Roe vs. Wade determined that women had a zone of privacy and bodily autonomy protected by the Constitution.
"Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak. . .." Justice Samuel Alito, in the draft abortion decision
Big problem for Republicans.
Democrats who supported COVID vaccine and mask mandates got a surprise in 2020 and 2021. They got a phrase thrown back at them, along with unanticipated resistance to their public health mandates: "My body, my choice."
There was a pandemic of the unvaccinated, but that wasn't the point. The politics and principle were the points. The "other side" wasn't going to tell us what to do. A significant number of people felt that a vaccination invaded their personal space, and they wouldn't stand for it.
As in Sunday's blog post, I again describe the peril for the GOP of achieving its stated political goals. The GOP celebrates Elon Musk buying Twitter and returning unfiltered Trump to the platform. They will regret that. And now the leak of the draft Supreme Court decision suggests the GOP will be able to satisfy the wishes and prayers of its anti-abortion constituents. The dog that catches the bus and bites the rolling tire gets an ugly surprise.
Samuel Alito's leaked draft goes way beyond what was necessary to ban the least popular late-stage abortions. One can imagine a Supreme Court ruling that preserved Roe and the legal architecture of privacy that surrounds it and other cases relating to contraception and LGBT rights. A decision could have made the argument that improvements in medicine regarding viability rendered Roe's timetable obsolete. Viability was now earlier, so the premise of exactly when a woman acted on her own needed to be updated. To give a clear margin of error to the fetus, the Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks might be sustained. That ruling would never achieve unanimity, but it might have found grudging acceptance among a persuadable middle ground of people who agreed with the right of personal autonomy, but were uncomfortable with late-term abortions. Alito's draft rejects that approach.
His draft says there is no right of a woman to have an abortion founded in a right of privacy. Abortion, Alito noted, was not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, nor in the Bill of Rights, nor when the 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868. Of course, nor was there mention of birth control bills or IUDs or any other form of contraception in those documents, nor was their use commonplace and accepted. Nor were homosexual acts. Nor was same-sex marriage. If privacy doesn't exist for abortion, it doesn't exist for contraception or LGBT either.
The draft decision of the Supreme Court challenges widely-held notions of privacy and personal autonomy. The "My body, my choice" was a taunt, pointing out Democratic hypocrisy. It also reflects the changed mores of our society. On both left and right, we have come to think that people have increased right of bodily integrity and privacy. Bathrooms stalls have doors. People can watch pornography. People can buy sex toys. We have HIPAA and Protected Health Information. |
| Fox |
Alito's draft opinion says it is about democratic choice, not heavy-handed patriarchy attempting to dominate women. He wrote,
Women are not without electoral or political power. The percentage of women who register to vote and cast ballots is consistently higher than the percentage of men who do so.
This won't matter. Even if a significant number of women vote to support abortion bans, the fact remains that government majorities will be telling people what they can't do. The principle isn't patriarchy. It is autonomy and privacy. Women lost a right.
A Republican Congress and White House would now have the authority to end abortion, gay marriage, and LGBT rights nationally, not just state-by-state. These hot-button issues have been perfect wedge issues for Republicans running for president. Republicans and Fox could bark about the bus and rouse up support, but the bus was forever out of reach. Now it is in reach.
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17 comments:
The religious fanatics - conservative Catholics, fundamentalist and evangelical Christians - have been working diligently and tirelessly to reshackle women to their fertility. They cannot leave women alone to make their own choices about their bodies and their lives.
We know what they want. They want women to be married to domineering men and having lots of babies.
This is the 21st century. We do not live in a theocracy. Most Americans to do want to live like the Amish or any other religious sect or cult.
We need to separate ourselves politically from the throwbacks so that we can live our lives FREE from religious tyranny.
Public health (COVID) vs. a personal health care decision (abortion). There is a huge difference between a novel, deadly, highly transmissible virus and a female choosing to get an abortion.
COVID also was harming our entire economy.
Just like the Bible, the Constitution doesn't mention abortion.
"Republicans and Fox could bark about the bus and rouse up support, but the bus was forever out of reach. Now it is in reach."
Hopefully the bus will go slow enough to let Republicans firmly sink their teeth in its tire and then speed up again.
There are hundreds of thousands of abandoned embryos in fertility clinics across the U.S. Will disposing of them now be considered a form of abortion?
The ultimate question is bodily autonomy, or sovereignty in one's choices of any type of medical procedure, whether it be an experimental vaccination or an abortion. The inconsistencies of our federal government and indeed the values of our society are on full display.
