Well, that didn't age well.
Today's Guest Post observes the predictions by Court Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh. They said the Dobbs decision on abortion would get the issue off the table of national politics.
Justice Kavanaugh projected an image of happy federalism.
[T]he Court's decision today does not outlaw abortion throughout the United States. On the contrary, the Court's decision properly leaves the question of abortion for the people and their elected representatives in the democratic process. Through that democratic process, the people and their representatives may decide to allow or limit abortion.
No more one-size-fits all.
The GOP never had a chance to make this a winning issue or a local one. Too many Republicans take the moral position that human life begins at conception, so abortion is murder, plain and simple, wherever it happens. GOP officeholders are jostling to ban abortion in their own states. They are reaching out-of-state, to make a felony out of "aiding and abetting" an abortion for a woman from their state. The issue has gone national. The fever dream wishes of the most anti-abortion legislators in the reddest of red states will be the issues on the Supreme Court's docket.
John Shutkin brought this bit of backfire karma to my attention. He was a college classmate. He is a retired corporate attorney who finished his career as General Counsel for two international accounting firms. He is on multiple nonprofit boards and addressing equal rights, equal justice, poverty, and access to education. He lives in Massachusetts.
Guest Post by John Shutkin
For the record, though a long-time lawyer and litigator, I am not in any way either a Constitutional scholar nor a (professional) SCOTUS analyst. Disclaimer out of the way, I nonetheless found this CNN news story today of great interest: CNN.And, even after reading this article, I saw a New York Times headline that Wyoming had become the first – but certainly not the last – state to outlaw abortion pills. Expect lawsuits over this legislation to be filed in.
So Alito and Kavanaugh confidently claimed in Dobbs that, based on their ruling, judges would soon be “out of the abortion equation?" Um, boys, is it possible to be more than 100% wrong? At best, they were stupid and naïve. Or they are damned liars, willing to say anything as a pretext for justifying the pre-ordained holding they want to come to. (We lawyers refer to that as “Writing the opinion from the bottom line up.”) And they are neither stupid nor naïve. So guess which one it is?
But this is the post-Dobbs world that they created and there is no putting things back in the toothpaste tube. I can imagine Chief Justice Roberts, so desperate to protect the legitimacy of SCOTUS – and, not coincidentally, his own legacy – metaphorically clutching his pearls as the abortion cases keep pouring in, many of which will likely end up on the SCOTUS docket. And, though it will be of small comfort to us on the other side of the abortion argument (especially to all the women and families whom Dobbs and its progeny will have destroyed) I do hope that Alito and Kavanaugh are called out in no uncertain terms on their blithe assurance by the liberal Justices. They damn well deserve it.
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26 comments:
The Dobbs decision codifies religious dogma as law and as such nullifies the establishment clause and subverts a fundamental founding principle. This is not going to go unnoticed. I don't think it's a stretch to call those judges (insert epithet), no less so than the legislators who voted for them. It is my profound hope that history will condemn them for all time.
As far as their veracity look no further than their confirmation hearings and the pledges to the doctrine of "settled law", which by the way no longer exists.
Republicans have taken the position that abortion is infanticide. In fact, it’s a medical procedure that usually has a good reason, as the women suing Texas over their horrific experiences demonstrate. In spite of their obvious need, they had to go out of state for their care because performing an abortion in Texas can land a doctor in prison for life. You’d have to be crazy to be an OB/GYN in a red state.
The US Supreme Court decided that the Constitution does not contain (not even in “penumbras” and “emanations” of the right to privacy) a right to legal abortion.
This leaves the matter to the states.
All that the Supreme Court needs to do now to be done with the abortion issue is refuse to take any case that seeks to override what individual states decide to do.
I’m not even a lawyer, and I figured that one out. I’m sure that Supreme Court justices are way ahead of me there.
for the record, I support women’s rights to have an abortion if they so choose. But I support a lot of things that are not mentioned in the Constitution.
They are terrorists who have created a police state for women and girls of child-bearing age. Also for their loved ones, sexual partners, physicians and other medical professionals.
Like so many Republicans these days, they lied to our faces.
The Constitution shouldn't have to spell out anything so basic. Health care is a human right.
If an individual state, e.g. Texas, makes it a felony for a pharmacy--or maybe an older sister gong to college in Santa Fe--to mail a package with mifiprestone to a college girl going to college in El Paso, then there are commerce clause issues involved.
