it past 6-7 pages, and that's weeks or even months after they get posted. Still, this news is groundbreaking and it is worthy of discussion (though still shocked at how much is happening).

Again, people, look at what happened at Ceausescu's Romania after he outlawed abortion. It didn't stop abortion. It just pushed into back alleys where a lot of women died because they didn't have access to the care they needed.

Abortion isn't a need.

It is for, say, a 13 year old impregnated as the result of rape or incest. OK has a law that says such a 13-year-old cannot get an abortion.


UPDATE: And in the time I wrote this post, 10 new replies were posted...

When RGB died that thread grew really fast too I recall. The 1/6 thread on 1/6 was one of the fastest growing threads on here since the server upgrade. I think only the 2020 election thread moved faster.

[Vosem]

look I know mr x can be disingenuous but its obvious what he's talking about. As I said above, people in this thread are fear mongering about the SCOTUS using the same logic to overturn Griswold/Obergefell/Lawrence. That's absolutely concern trolling

Obergefell and Lawrence sure, but how is Griswold not under threat from this decision? I'm hardly a legal scholar, but from my skimming of the draft opinion and prior knowledge of both cases, it seems like Griswold and Roe were decided on similar bases. Wouldn't a decision overturning Roe necessarily indicate that Griswold is suspect?

They really weren't, and while the logic of the Griswold decision has probably been attacked more than Roe, the actual outcome is not particularly controversial (or at least is supported by normie conservatives).

Also depends on what you mean by "under threat". If you mean that the Court was once much more afraid of making decisions that would anger the American progressive movement than it is now, then lots of things are under threat, since this is clearly absolutely no barrier to anything.

By contrast, the way that Alito worded excerpts I've read I would have to think overrules Obergefell (it not-very-subtly hints that this would be a correct decision). Lawrence is sustainable if you assume something along the lines of a right to privacy (and similar concepts really do go back all the way to the beginning), although if you insist that such a right only covers things that would've been protected in 1787, or are extensions of such things, then you could be internally consistent and overrule Lawrence.

The real reason I think Griswold and Lawrence aren't going anywhere is simple: There's no drive to get a state to pass laws in contravention of them and challenge the decisions. The Republicans have to take a rather extreme position on abortion because it's what their base wants, but there's no longer (and really hasn't been for decades) a similar to push to ban all forms of birth control or sodomy, and it's hard to see a state actually following through and banning them thus creating the needed case. Also why Loving v. Virginia is an even bigger stretch, what state is actually going to want to ban interracial marriage today?

I agree, and particularly on Griswold I truly can't imagine it, but the thing is that there are lots of positions in the conservative legal world that are held by maybe 75% of people. These can't get through when you have a 5-4 majority, and only have a shot when you have 6-3, but they become likelier the more the conservative majority grows. Given realistic prognoses of Senate composition we can expect the conservative majority to grow unless something very unexpected happens, and that will come with an ideological ratchet effect.

(Consider that, per 538 charts, the distance between Gorsuch and Kavanaugh was as large as the distance between a conservative and a liberal, and they're just different kinds of conservatives. This meant that the 5-4 majority made the court unexpectedly liberal; there were multiple terms over the 2010s in which most of the 5-4 decisions took the form of "one conservative defects", and that was never a terribly rare outcome. This means there's a lot of stuff a 6-3 court could overturn. There would be more that 7-2 would target, and so on.)

What I'm saying is it's probably moot because such cases would never make it to the court to begin with. Like what state is going to ban birth control to challenge Griswold and interracial marriage to challenge Loving?

Oh, yeah, fair point. A big part of my current thought about the future of American politics is that neither the left nor the right seems to be aware that without some kind of truly enormous realignment the conservative majority on the Court will probably continue to grow, and the way that it was structured over the past 30 years tended to hide how actually right-wing it was.

This probably does mean that the people in this thread who think that the future of American politics is going to be social issues are largely correct for the broad strokes of the next several decades, even if I don't know that that's going to be the case in 2022.

(Remains insane to remember that polling in 2016 oscillated between Hillary up ~7 and Hillary up ~2, and happened to finish on the latter. If it had been the former she would've replaced Scalia and RBG, who was explicitly waiting for her, and probably guaranteed a decades-long progressive majority which would've remade the Republic. Al likes to repeat that you can only tell which elections are the "most important" in hindsight, but it's really clear that 2016 was a huge turning point and would've been a huge turning point whichever candidate won.)

[UncleSam]

There's an awful lot of religious fundamentalists in this thread trying to impose their values on others. Yes, Congress should have passed a law legalising abortion. However, the issue should have remained settled judicially. Roe was good policy, and a lot of suffering will now be caused by millions of people losing their rights. Just as Roe was not a permanent victory, this won't be either and eventually, one way or another, abortion rights will be guaranteed again.

