In 2016, I was hearing the “both of them suck” mentality from too many people who should have known better The media did THAT “good” of a hatchet job on Hillary Clinton- where she was considered just as bad as- if not worse than-Donald J. Trump. To where it didn’t really matter who you voted for or if you even voted for all. It was disgusting and appalling, not too unlike 2000 when Al Gore was run through the mud to help prop up Bush.
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We also saw the same in '68, when enough of the left torpedo’ed Humphrey.
Only white people who were raised middle class or better say stuff like that. Let it get worse for thee but not me!
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It already happens. There are huge “abortion deserts” in this country where women have to travel hundreds of miles to access services, and yes, there are people helping them do that. Already. Have been for years.
I’ve said it here before, and I’ll say it again: donate to Planned Parenthood, donate to NARAL, donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds. And spread the word about AbortionPillInfo.org and PlanCPills.org, which provide up-to-date, medically and scientifically accurate information about getting and using medication abortion.
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I posted this in another thread a few weeks ago. How long do you think it would take for a state that has made abortion illegal to pass a state version of the Mann Act that would include abortion for “Whoever knowingly transports any individual in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or Possession of the United States, with intent that such individual engage in prostitution, or in any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense”?
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“If the Supreme Court was feeling bold, it could use any abortion case to overturn Roe and say that abortion is not a right enshrined into the Constitution.”
Of course it makes sense to discuss the many legal paths which the new Federalist Society majority could go down to effectively end abortion rights without making a bold categorical ruling just chucking Roe in toto. Those are the lines along which the legal war over abortion has been fought for decades, so, sure, let’s stop and review the bidding as we prepare for a committed FedSoc tool to replace Kennedy. The author is much more qualified than I am for that task, and I have nothing to add or subtract to that part of what is said.
I just don’t think that confining the discussion to the already drawn battle lines covers the waterfront here. Most importantly, it fails to cover the single most damaging thing that the new FedSoc majority could decide about abortion rights, that they are a matter for the states, not the federal govt.
The quote above does not represent a Federalist Society way of thinking about Roe v Wade. Sure, to speak of Federalist Society thought is sort of like talking about the mercantilists or libertarians. There’s a spectrum there ,with many particular emphases depending on individual FedSoc tools’ individual special interest in particular issues. The FedSoc doesn’t have a coherent theory of anything, any more than the libertarians or mercantilists, its close cousin sophomoric pseudo-philosophies. But one common thread is the idea that the Warren court in particular, and really all the courts appointed by presidents since Wilson, have “legislated from the bench”, discovering “rights” never intended for address by at least federal courts. The Framers carefully and narrowly restricted the sphere of things the US govt was allowed to do to the items in Art I, sec 8, while leaving most of the law to 13 (or however many states we have at the moment) different state implementations of the common law.
From the birth of the Republic to Roe v Wade, the question of whatever rights pregnant women and the fetuses they carry might have that might be enforced one on the other, was treated entirely as a state matter. There were state laws about abortion, one way or the other, and this just wasn’t a federal matter, period.
Maybe the new FedSoc majority is not united in favor of bold action against abortion rights. But maybe some thought should be given to the possibility that they are united, and may be up for bold action, to vindicate the sophomoric pseudo-philosophy they all adhere to. Whatever the practical wisdom of going slow and stealthy, if they are committed anti-abortion rights people, maybe they are not united on that point, and will not engage in some prolonged down-low approach to ending Roe. Maybe they are exactly what they’ve been telling us for decades that they are, believers in the idea that much of the Constitutional jurisprudence of the past century has been a usurpation of political questions that should be left to the political branches to hash out on their own, and “social war” questions that should be left to the states.
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We need to look at how “the other side” fights this. (No, not the abortion clinic bombings and the shootings.) They basically keep on trying to ban abortion, even though most people think they’re full of shit.
So if we do lose Roe V. Wade, there are several things we can do:
- Litigate at the state level; a lot of states already have court rulings establishing Roe v. Wade at the state level.
- Remember that it’s a current issue, and a surefire win for Democrats almost anywhere. If you can’t turn the legislature (remember that a few high profile burnt offerings of Republican leaders in state legislatures via the ballot box will tend to send the message to their colleagues) get it on the ballot in those states that allow for it.