If New Mexico made it a felony to obstruct a woman driving from Texas to New Mexico for a lawful abortion, then every state legislator and governor in Texas is subject to arrest if they enter New Mexico.
Federalism does not work if there isn't coordination. Even Europe and the European Common Market has realized that.
No doubt there are many college boys scrambling to obtain the drugs illegally for their lovers, friends and one night stands.
Maybe we should give all civil rights "back to the states."
Even better, we can all pretend that we are still living in the late 18th century. Awesome!
The Constitution shouldn't have to spell out anything so basic. Health care is a human right.
The Constitution has to be something more fixed and specific than a blank screen you can project your personal beliefs onto.
No doubt there are many college boys scrambling to obtain the drugs illegally for their lovers, friends and one night stands.
Illegal drugs are available everywhere. There will be an unstoppable underground trade in abortion pills.
Thank God I do not have the mind, heart and soul of an android. I also do not use mind-numbing and destroying drugs.
I am not a lawyer either, however I can understand facts and our legal system.
If not taking any more abortion cases was the answer, the Supreme Court should not have taken any more cases after Roe v. Wade was decided (7-2) a half century ago.
Roe v. Wade received a super-majority of votes. When it was overturned by the ultra-religious wing of the Supreme Court, the vote was only 5-4. Furthermore, Chief Justice John Roberts opposed overturning Roe.
The Catholic and Evangelical Protestant justices put their hands on the Bible and took an oath to tell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth "so help me God." And then they perjured themselves in front of the entire country. They need to be removed.
Nut cases who call themselves "Constitutional Originalists" believe it's a dead document that should strictly follow the intent of the Founders. That's why they shouldn't be allowed to own anything but muskets.
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
Good point about the commerce clause, Peter. But the Supreme Court can easily decide issues like that without any reference whatsoever to abortion.
Women could not even vote until 1920, two years after the end of WW I and well over a 100 years after the country was founded (after the land was seized, stolen and swindled from Native Americans).
But guess what? Females are still (supposedly) considered full (not half, 2/3 or 3/5) citizens. The female, woman or girl, owns the uterus she was born with, not the government. It is her personal property. Deal with it.
Calling constitutional originalists “nut cases“ is not an argument; it’s merely an out of control expression of impotent rage.
Does the Constitution have actual content? Or is it just supposed to be an expression of what activists (of whatever persuasion) want to impose on the rest of us?
The female, woman or girl, owns the uterus she was born with, not the government. It is her personal property.
I personally agree with this. But it’s not currently part of the Constitution.
If you want it to be part of the Constitution, pass an amendment. How do you think women got the vote?
Regardless of precedent, nut cases like to claim there’s no right to an abortion because it isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. Yet many of these same nut cases insist on their right to AR-15s and high-capacity magazines. It’d be hilarious if it weren’t for all the people being killed.
Yes, I know – the Constitution says we can bear arms. Now that Trump might get indicted, I suppose those same nut cases will be demanding their right to machine guns and Stinger missiles. Hey, they’re arms.
There will be unstoppable deaths caused by counterfeit abortion pills.
But the GOPee doesn't care.
The court decides any issue it wants without regards to facts.
Good night to the android gadfly. Get some rest. Sorry you have no life except arguing for the sake of arguing. In children it is called oppositional defiant disorder. Very sad. Yes, we know that you love the attention and notoriety, just like the former Occupant, MTG, Matt Gaetz, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon and the rest of the MAGA gang.
If you count the number of unborn, it vastly exceeds the number of born.
There's no point in arguing with him. He's as obstinate and resistant to anything that doesn't perfectly align with his worldview as his favorite Prez, The Donald, or his new favorite dictator wannabe Ron DeSanctimonious. It's a waste of time and energy to even bother engaging.
Woke Guy said:
There's no point in arguing with him. He's as obstinate and resistant to anything that doesn't perfectly align with his worldview as his favorite Prez, The Donald…
Whereas you are totally open minded and always willing to consider the points of view of those who disagree with you???
I am willing to engage and debate. That would require people who disagree with me to respond with something other than rage and invective. In other words, not what you just did.
Women need a constitutional amendment to own their own her own uterus? Seriously? Why do YOU get to own your own reproductive hardware? Where does it say in the constitution that you control your own sperm?
“Where does it say in the constitution that you control your own sperm?”
It doesn’t.
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