It is not the job of the courts to decide what is or what is not good policy.

I'm not trying to give an interpretation of the US Constitution, I'm giving my opinion that I support abortion being legal and accessible and so it's obviously a bad outcome from my view that this will not be the situation in many states.

Sadly while I agree with you, it is a huge stretch to say that abortion is guaranteed by any clause within the constitution.

It is long, LONG overdue that congress passed a law guaranteeing the right to an abortion in every single state so that we can finally settle this issue once and for all. Make it limited like in Europe so that the majority of people support it.

This is the number one thing that Democrats should make the centerpiece of their agenda for the next six months. Murkowski and Collins would absolutely go along with it, so you don't need to rely on Manchin or Sinema at all (and Sinema I presume would also go along with it). Use reconciliation this year to pass it and use the legislation itself to continuously make this decision and abortion in general the centerpiece of the 2022 election.

Democrats are largely doomed to a poor result, but if abortion is at the forefront of voters' minds that is infinitely better for Democrats than, say, inflation. Decent chance Dems keep the senate if abortion becomes the main issue at stake.

[BGBC]

It’s the height of hypocrisy of the same “pro lifers” to then fight against expanding the social safety net for prospective mothers. If you do not support universal healthcare and guaranteed paid maternal leave at the VERY minimum, I don’t want to hear pro life out of your mouth. I am pro life, 99% of the rest of these “pro lifers” only want to get high off their power.

I agree with the sentiment, but I think this type of gatekeeping does a disservice to the movement. You can lock arms with people you think are hypocrites.

HARD NO!
One cannot live without the other. This is not negotiable, this is human life.

I would not be particularly picky with my political allies if the debate was over whether murder should be legal or not (from a pro-life perspective).

It’s the height of hypocrisy of the same “pro lifers” to then fight against expanding the social safety net for prospective mothers. If you do not support universal healthcare and guaranteed paid maternal leave at the VERY minimum, I don’t want to hear pro life out of your mouth. I am pro life, 99% of the rest of these “pro lifers” only want to get high off their power.

I agree with the sentiment, but I think this type of gatekeeping does a disservice to the movement. You can lock arms with people you think are hypocrites.

HARD NO!
One cannot live without the other. This is not negotiable, this is human life.

By the way, Republicans will never support paid family leave, universal prek and childcare, because all they care about is power. They don't care about life. They don't care about the dignity of work, of every human person.

I am a (registered) Republican and I support all of these things. Nobody in the real world cares about "power" except, like, the people in government, but even then I don't think you would apply the same level of scrutiny to their opposition.

[Horus]

Per wikipedia

When the United States became independent, most states applied English common law to abortion. This meant it was not permitted after quickening, or the start of fetal movements, usually felt 15–20 weeks after conception.

Can't we just default to this + life of the mother and call it a day? I think we had it right and started overanalyzing.

[Orthogonian Society Treasurer]

You have to be a certain level of wealthy to consider this an important issue

That's almost the exact opposite of the truth.

Rich women will be able to fly to New York and California to get abortions. Working class women will be out of luck.

A pity, then, to be rich. "Amen I say to you, they have received their reward".

[New England Fire Squad]

Pretty gross to see all the salivating from posters in here over this potentially saving Democrats in 2022 or whatever. A lot of people are going to die because of this, or have their life trajectories permanently worsened.

Pretty easy rejoinder that a lot less people will die.

[jojoju1998]

It’s the height of hypocrisy of the same “pro lifers” to then fight against expanding the social safety net for prospective mothers. If you do not support universal healthcare and guaranteed paid maternal leave at the VERY minimum, I don’t want to hear pro life out of your mouth. I am pro life, 99% of the rest of these “pro lifers” only want to get high off their power.

I agree with the sentiment, but I think this type of gatekeeping does a disservice to the movement. You can lock arms with people you think are hypocrites.

HARD NO!
One cannot live without the other. This is not negotiable, this is human life.

I would not be particularly picky with my political allies if the debate was over whether murder should be legal or not (from a pro-life perspective).

It’s the height of hypocrisy of the same “pro lifers” to then fight against expanding the social safety net for prospective mothers. If you do not support universal healthcare and guaranteed paid maternal leave at the VERY minimum, I don’t want to hear pro life out of your mouth. I am pro life, 99% of the rest of these “pro lifers” only want to get high off their power.

I agree with the sentiment, but I think this type of gatekeeping does a disservice to the movement. You can lock arms with people you think are hypocrites.

HARD NO!
One cannot live without the other. This is not negotiable, this is human life.

