Abortion debate (moved from 2012 election thread)

[rogue]

It is dangerous to conclude that a fertilized egg is equivalent to a living being.

Although I am okay with a few restrictions on abortion, an all out ban is terrible for the following reasons:

forcing a woman to carry a fetus if he has been raped or the victim of incest
forcing a woman to carry a fetus if her life is endangered due to the pregnancy
forcing a woman to carry a fetus to term even if that fetus is not viable
refusing to make the adoption process easier
refusing to provide comprehensive sex education in public schools, starting no later than the fifth grade
refusing to provide free contraception
refusing to provide free/affordable health care to new mothers and their babies
refusing to understand the complex emotional thinking behind the decision
refusing to extend or support leaves of absences for new mothers
refusing to put protections in the law for women taking a leave of absence after a pregnancy

When I talk to conservatives on the topic, many of them view an unwanted pregnancy as a punishment on the mother. They care nothing about the economic impact and as long as their own daughters don't need an abortion. I wonder just how many politicians have paid for their mistresses or daughters to have an abortion (legal or not) that we don't know about.

I view a complete ban on abortion as a means by white men to "keep women and minorities in their place" due to the economic impact on them.

[chalsall]

@Uncwilly et al.

I understand your discomfort.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kriesel

<snip>
Implantation improves the odds of survival to term; failure to implant and stay long enough eliminates it.
<snip>

And therein lies part of the legal quagmire of "human life begins at conception." If life begins at conception, a fertilized egg that fails to implant is, ipso facto, the death of a human being. This is often given as a rationale for outlawing the use of drugs which prevent implantation.

But if a zygote fails to implant and is expelled, how would anyone even know? I can only think of one way of making that determination. Ugh.

But then, assuming that it has been determined an egg failed to implant, is it a homicide? A natural death?

Would any miscarriage have to be investigated as a possible homicide?

I'll set that part of the argument aside for the moment, and focus on the judicial and political aspects.

One thing that made Roe v. Wade so contentious is, it nullified legislation enacted by a number of States through the political process, not by enacting a superseding Federal law, or a Constitutional Amendment enumerating the right. It was done by a judicial ruling. The claim is made that the ruling basically created a constitutional right out of thin air.

I don't agree with that assessment. The decision in Roe v. Wade may be read here.

It seems that most US-ers are not in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade. Not that that matters.

One of the more disturbing (to me) aspects of the recently-enacted Texas abortion law (S.B. 8) is that it uses lawsuits as an enforcement mechanism. In the first place, it nullifies the whole rationale for civil action.

One of the basic principles of civil law is that it seeks a legal remedy for harm suffered. In order to file a lawsuit seeking monetary damages, you need "legal standing" (locus standi). Generally, this means you have to (1) establish that you have suffered an "injury in fact," (2) the injury may fairly be traced to the named Defendant's conduct, and (3) The remedy sought addresses the problem.

The Texas law grants standing by legislative fiat. Anybody can sue whomever they suspect - or claim to suspect - of having aided in an abortion. They don't have to show they've been harmed.

In the second place, the standard of proof for Plaintiff to win a lawsuit is much lower than for the State to win a criminal conviction. So the Defendant could be acquitted of the criminal offense, or perhaps not prosecuted at all, but still penalized financially by a State-sponsored enforcement action.

BTW Chief Justice Roberts said the leaked draft ruling was indeed authentic, and has ordered the Marshal of the Supreme Court (head of the Supreme Court Police) to conduct an investigation into the source of the leak.

I'm not sure of the legal authority for conducting such an investigation. The statute defining the authority of the Marshal and the Supreme Court Police may be found here.

(a) Authority of Marshal of the Supreme Court and Supreme Court Police.—In accordance with regulations prescribed by the Marshal of the Supreme Court and approved by the Chief Justice of the United States, the Marshal and the Supreme Court Police shall have authority -

(1) to police the Supreme Court Building and grounds and adjacent streets to protect individuals and property;

<snip>

"Protecting property" is about as close as anything I see in the statute to the leaking of Court documents. So I really don't know what sort of investigation the Supreme Court Police can do.

Some folks are yapping that the leaker should be prosecuted. For what crime, they have not said. With good reason.

It seems that this is not the first such leak after all. In 1857, the New York Tribune ran a series of stories about the Court's deliberations in the Dred Scott decision. A memo during the Court's deliberations in Roe v. Wade was leaked. Some decisions - including that in Roe v. Wade - have been made public before being formally announced. But leaking a draft opinion - that's a first AFAICT.

[M344587487]

Originally Posted by kriesel

...
Abortion is carried out disproportionately upon minorities.
...

It tracks that minorities would have higher abortion rates, they tend to be in worse social and economic situations and are therefore less likely to be able to raise an unplanned child. You bring up minorities as some sort of point in favour of banning abortion? To me the point does the opposite, banning abortion is a tool used to oppress the poor and that statistic corroborates that view. That statistic also shows that abortion rates are going down, why all this nonsense when the "problem" is sorting itself out?

You guys really need to roll some heads IMO, so many decisions are made that are actively against the will of the people. This one is so dumb it seems like a giant gaslight, which might be at least part of the point.

Originally Posted by rogue

...
I view a complete ban on abortion as a means by white men to "keep women and minorities in their place" due to the economic impact on them.

Blaming "white men" instead of the elite is no better than kriesel bringing up minorities in place of the poor IMO, I'm assuming your point is more elite vs poor rather than male vs female? If it is male vs female I apologise, "cis white male" is incorrectly used so often as the bad party in discussions when something else is more appropriate it's staggering.

