There have been a few recent BS narratives either attempting to blame Dems for loss of abortion rights, or demanding ridiculous things that don't make any sense. Now I'm on vacation so I don't really have time to get in fights about this but I wanted to cover them succinctly in one single thread.
Democrats could have codified Roe in 2009, but didn'tThis is the main talking point I've seen bandied about all over social media. The implication is that Democrats haven't been willing to truly fight for abortion rights, and thus voting for them is a waste. There's a super-duper-viral clip of a girl from "Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights", a spinoff of the Revolutionary Communist Party that has been
denounced by other abortion rights groups as a scam, but is being elevated by AOC, promoting this talking point, so that's where I think most everyone is copying it from. But I've just seen it f---ing everywhere.
So let's start with that "supermajority." As has been pointed out in several places mostly copying
this viral Reddit comment, Obama only actually had an effective supermajority for a few days thanks to Robert Byrd's hospitalization, Arlen Specter's party-switch, Ted Kennedy's death and Al Franken's contested election. When the supermajority
was active, they focused on a whole bunch of more pressing issues like the financial crisis, climate change, corruption, civil rights, and of course, health care.
But let's put that aside and say they should have elevated abortion to the top of the priority stack. Would the supermajority have vote to "codify Roe"? We actually have a proxy for this: federal funding of abortion in Obamacare. There were several Dems in both the House and the Senate who refused to support Obamacare unless it prohibited federal funding of abortion. In the House, Bart Stupak and his crew of pro-life Dems nearly killed the bill over this issue. In the Senate, Ben Nelson said he would support a filibuster unless the language Stupak demanded was also included. None of these people would have voted to "codify Roe."
But let's further pretend that Obama could have blackmailed Ben Nelson by threatening to imprison his daughter, or "used the bully pulpit", or "pulled an LBJ", or any of the other things progressives always say Biden should do to Manchin. Let's pretend Obama had the votes to "codify Roe." What would that even mean? As I wrote in my
thread from two months ago about this, that isn't a real thing. It's just some vague term people made up two months ago. I had never in my life heard the term "codify Roe" prior to May 2022. What is this magic legislation that wouldn't immediately be overturned by the Supreme Court, which already ruled that abortion should be left to the states? It doesn't exist. It's not a real thing. There wasn't some fantasy bill that everyone was talking about in 2009 that Obama refused to prioritize. It's an entirely fictional story being primarily promoted by people who have zero memories of 2009.
Open abortion clinics on federal landThis is another stupid idea that's being pushed by a lot of the usual suspects. This one is being primarily pushed by Warren and it does have all the hallmarks of a stupid Warren idea -- it sounds creative and reasonable until you think about it for like ten seconds.
So the idea is to open up abortion clinics in national forests and wilderness protected by the Fish and Wildlife Service, or wherever. First of all, there's no way to fund these abortion clinics, because the Hyde Amendment prohibits any federal funding for abortion services. Warren and her friends are all basically taking advantage of the fact that people either don't know about the Hyde Amendment, don't really understand what it means, or think it's something Biden can unilaterally overturn.
But let's pretend we could fund these wilderness abortion clinics. How are you going to build them? An abortion clinic is a building full of medical equipment. That takes several years to build. As soon as Republicans take control of Congress, they will eliminate all funding for this little project. And as soon as a Republican becomes president, the clinics will be demolished. So you're putting tons of money and effort into something that has a 0% chance of being a long-term solution. Warren tried to get around this unpleasant reality by saying they would be "abortion tents" as though the problem is the physical construction of the building, not all the sanitation and medical infrastructure required to do a safe abortion. Hey ladies, want to go get your abortion in a tent in the middle of a forest?
On that same note, who is going to perform these abortions? Remember these abortion clinic tents are being opened up on federal property in red states. All the doctors, nurses, technicians, etc. who work at these clinics will have to live in those red states, where they are avoiding a murder charge based on a technicality. Do you really think the red states are just going to let this happen? Do you really think they won't make life an absolute living hell for those people? Do you really think the receptionist at your national swampland abortion tent won't be absolutely buried in lawsuits and hostility from the state? Who would volunteer for such a position? It just doesn't work when you think about it for like five seconds.
The most frustrating part of all of this is that Warren, AOC, and others demanding Biden do this are cynically taking advantage of people's lack of understanding as to how government funding works. There is no funding for your wilderness abortion clinic in the HHS appropriations. Biden can't just make money appear by fiat. You have to allocate money for it. But just like with student loan forgiveness, they want Biden to take full responsibility for this stupid idea, while they just sit on Twitter and attack him for not doing it. So they're not going to write a bill. They'll just insist that Biden can totally do this because of "executive privilege" or "emergency declaration" or some other such
House of Cards nonsense.