The leak of a court draft has never occurred in the history of our nation. This was a calculated political move. On the surface, it may buy votes or sway opinion. Underneath, it is further erosion of trust of our political system - which is not a partisan phenomenon. The author of the article seems to gloss over this fact.
We are on a rudderless ship. Rallying around vaccines, then Ukraine, and now a potential supreme court decision speaks clearly to the feigned strategies of a dying political structure. This is apolitical. All of us are responsible.
I give our federal government two more election cycles, at best.
Nor does the Constitution mention automatic or semiautomatic firearms.
I give our planet that long, especially with religious nuts running government and turning developed countries into Third World countries.
Correction: Most Americans do not want to live like the Amish...
Abortion rights are safe in Oregon and the other blue states. Given the money that organizations like Planned Parenthood are likely to collect if Roe is overturned, I imagine they could give every woman in this country who wants an abortion a first class round-trip ticket to a blue state along with accommodations in a four-star hotel for the duration.
I am a supporter of abortion rights. But it does not seem to me that Roe was properly decided. The Constitution has to mean something more than “every single thing that liberals want.“
I would only take issue with the statement that it is government majorities making this decision. This again reflects the problem with the senate minority states having more power and offsetting the majority opinion. The lopsided senate confirmed these politically motivated judges.
I like the other comments reminding us of all of the new things that are not covered in the constitution. Like carrying automatic firearms.
We will have to eventually address the problem of when sentient human life begins, to solve the abortion problem. A human DNA baby cannot, until age 2, even identify itself in a mirror.It is not self-aware, and is more akin to animals at that stage. We allow the taking of animal life, humanely, of course. We also allow the taking of human life in war, in brain-flatlined patients, and with the death sentence. I believe that a woman has a right to remove something she does not want in her body.
I know that this is more extreme than others feel. And until those republicans are willing to feed, house, educate and care for all of those unwanted babies, I say that they have no right to interfere with a woman and her doctor!
Republicans couldn’t care less about an attempted coup, but they’re feigning outrage over the SCOTUS leak. They refused for a year to give a hearing to President Obama’s nominee, but now pretend to be concerned about the court’s “independence.” Maybe they can get people more riled up over the document’s release than over its contents, but I doubt it. Much as they might like to distract us, compared to trying to overthrow the government, this breach of precedent is a joke.
Where is the fertilized and implanted egg, embryo, fetus or unborn person mentioned in the U.S. Constitution?
Where is the fertilized and implanted egg, embryo, fetus or unborn person mentioned in the U.S. Constitution?
In the same section that discusses quantum physics, relativity, and DNA. :-)
The main issue I have with banning abortion (other than that it takes away the right of a woman to control her own body) is that it's a very not smart way to address a serious problem, that is unwanted pregnancies.
Abortion "bans" don't actually prevent abortions from occurring, rather they push the women who need or want them into seeking ways to have that happen that are medically unsafe because they are illegal in a place where a ban is in place.
Since the real problem is unwanted pregnancies, a far better solution than abortion bans is coming up with ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. This seems like a total No Duh to me, and I'd imagine pretty much every other rationally thinking person as well.
To prevent unwanted pregnancies, you invest in comprehensive sex Ed. in schools, and you make contraception free and easily accessible to everyone.
I was fortunate enough to have attended a high school that did have comprehensive sex Ed. and you can be damn sure that when I was first engaging in sexual activities I was extremely aware that an unwanted pregnancy was something I absolutely wanted to avoid.
Which makes it all the more ironic that the folks who seem most anti-abortion also seem to be the most against policies (sex ed.Ed., free birth control) that would actually reduce the number of abortions.
Then again, for an unfortunately large number of our fellow citizens, logic and common sense seem to be completely alien concepts.
Forcing a girl or woman to give birth is forced
servitude. Therefore, she should be well-compensated for the use of her body, damage to her body, the misery factor, her time and trouble.
The so-called pro-lifers should pay each female with an unwanted pregnancy $1 Million dollars, plus ALL medical and living expenses during the pregnancy.
On our tax returns, we can indicate whether we are pro-life or pro-choice. Anyone who claims to be pro-life would have to pay an additional pro-life tax.
In addition, the tax revenue can be used for high quality pro-life orphanages for all of the unwanted children.
International adoptions and fertility treatments should outlawed. Americans should be required by law to adopt from the pro-life orphanages.
We can also have laws requiring men and women to get sterilized after having a certain number of children. We need to regulate all aspects of fertility and family planning, not just abortion.
"Barefoot and pregnant" - it's part of the MAGA utopia.
"We do not live in a Theocracy"
Yet.
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