I view a complete ban on abortion as a means by the elite to keep the poor in their place, due to the economic impact on them. Conspiratorially the meat grinder that is the economy needs compliant warm bodies to feed on, banning abortion is one tool in the toolbox to keep that going. Other tools include basically putting roadblocks up at every step towards becoming a more progressive society (defund education, skyrocket student loans, gut national healthcare, anti-LGBT, polarise). Progress is inevitable, but slow the progress enough and we can keep this train going for decades. Choo choo.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by M344587487

You guys really need to roll some heads IMO, so many decisions are made that are actively against the will of the people. This one is so dumb it seems like a giant gaslight, which might be at least part of the point.
<snip>

Roll some heads? In State after State, R's are making it harder to vote, gerrymandering districts purely for partisan advantage, and allowing party hacks to nullify elections that don't go their way. How many mass demonstrations have there been in protest? None that I know of.

How many D's sat out the 2016 election, or voted against their party's candidate because their favorite candidate didn't get the nomination? Enough to insure the election of the worst President in our nation's history. Who put three justices on the US Supreme Court.

And now, D's - especially young ones, seem inclined to sit out the midterms because they're disappointed that Biden couldn't get his program through Congress. The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is, they are as ignorant as gravel about how our system of government works.

Elections have consequences. If the R's win control of both Houses of Congress, as seems likely, there will be consequences.

<snip>
Progress is inevitable, but slow the progress enough and we can keep this train going for decades. Choo choo.

"Progress is inevitable?" I've heard that before...

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

- Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from the Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963)

[Xyzzy]

How many current Supreme Court justices were appointed by a president who lost the popular vote?

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

How many current Supreme Court justices were appointed by a president who lost the popular vote?

≥3
But, that is not how the system is works.

[Batalov]

John Carpenter even in 1988 was onto something, I think....

[Dr Sardonicus]

A State Representative in Missouri has introduced legislation allowing anyone to file suit against anyone (they suspect of) providing assistance to a Missouri resident seeking to leave the State in order to obtain an abortion. The proposed legislation takes a very broad view of what constitutes "assistance."

While the mechanism of granting legal standing to sue by legislative fiat à la Texas S. B. 8 may be novel, States have in the past enacted laws against residents going out of state to legally obtain benefits which are not legal within the state.

From the 1967 US Supreme Court ruling in Richard Perry LOVING et ux., Appellants, v. COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA (my emphasis):

1
This case presents a constitutional question never addressed by this Court: whether a statutory scheme adopted by the State of Virginia to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.1 For reasons which seem to us to reflect the central meaning of those constitutional commands, we conclude that these statutes cannot stand consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment.

2
In June 1958, two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a Negro woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia pursuant to its laws. Shortly after their marriage, the Lovings returned to Virginia and established their marital abode in Caroline County. At the October Term, 1958, of the Circuit Court of Caroline County, a grand jury issued an indictment charging the Lovings with violating Virginia's ban on interracial marriages. On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty to the charge and were sentenced to one year in jail; however, the trial judge suspended the sentence for a period of 25 years on the condition that the Lovings leave the State and not return to Virginia together for 25 years. He stated in an opinion that:

3
'Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.'
<snip>
6
The two statutes under which appellants were convicted and sentenced are part of a comprehensive statutory scheme aimed at prohibiting and punishing interracial marriages. The Lovings were convicted of violating § 20—58 of the Virginia Code:

7
'Leaving State to evade law.—If any white person and colored person shall go out of this State, for the purpose of being married, and with the intention of returning, and be married out of it, and afterwards return to and reside in it, cohabiting as man and wife, they shall be punished as provided in § 20—59, and the marriage shall be governed by the same law as if it had been solemnized in this State. The fact of their cohabitation here as man and wife shall be evidence of their marriage.'

8
Section 20—59, which defines the penalty for miscegenation, provides:

9
'Punishment for marriage.—If any white person intermarry with a colored person, or any colored person intermarry with a white person, he shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for not less than one nor more than five years.'
<snip>

Hmm. Loving v. Virginia was a decision of the Warren Court. As was Brown v. Board of Education. Cases that had people howling about "judicial activism" and campaigning to "Impeach Earl Warren." Maybe those decisions should be reversed, too.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

A State Representative in Missouri has introduced legislation allowing anyone to file suit against anyone (they suspect of) providing assistance to a Missouri resident seeking to leave the State in order to obtain an abortion. The proposed legislation takes a very broad view of what constitutes "assistance."

I wonder if that would apply to Greyhound, Amtrak, Delta, KCATA, St. Louis Missouri's Metrolink, MegaBus, etc.?

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

I wonder if that would apply to Greyhound, Amtrak, Delta, KCATA, St. Louis Missouri's Metrolink, MegaBus, etc.?

Possibly, but I doubt it. However, it would apply to any person or organization that helps women seeking abortions get tickets on any of these carriers. Or pay to rent a car. Or give a ride. People who answer phones for organizations trying to help women get abortions out of state could be sued under the proposed legislation.

Suing public transportation services or commercial carriers would have the disadvantage that these would be Defendants capable of fighting back. They aren't law-enforcement agencies. They can't be expected to interrogate all their female passengers of child-bearing age to find out why they're traveling.

Could people who donate money to organizations that help women obtain abortions out of state be sued under the law? I don't know. Be interesting to see what happens if somebody gets sued for making a donation.