Open abortion clinics on native landsThis is just the same idea, but even stupider. The federal government has limited-to-no sovereignty over native lands. And what things they do have sovereignty over are -- get this -- under the purview of the federal government, not the tribal government, and thus subject to federal law, including the recent Supreme Court ruling! Biden can't just annex native land, use it to open an abortion clinic, and then say "hey that's on native land so it's not subject to American laws." Like that's just obviously not how anything works. But people don't think about these things. They just read an AOC tweet and think it's a real idea.
Expand the courtWe've been over this. Expanding the court is subject to a filibuster. For that to not be true, you'd have to eliminate the filibuster. To eliminate the filibuster, you need Manchin and Sinema on board, which they're not. At this point everyone eagerly starts talking about how Biden should arrest Manchin's daughter and torture her until Manchin submits to his will. It's just the dumbest nonsense. Obama couldn't force Joe Lieberman (another guy not voting to codify Roe, btw) to vote for the public option. You can't just force senators to vote for things they don't want to vote for. That only works in
West Wing. It doesn't work in the real world.
Besides, expanding the court is a dumb idea in the first place. Because as soon as Republicans retake control of the Senate, they'll just vote to expand it again with a whole bunch of Federalist Society guys, who will then say that legislation expanding the court is unconstitutional. I mean seriously folks, we've been over this again and again and again. But people keep bringing up the same dumb ideas again and again and again.
"Restrain Judicial Review"I don't think 95% of the people, including AOC, actually know what this means, but AOC tweeted it so now it's a thing everyone's saying. I think everyone is just imagining Joe Biden pulling an Andrew Jackson and saying "the Supreme Court is wrong, you don't have to listen to them" which is (A) hilariously unconstitutional, and (B) not even a thing in this cases since the Court just said that the
states could do something, not that
Biden had to do something. If you want to actually "restrain judicial review" for real, then you need to pass a constitutional amendment dismantling Marbury v. Madison, which obviously isn't a realistic solution.
So what's the real plan?Well, the plan is to vote. I know it's cringey and lame and takes a while, and it's not a cool thing to say is your "plan", but this was the Republican plan for fifty years and now we've seen that it works. You have to vote. You have to get all your friends to vote. You have to donate to Democratic candidates.
Alito and Thomas are both in their 70s. Both of these men would love nothing more than to see the GOP retake control of the president and the senate so they could both retire and get replaced by hand-picked clerks in their late 40s, thus ensuring their legacy continues on the court for another 30-40 years. On the other hand, if Democrats keep control of at least one of those two bodies for the next decade or so, then Alito/Thomas will have to remain on the bench just like Ginsburg did. And if Democrats can control both the senate and the presidency when Alito/Thomas die on the bench, then we can replace them with liberal justices who will bring the court back to the 5-4 liberal majority of the Obama era, and repeal all the atrociously unconstitutional decisions the Trump court has been making.
You also need to vote for Democrats at the state and local level. The repeal of Roe vs. Wade passes responsibility for abortion law back down to the states. In all the states controlled by Democrats, abortion is currently legal and will remain so. In all the states controlled by Republicans, abortion is either already illegal or will quickly become so. If you want abortion to be legal, vote for Democrats for governor, state senator and state representative.
But Democrats currently have power, and they're not doing anything with it!This is a stupid talking point that I'm seeing everywhere, the most prominent tweet being from Adam McKay (you know, David Sirota's best buddy). No, Democrats do not currently have power. The Supreme Court is currently controlled by Republicans, because they held power from 2016-2020 and got to nominate Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Comey-Barrett. This ruling is being made by the Supreme Court.
But I voted in 2020, they said that was "the most important election of our lifetime" and now we're just losing again!Imagine if Trump were president right now and Mitch McConnell in control of Congress. Steven Breyer wouldn't have retired, and we'd be talking about him (at age 83) the same way we talked about Ginsburg -- god forbid he should die and Trump gets a 7-2 majority. Instead, Biden got to replace Breyer with 51-year-old Ketanji Brown Jackson. That's a W. We need more of those. Voting once isn't enough. Republicans voted to overturn Roe again and again for 50 years. You have to do the same.
Donating to Democrats is a waste, donate to organizations insteadThe only way to get abortion legal, either in your state or at the national level, is for Democrats to have political power. For them to get political power, they need to win elections, which is expensive, thus necessitating fundraising and your donations. If you don't donate to Democrats, they will not be able to run campaigns, and will lose elections to Republicans, who will then implement even more abortion restrictions. Just look at Texas.