By the way, Republicans will never support paid family leave, universal prek and childcare, because all they care about is power. They don't care about life. They don't care about the dignity of work, of every human person.

I am a (registered) Republican and I support all of these things. Nobody in the real world cares about "power" except, like, the people in government, but even then I don't think you would apply the same level of scrutiny to their opposition.

Well thank you for being consistent !

Per wikipedia

When the United States became independent, most states applied English common law to abortion. This meant it was not permitted after quickening, or the start of fetal movements, usually felt 15–20 weeks after conception.

Can't we just default to this + life of the mother and call it a day? I think we had it right and started overanalyzing.

That's most countries. The US is a rare one for having such lax abortion laws.

France is up to 12 weeks.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

I just want to remind everyone here that no matter how you hash it, the pro-life movement is out of step with the American public.

https://twitter.com/ne0liberal/status/1521317431515529218?s=20&t=AZV7jJu7S0p...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

A lot of European countries have far stricter abortion laws than the US on paper, but either almost never enforce them or also have massive gaping loopholes in them making them effectively like the US status quo in effect (the UK for example does actually not allow abortions on demand without reason, but has a justified reason of "socioeconomic factors" which is so broad and vague it effectively be used for on-demand requests.) Of course late-term abortions for non-medical reasons are quite rare anyway.

[Horus]

https://twitter.com/ne0liberal/status/1521317431515529218?s=20&t=AZV7jJu7S0p...

Should be noted that this is another reason why the worries about Obergefell are overstated. Opinions on abortion have stayed relatively constant for the past few decades. SSM otoh is more popular every year. The court isn't going to ignore the public completely on such a matter.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

For those people supporting this decision that say it should be left up to the states, I call attention to this article published in the Post just this morning:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/02/abortion-ban-roe-supreme-court-mississippi/

Cliff: Republicans in Congress are piosed to introduce a nationwide ban on abortion after six weeks.

[Roronoa D. Law]

Per wikipedia

When the United States became independent, most states applied English common law to abortion. This meant it was not permitted after quickening, or the start of fetal movements, usually felt 15–20 weeks after conception.

Can't we just default to this + life of the mother and call it a day? I think we had it right and started overanalyzing.

Because of politics. Politicians need some bull sh**t thing to run on to avoid from actually doing anything important. Mairjuana and sodomy were legal then illegal and then legal again as well.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

There's an awful lot of religious fundamentalists in this thread trying to impose their values on others. Yes, Congress should have passed a law legalising abortion. However, the issue should have remained settled judicially. Roe was good policy, and a lot of suffering will now be caused by millions of people losing their rights. Just as Roe was not a permanent victory, this won't be either and eventually, one way or another, abortion rights will be guaranteed again.

It is not the job of the courts to decide what is or what is not good policy.

I'm not trying to give an interpretation of the US Constitution, I'm giving my opinion that I support abortion being legal and accessible and so it's obviously a bad outcome from my view that this will not be the situation in many states.

Sadly while I agree with you, it is a huge stretch to say that abortion is guaranteed by any clause within the constitution.

It is long, LONG overdue that congress passed a law guaranteeing the right to an abortion in every single state so that we can finally settle this issue once and for all. Make it limited like in Europe so that the majority of people support it.

This is the number one thing that Democrats should make the centerpiece of their agenda for the next six months. Murkowski and Collins would absolutely go along with it, so you don't need to rely on Manchin or Sinema at all (and Sinema I presume would also go along with it). Use reconciliation this year to pass it and use the legislation itself to continuously make this decision and abortion in general the centerpiece of the 2022 election.

Democrats are largely doomed to a poor result, but if abortion is at the forefront of voters' minds that is infinitely better for Democrats than, say, inflation. Decent chance Dems keep the senate if abortion becomes the main issue at stake.

The rules don't allow for reconciliation on this. It's another "scrap the filibuster or nothing" type deal, and the answer is always nothing.

[Ferguson97]

You have to be a certain level of wealthy to consider this an important issue

That's almost the exact opposite of the truth.

Rich women will be able to fly to New York and California to get abortions. Working class women will be out of luck.

A pity, then, to be rich. "Amen I say to you, they have received their reward".

I don't know what you're trying to say here.

[Sol]

Pretty gross to see all the salivating from posters in here over this potentially saving Democrats in 2022 or whatever. A lot of people are going to die because of this, or have their life trajectories permanently worsened.

Pretty easy rejoinder that a lot less people will die.

Abortions do not kill people unless they're done in a medically unsafe way.

Coincidentally, this is going to lead to a lot more of that!

(And yes I understand what you're insinuating, but lol a fetus is not a person.)