Roe v Wade has been overturned. How do you feel about that?

[Dave_LF]

For many years I presumed Republicans truly didn't want Roe overturned/it was bluster because it has been such a good talking point to rally voters. I wonder, if Roe is overturned, if that will result in a shift in the electorate or if the culture wars have gone so far they no longer need the abortion card in a way that they used to.

a) the old generation is aging out and being replaced by people who actually bought their rhetoric, and b) growing confidence that they no longer need votes to stay in power

[Frelga]

[b) growing confidence that they no longer need votes to stay in power

This.

[N.E. Brigand]

For many years I presumed Republicans truly didn't want Roe overturned/it was bluster because it has been such a good talking point to rally voters. I wonder, if Roe is overturned, if that will result in a shift in the electorate or if the culture wars have gone so far they no longer need the abortion card in a way that they used to.

I was wondering the same thing this morning. In the end, I think that Republicans will simply replace "overturn Roe v Wade" with "protect (whatever the name of this case will end up being)". And on the flipside, it will Democrats pushing to overturn the case as a get-out-the-vote effort. So I don't think too much will change.

(Assuming the leaked judgement is accurate and all, I've got no idea)

The Court today issued a statement confirming what Politico reported: the draft is genuine but not final.

(It is of course possible that the final opinion, which presumably will be issued at the end of June, will be very similar to the leaked opinion.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It is also possible that it will be very different. However, whoever leaked this draft opinion made it far more likely that it will be the final version, which I'm sure is the opposite effect from what they were looking for. A very, very misguided action.

[Frelga]

The leak almost certainly came from a conservative for the exact purpose - to insure that the document stays the same and that the messaging on Fox can focus on the leak instead of the highly unpopular decision.

[RoseMorninStar]

The leak almost certainly came from a conservative for the exact purpose - to insure that the document stays the same and that the messaging on Fox can focus on the leak instead of the highly unpopular decision.

This was my thought.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I doubt it.

[RoseMorninStar]

Whenever the question of abortion and the subsequent hand-wringing comes up it brings to my mind the treatment of people already on this planet; the homeless, neglected, abused, immigrants, poor, sick, mentally ill, minorities, those struggling in one way or another and the lack of compassion that exists. It highlights the lack of compassion for those who find themselves in dire circumstances which leads them to consider or make these personal, life-changing decisions and also the lack of support when forced with no choice.

As someone who has had multiple miscarriages (spontaneous abortion) of wanted pregnancies and the harsh judgement that followed those losses.. I have major concerns for punitive actions toward women going forward. Spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) is COMMON. Something like 1 in 4 pregnancies end before the completion of the first trimester. Not all pregnancies are meant to be.. for a myriad of reasons. None of which are the government's business.

[Frelga]

And some miscarriages require the same procedures as medical terminations, to keep the woman from bleeding out. Procedures that doctors will refuse to perform for fear of being arrested as abortion providers, adding to the body count piled up by anti-abortionists.

[N.E. Brigand]

It is also possible that it will be very different. However, whoever leaked this draft opinion made it far more likely that it will be the final version, which I'm sure is the opposite effect from what they were looking for. A very, very misguided action.

Amy Kapczysnki, a Yale law professor who clerked for the Court, explains here why she thinks it was leaked by a Thomas or Alito clerk. I wonder if we'll ever know, but I also agree with those who say it's not even the tenth most important point about the decision. In fact, it's quite possible that it was leaked in an effort to make the story more about the leak than about the result. Notice how much response there has been from the right about the leak than about the contents of the leak. Donald Trump, who as president boasted to Chris Christie about how he leaked to Axios, today said in an interview that this leak is a "terrible thing."

See how even those conservative commentators addressing the substance of the forthcoming decision are already trying to downplay its signficance:



In fact, when Roe is overturned, abortion would immediately be illegal in more than 25 states.

(I could accept this phrasing: women will still have the right to an abortion in those states, because it's inalienable, but the law won't recognize that right.)

So to keep the focus where it belongs, here's a further note on how counter-majoritarian this decision will be:



This decision will hurt Republican performance in the midterm elections. (But it probably won't be enough to overcome their performance based on the traditional advantage the minority party has in non-presidential years and the benefit they'll derive from uncontrollable economic conditions.)

[RoseMorninStar]

I've also been hearing that the leak was intentional to put more emphasis on the leaking than the decision, so as to make the talking points about something else. Distraction. It's a classic Trumpian move.

[N.E. Brigand]

Yesterday a senior editor at the right-wing Breitbart news site posted this:

"The freakout you are witnessing from the left is very instructive. When Roe was handed down 49 years ago, pro-lifers didn’t riot, didn’t call for SCOTUS to be burned down, didn’t threaten the lives of justices, didn’t try to stack the Court."

