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Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

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Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#481
post #426
post #330

I'll be the begrudging devils advocate for a decision that is sure to have devastating consequences for poor women in red states. It is good for unelected bodies like the Supreme Court to allow such dividing issues be figured out democratically. The US house has bled power to the other 3 institutions and of them, the judiciary is the least democratic. Ofc, my support for this change assumes that this Supreme Court wi…

> I'll be the begrudging devils advocate There are plenty of devils out there, they can advocate for themselves. This ruling can be as technically correct as anyone likes, but it is disastrous in every conceivable way. All this ultimately demonstrates is how feeble rights - real, natural rights - are under the American conception of federal constitutional rights. Edit: there are a lot of people who are clearly very c…

> All this ultimately demonstrates is how feeble rights - real, natural rights - are under the American conception of federal constitutional rights.

Another devil's advocate here...the people advocating for outlawing abortion are also convinced it's a rights issue: the rights of the unborn child. This isn't an open and shut case.

Granted, I think Roe v Wade struck a fairly nuanced balance and I also think this is a disastrous decision. It's unfortunate RBG didn't quit when she had the chance and also unfortunate the dems ran Abuela in 2016. This could have been avoided, along with 4 years of complete buffoonery and international embarassment. It sucks our one-party-with-two-factions system has one faction that's consistently spineless and lacking foresight.

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#483
post #330

I'll be the begrudging devils advocate for a decision that is sure to have devastating consequences for poor women in red states. It is good for unelected bodies like the Supreme Court to allow such dividing issues be figured out democratically. The US house has bled power to the other 3 institutions and of them, the judiciary is the least democratic. Ofc, my support for this change assumes that this Supreme Court wi…

In every other democracy, voting laws and systems that mean individual votes are unequal (and even more absurd, the popular vote keeps losing) are of course unconstitutional and dealt with by the Supreme Court. How else could it be; guaranteeing one person one vote is the basis of democracy.

That's before we get to other design flaws like "winner takes all", which of course neither possible winner out of a guaranteed 2 is ever going to change.

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#484
I'm asking in good faith, and ask for answers in the same: in a pro-choice framework, why do in-womb Homo Sapiens Sapiens have no rights to be considered, vis a vis the rights of the mother?

In this context, I'm not implying that an unborn human's rights override those of its mother, nor imply what the right balance should be (50:50? 20:80? 80:20?). But pro-choice arguments tend to assume that the in-womb human has no rights, since mother has the right to terminate the pregnancy basically without any good reason at all. I'd argue that where welfare of two beings is affected, you need to consider the rights of both. Is it clear that an unborn human has no rights?

Perhaps this can be straightforwardly spelled out, or is obvious - in which case I'm curious to know what that argument is. If not, doesn't some kind of cautionary approach require that err on the side of caution in considering the rights of the unborn human? For example, if a healthy woman is pregnant with a healthy human, but decides to terminate the pregnancy for no extreme reason (health reasons I guess), what is the argument that says "the unborn human's right to mature and be born and live is non-existent or trumped by the mother's preferences"?

There is a myriad of difficult scenarios that life can write, and for now I'm moving away from those. Not every pregnancy is terminated for life-threatening reasons, for example.

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#485
post #441

saying "SCOTUS didn't ban abortion" is at best useless semantic formality and at worst plain incorrect a number of state have laws that the automatically make abortion illegal as soon as Roe was overturned, those are now enacted. furthermore, the case behind this ruling was dealing with a state law the effectively outlawed abortions, despite previous precedent ruling against it. this rule is simply enabling such beha…

The HN crowd never fails to surprise me. For all of the great discussions about software on here, threads like this one reek of ignorance of civics and history. The de facto outcome of this ruling is abortion banned in red states. It's clearly partisan hackery when we have: 1. A court full of Federalist Society members 2. A court full of Catholics (staunchly pro-life) 3. Who are using the old argument of "states rights" Three has historically been how the conservative minority defends its regressive legislation. They use the filibuster to prevent Federal legislation, then impose their will on minority groups within their state which has no filibuster. Anyone who has read about the history of the US should know this.

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#486
post #470
post #52

There's this belief that society always moves in a "forward/upward" directory, where we become more advanced, more enlightened and more moral. But this is not the case and sometimes we regress.

This assumes there is a universally agreed upon definition of "upward" and "forward". Religious people would argue things like abortion rights and pride celebrations are the opposite of upward and forward progress since they enable and encourage what they believe to be sin.

Specific instances are subjective of course, but seen throughout history it's objectively the case that we've regressed numerous times.

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#487
post #275

The thing about abortion that most people seem not to understand is that the debate is fundamentally about answering "when does human life start?". One side believes it starts at conception, which equates any abortion with murder. The other side believes it starts at some point after that, which makes abortion up to that point a women's health / rights issue. Irreconcilable, but also toxic when the two sides never ta…

The difference is, there is no universal answer, everyone has their own beliefs and answers. Making the right to an abortion an individual decision allows everyone to decide for themselves.

Banning that ability is the government deciding for you.

This is a loss of individuality for everyone regardless if you can or ever have an abortion.

This is how individual rights begin to erode.

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#488
post #330

I'll be the begrudging devils advocate for a decision that is sure to have devastating consequences for poor women in red states. It is good for unelected bodies like the Supreme Court to allow such dividing issues be figured out democratically. The US house has bled power to the other 3 institutions and of them, the judiciary is the least democratic. Ofc, my support for this change assumes that this Supreme Court wi…

> Ofc, my support for this change assumes that this Supreme Court will show restraint towards political activism (in either direction) in general. Call it naive, but I'll wait and see.

> States rights has always been a double edged sword. You can't have your cake and eat it too. The same state rights that allow gun control and homosexuality to be locally legalized before national concensus; also now lead to abortion legislation being a state issue.

You're a day too late to hold this position, the supreme court struck down New York's attempt to regulate open carry yesterday.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/us/supreme-court-ny-open-...

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#489

This is the final chapter of a decade-long saga which basically boils down to the Republicans obtaining votes from Evangelicals and other Christian denominations in order to give them what they wanted. In exchange for that, they would use their power to cut taxes, regulations and let the riches become richer and richer at the expense of everyone else. I hope that whomever supported this ruling is happy right now, and…

I think the system is broken if the personal affiliations of supreme court judges plays such a big part in the outcome of cases. It should be about the law, not about politics. They're supposed to put that stuff aside when they take a legal office. Trias politica and all.

This literally was about the law. Ruth Ginsberg held that Roe v. Wade as a bad decision.

https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/justice-ruth-bader-ginsbur...

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#490
post #391

I fail to see what moderates can do in a two party system where gerrymandering is so heavily done that often Democrats have to win 3-1 to control any majority. At this point I see it as a fight between rich landowners+business owners+religion vs all the rest of the people . For a country where political lobbying and donations to effect legal decisions is common , I do not expect judgements to ever be fair. The battle…

Where is gerrymandering so bad that Democrats have to win 3-1? This doesn't represent the experience of the median voter.

I don't know the numbers, but this article was linked from the Guardin's coverage of the decision:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2021/nov/...

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