- Get the Underground Railroad up and running between red and blue states. Maryland is not a huge drive from WV. Get the Underground I-81 Cannonball Run going. Get VA turned reliability, and Kentucky and Tennessee are in play.
- Make sure that we really, seriously do outreach to under-30 women; these are a lower-than-average turnout demographic that is about 80% pro-choice and that will freak out when Roe goes down.
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This isn’t about a medical procedure. That’s a red herring.
It’s about a bunch of dogmatic, Catholic ideologues insisting everyone accept their religious opinion that life begins at conception.
And about a conservative movement seeking to establish a government that does not derive its power from the consent of the governed, but one whose power is self-justified by simply having power to declare whatever it wants. What or who is a person?
Government can’t create people out of thin air any more than it can declare races of people inhuman.
That’s why the organization could simply fund women to relocate themselves. Can a state bar any person from moving away because they don’t like where they live? Doesn’t sound constitutional to me. Can the state of Slobovia bar a person from moving to a state with more rational laws than those of Slobovia? Must a person have a “legal” motive before relocation is permissible?
Um, most American Christians are Protestants and regardless of the Catholic heirarchy proportionally more Catholics are pro-choice (a majority, actually) than Protestants.
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It is with DEEP side-eye that I respond to The NY, Times, Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, Andrea Fucking Mitchell, Chris Hayes, Lawrence O’Donnell, Anderson Cooper and the rest of the media who raked Hillary over hot coals and created sui generis the media narrative of “Hillary is as awful as Trump” we are enjoying now!
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He was one of the WORST OFFENDERS! He had Comrade Bernie and Light-Fingered Jane Sanders on and slobbered all over them ALL the time!
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Good to know. Love the light-fingered reference. She was/ is a real problem.
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@philmore. You miss the point. It was fear of Communism that drove even the conservatives toward moderation.
It was fear of Communist Revolution finding a home here in the US that drove the corporate leaders, the courts, even Republicans like Eisenhower to accept unions, and FDR’s welfare state.
This in no way diminishes the achievements of the Trade Unions, or Civil Rights movement, but without a ruling class open to reason, it would have gone nowhere.
It all changed with the collapse of the USSR. We are now facing a ruling class who, feeling no countervailing force, has nothing to fear, and so has no willingness to bargain, and has little need for reason.
They simply want all the money and control. Sound crazy? They are. They’re betting the habitable climate of planet Earth on being able to suck up a few more bucks.
Your stock answer is “missing the point” when in fact you don’t know much about history. Unions were accepted a generation before Brown v. Board of Education. The notion of a Communist revolution here is ludicrous.
It’s my policy to not feed trolls.
Psychologists call this projection. The Soviet Union and Brown v. Board of Education - together at last! But you call me a troll. Figures. Go learn some history, son.
You aren’t a citizen until you are born.
Wait till the personhood rules interact with the census and apportionment…
Ending Roe vs. Wade may be a temporary victory for the Dominionist. But in the long term consider the following:
- The RWNJ will loose a political fundraising issue (NRA, now what?)
- The Left will be energized.
- Making abortion illegal will no sooner prevent it then outlawing booze. It will encourage illegal activities however.
So my question to these would be Sons of Jacob is: What line of B*llshit will you spew when confronted by the next Savita Halappanavar or Gerri Santoro?
I would add that many stable republics have supreme courts with much more than 9 members. Denmark has 20. Finland is complicated with two courts with 18 or about 25 depending on the type of law. Italy has 15. The UK has 12. Venezuela however has either 5 or 7 in each of its six “chambers” of its Supreme Court, each dealing with a different area of law, so it seems that banana republic might be the one with the power concentrated in the hands of too few, not dispersed among too many.
At the end of the day I don’t take satisfaction seeing anyone suffer, especially not my countrymen, no matter how much I may disagree with them. We make better choices when we counsel together and when we listen and when politics and pressures of reelections are removed. More diversity, more voices, more educated viewpoints, less pressure to please the public, more attention to the law and the principles it was intended to serve, less corruption to serve a specific party or ideology; that is what is needed.