As many, many, many people noted in response, there has been a decades-long violent terrorism campaign to restrict women's rights, with hundreds of cases including murders and arson. That campaign is finally bearing fruit with Alito's decision (though I imagine Alito doesn't see it that way).

But because it has a slight personal connection, I'm embarrassed to have had forgotten this part of the right-wing terror campaign to end abortion:

"They bombed the f***ing Olympics."

In 1996, the Olympics were held in Atlanta, Georgia, and while the games were underway, there was a bombing in Centennial Park that killed two people and injured more than 100 others. As a recent Clint Eastwood movie reminded us, initially the lead suspect was a security guard named Richard Jewell -- whose actions actually saved lives -- but eventually the terrorist was identified as Eric Randall Rudolph, who was arrested in 2003 and who explained his motivations in a 2005 statement. Rudolph said that the Olympics represented "global socialism," and that he specifically wanted to "confound, anger and embarrass the Washington government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand."

Rudolph wasn't identified as the Atlanta bomber until October 1998. (Earlier that year, he'd been identified as responsible for a different bombing in Alabama.) It was believed that he was hiding out somewhere in the mountains in North Carolina. And the minor personal connection for me is that when I was hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2000, I heard from various people who worked along the trail (managing hostels and so forth) about the FBI agents asking questions the previous year -- and I even saw one fading wanted poster for Rudolph posted to a fencepost right along the trail.

Now you might question the word "they." I can't remember if Rudolph had any accomplices in planning his bombings. He almost certainly had assistance in hiding out from the authorities. It turned out that he was living in the woods near Murphy, North Carolina (not particularly close to the A.T., which at closest approach is about 35 miles away) and despite his claims to have survived by scrounging, he didn't present as someone who had gone for five years without at least some access to modern plumbing. But more than that: just as the January 6th insurrectionists (a fair number of whom themselves were anti-abortion activists) were incited to violence by Donald Trump, Rudolph's actions were grounded in longstanding violent rhetoric of a movement. Alito, Thomas, and associated judicial activists are the Sinn Fein wing of the movement; Rudloph and his ilk are the movement's IRA.

[N.E. Brigand]

I imagine both conservative and liberal justices had done this at one time or another, but maybe it's time to stop citing someone who sentenced women to death for witchcraft.

[RoseMorninStar]

So many awful, misogynistic, and backward thinking things being said. It gets worse and worse but it shows us exactly what they think of women and women being educated/not staying in their place. It's easier to control populations and feed them propaganda if they aren't educated & taught critical thinking.
Trickle-down creeponomics: Gaetz calls women protesting Roe draft opinion ‘over-educated’

[N.E. Brigand]

I imagine both conservative and liberal justices had done this at one time or another, but maybe it's time to stop citing someone who sentenced women to death for witchcraft.

Some more here, this time from an expert in early modern literature, about the sometimes horrifically backwards writings of Matthew Hale (which apparently have been cited many times before in U.S. legal opinions).

- - - - - - - - - -
I expect this will be very familiar to some readers and new to some others (like myself), a a rabbi explains why, at least per some interpretations and in some situations, "access to abortion is a religious requirement for Jews."

[Frelga]

I expect this will be very familiar to some readers and new to some others (like myself), a a rabbi explains why, at least per some interpretations and in some situations, "access to abortion is a religious requirement for Jews."

A necessary context for this that is not covered in the Rabbi's excellent thread is that preservation of life is the overarching commandment in Judaism. Any commandment not only can but must be broken to protect either your own or someone else's life. This is called pikuach nefesh.

This is interpreted super broadly. A Jew who does not drive on Shabbat must nevertheless take someone to the hospital not just when they are cyanotic and not responsive, but even when it's 99% a muscle spasm and not a heart attack. Meaning, you don't have to be close to death to invoke pikuach nefesh, merely the possibility is enough.

Conversely, taking a life is infinity bad. Taking a million lives is not worse than taking one, because infinity times million is not greater than infinity.

Against that background, as the quoted thread shows, the only life considered during pregnancy is that of the mother. The life of the infant begins with the potential for first breath, at which point it must be protected on par with the mother.

[River]

Honestly, that bit about the first breath is well-aligned with modern medical practice. Termination of a pregnancy past the point of viability is not taken lightly. It's done in cases of incest discovered late, severe birth defects, or if the mother's life is at risk. But, in that last case, if they can save both mother and child, they will do so. This is why I still have a youngest sister and why I have my niece. My sister's pregnancy went sideways when she was about 20 weeks along. Fetal growth slowed down and she developed some other complications. Eventually, her blood pressure rose and she went into kidney failure. Both she and her fetus were hours from death when the OB who specializes in sideways pregnancies decided to stop messing around with inducing labor and did an emergency C-section. They had to draw several liters of fluid off my sister's belly first and my niece was delivered at 33 weeks and under-size for her gestational age, but everyone survived and the little girl is a thriving three year-old now. As for what happened, they're calling it an atypical pre-eclampsia. It's not likely to happen again, but my brother-in-law is not the least bit interested in rolling those dice again and convinced my sister they should be happy that they have the one.

