This is not a general Open Thread, but I expect that there may be a lot of of discussion on Roe, so this is the place for it. We currently do not have an Open Thread at all. The Open Thread that was posted for about 20 minutes (and got 6 views) will be moved to Monday. This is what we’re talking about instead.
If a protest march is coming, announce it here.
I’m in a deposition for much of the day, so I won’t have time to do the topic justice for a while. This will be addressed properly later in the day.
For now: no, Californians’ rights are not directly affected by this — except for an likely increase in tourism. But we will be affected when this same majority, or a slightly narrower one, eliminates protection for LGBT+ rights, and for federal recognition of same-sex marriage, and potentially eliminates the right to birth control and interracial marriage — all rooted in the same long-respected common law right to privacy.
The time has come for betrayal of men who oppose abortion but don’t use contraception — like the President who “accomplished” this feat. The time for the betrayal of anti-abortion men who may be protected from concern about abortion only because they rely on the fact that have sex with men, rather than women, has come.
So much more to be said, but duty calls. See you later this afternoon.
You only have yourselves to blame. Roe v Wade was always on shaky ground. The court found that the right to privacy equaled a right to have an abortion? They stretched the right to privacy to get the result they wanted and the result was always subject to reinterpretation. And now it’s happened. You had fifty years to pass federal legislation to make legal abortions the law of the land and you didn’t. You only have yourselves to blame.
If Democrats had been able to codify Roe into federal law, Republicans could have uncodified it as soon as they won both houses of Congress and the Presidency — as could happen in 2024. Worse, it would take away the argument that abortion is not supposed to be a matter of federal, as opposed to state, statutory schemes — which is the next step for the anti-abortion movement, which is to pass federal anti-abortion statutes that will override even state Constitutions.
No, Roe as not always on shaky ground. Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s analysis that states were addressing this problem on their own was (not uncharacteristically for her, sorry to say) self-celebratory, as it attempted to shift attention to the Thurgood Marshall-level good work that she had done in building a constitutional foundation for the right to abortion.
The best source to read on this is Lawrence Tribe’s “Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes,” which details how the right to privacy first entered Supreme Court jurisprudence and extended all the way from the right to teach children a foreign language to the right of married couples to use birth control.
Roe was actually a brilliant decision that dealt with an almost unique situation in which one right (the woman’s right to self-determination) stayed constant over time, barring something like a threat to the woman’s own life if she continued the pregnancy, while another interest (society’s interest to prevent literal infanticide) grew over time. Yes, it reads like a legislative framework because of its determination that society at first had hardly any interest, then some interest, and then an almost overriding interest over the three trimesters of gestation. So what? Law is full of balancing tests. What’s odd about Roe if you read it — as I’ll bet that you have not — is that Blackmun (former General Counsel to the Mayo Clinic) couched these concerns largely in the doctor’s right not to have the government intervene in the private doctor-patient relationship. Hey, do you think medical privacy is also a nothingburger because it’s not in the Constitution? You’ve probably never even thought about it.
The notion of “privacy” is, as Blackmun wrote, inherent in many Amendments to the Constitution/ Updating his writing: the First, apparently now the Second, the overlooked Third, most obviously the Fourth, the Fifth, the Fourteenth and the one that Alito and Thomas in particular are completely ignoring, the Ninth. The Ninth specifically says that you’re not supposed to do what they’re doing: that the expression of a list of rights MUST NOT be taken to derogate the existence of other rights not mentioned. Scalia used to say that the Ninth was an absolute dead letter — a clear sign of how disingenuous he was, because it was the Ninth that defeated his oppressive anti-rights agenda, which included permitting states to criminalize masturbation — but Alito’s position was EXACTLY what it was intended to foreclose. The Anti-Federalists had opposed the Constitution in large part because they feared that list of enumerated rights would be used to derogate others, and the Ninth was a critical concession to them that was critical to getting the Constitution ratified. These Justices know it — and just choose to ignore it, because fetuses and fluid sexuality.
So thank you for your attempted contribution, but you fail in both your legal and political analysis.
*JM, when was your last pregnacy? Were you molested by your father or was it a simple gang rape by the local gentry. Maybe you first Baby Sitter wanted to show you how big the world could be….or maybe your momma took your virginity so no other nasty woman could do that? Unless you are a woman, you have no right to decide anyone’s personal actions regarding pregnancy. So, JM….if you get pregnant give us a call. We will refer you to a nice Personal Responsibility Attorney who will defend your right to having and keeping that baby.for the rest of your life.
Ginsberg was wrong. It was always on shaky ground.
Which is why every person with a brain told her to resign before the end of Obama’s term.
Hubris will always have consequences.
She literally wanted to be the one to swear in Hillary.
But to be fair to her, given that McConnell held up Garland’s appointment for a year, he could have also held up the appointment to replace Ginsburg as well. Future historians will marvel at this history, presuming that it isn’t rewritten.
*Having been here when “Mooning” was a common occurrence along with “Show your tits!” yelled at girls hitchhiking and having them raise their shirts with impunity……..you really didn’t want to piss off 36 Million women directly and another 100 million that knows what it means; to try and play the game with women on a mission.
Stupid is as stupid does. This was a Trump call to his buds on the SCOTUS…..don’t kid yourselves that these idiots actually came up with this, all on their own. Protest? You haven’t even begun to see what a firestorm this has created Nationally.
*Of course we have an answer for Clarence Thomas! Those that rape or incest anyone
should be penalized with the death penalty. That should deter the idiots in Mississippi,
Lousiana and some in Texas…..but maybe not…..but it might slow them down?