I wonder, if the pro-lifers get their way and the short-sighted whack jobs in charge in places like Texas get theirs, will cases like my sister's be abandoned to fate on the grounds that an emergency C-section (that's literally surgically removing a baby from a womb, people) at 33 weeks is the end of a pregnancy? Even if that was the only hope of getting both of them out of that situation alive?

[Frelga]

Yes.

@mjs_DC

Here is Louisiana’s new fetal personhood bill—which House Republicans just voted out of committee 7–2—making abortion a crime of homicide “from the moment of fertilization” and allowing prosectors to charge patients with murder. https://legiscan.com/LA/text/HB813/id/2549012

Note that this also outlaws IVF and many forms of birth control.

The bill has been since amended to state that life begins at fertilization rather than implantation. That precludes getting treatment for ectopic pregnancies, resulting in thousands of deaths and 0 babies.

[RoseMorninStar]

Yes.

@mjs_DC

Here is Louisiana’s new fetal personhood bill—which House Republicans just voted out of committee 7–2—making abortion a crime of homicide “from the moment of fertilization” and allowing prosectors to charge patients with murder. https://legiscan.com/LA/text/HB813/id/2549012

Note that this also outlaws IVF and many forms of birth control.

The bill has been since amended to state that life begins at fertilization rather than implantation. That precludes getting treatment for ectopic pregnancies, resulting in thousands of deaths and 0 babies.

That sounds just so.. cruel and punitive. Every miscarriage (which can already be terribly traumatic) is going to be viewed with suspicion and accusation, not to mention criminal charges.

[Snowdog]

I believe Alito is the majority vote needed to overturn Roe v Wade. I believe it will happen, sooner rather than later. I have mixed feelings about this. I love children, and would rejoice in a world where every child was wanted and welcomed. But... I also know that young women (and men) make mistakes. I completely believe in birth control. But "after the fact" birth control poses complicated philosophical problems that I have no wish to deny. Although, for the record, I personally support abortion rights. Though not without limit. At 8 weeks I have no problem. At 20 weeks? I do.

Where do you stand?

It's a vexed problem, and it's one that has nearly dominated US politics for my entire adult life.

I will observe this: being opposed to abortion has worked extremely well for the Republican party. There is a passionate minority who are single-issue voters on this subject. For the Republicans, the best case scenario is for them to continue to be opposed to abortion, but for it to continue to be legal.

But that can't go on. Not with the Republicans controlling all three branches of government, and being beholden to the Christian Right.

The Christian Right is counting on Alito doing what they want - overturning Roe v Wade, and turning the issue back to the states. I think they will not be disappointed.

And then... what? I daresay California and a dozen other "blue" states will explicitly make the procedure legal. I'm more interested in what will happen in places like Alabama. We've heard people proclaiming for decades that abortion is murder. If it's murder, should the penalty not be death? Or life in prison? And who should pay this penalty - the woman, the doctor, or both?

Sorry - just musing. Would appreciate your thoughts!

This was pretty prophetic for a 16 year old post. Sadly, it's been in the works for decades, and now due to the fiasco that was the actual stolen election of 2016, it has become the reality. The 'forced birth' religious crowd has been working tirelessly for this since 1973. They want a religious theocracy in the United States, and sadly it appears they will get it with the dismantling of civil rights. I remember thinking back in 1979 when the Shah was overthrown and a religious theocracy led by the Ayatollah took control of Iran that something like that couldn’t happen in the Untied States. Thirty five years later and I still didn’t think it could happen, but I was getting uneasy. In November 2016, the reality of the possibility hit home as I saw that the USA just fucked themselves. There seems very little separating the theocracies in Iran, Afghanistan and the United States these days.

I've been reading Heather Cox Richardson's daily blog for sometime now, and something that really stuck out for me today is the opening paragraphs:

Tonight, in addition to the “non-scalable” fence erected last night, Capitol Police are placing concrete barricades around the United States Supreme Court. Legal commentator Joyce White Vance tweeted:
“Odd that the Supreme Court is acting like they’re under assault, when it’s actually us who are under attack by them.”
In today’s context, it seems worth noting that in 2014, the Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts law mandating a 35-foot buffer zone around clinics providing abortion services, on the grounds that such buffer zones infringe on the First Amendment’s right to protest.

Instead of safe personal medical care, we take a big step back into the dark ages, especially when part of the 'reasoning' used in this leaked document has its roots back in the witch-hunts.

I'm just babbling and I'm actually sick to my stomach about it all.