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Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

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Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#151

Post by falcolas »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #59
Toxygene wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question was not about the most recent finding of the SCOTUS. The question was, why wasn't abortion codified into law since Roe v. Wade.

If the right to an abortion was already codified in law by the U.S. Constitution, why was a ruling on Roe v. Wade even necessary?

It's not explicitly codified. But that doesn't mean it's not a right.

Which is why we have opinions ruling the day.

And if we read Thomas' opinion on the matter, contraception, gay marrage, etc. are all on the chopping block to come.

And that doesn't even cover the "Voting Rights Act of 1965" kerfluffel that's also about to hit.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#152

Post by tablespoon »

falcolas wrote: post #142
tablespoon wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it's worth noting that rights not explicitly enumerated in the constitution are still rights protected by the constitution. The current SC just disagrees with the previous SC's decision on what those un-enumerated rights are. I think your phrasing there is awkward. Which rights? All imaginable ones? (you probably should have said "some rights" to block this inprepretation) Rights with specific kinds of historic…

FWIW, my wording is based on the constitution. specifically, Amendment 9, which states: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." So what rights are those? That's up to the courts and lawmakers to decide. And they have. Folks disagree with the choices they made and the justifications they gave. For example, I disagree that a ri…

> "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

> So what rights are those? That's up to the courts and lawmakers to decide. And they have. Folks disagree with the choices they made and the justifications they gave.

I'm not a lawyer, but the word "retained" seems pretty significant there. You can't retain something you don't have. I wouldn't be surprised if that was meant not as some kind of mechanism for adding new rights in the future, but as clarification to not remove rights that were understood at the time but not listed (e.g. for reasons of economy or forgetfulness).

Also, IIRC, Roe v. Wade did not appeal to the Ninth Amendment, so bringing it up is a bit of a red herring.

> For example, I disagree that a right which has been in place for 50 years, with millions of women exercising that right yearly, is somehow not part of the US' social and moral fabric.

I was talking about it being an de-facto amendment relative to the situation when it was passed in 1973.

>>> EDIT: Side note - the court wasn't even being asked to overturn Roe v Wade - they took that upon themselves. All that was being contested was a state's ability to limit abortions beyond the first trimester (something commonly allowed as part of the "balance" between states rights and women's rights built upon RvW).

>> IIRC, it could have chosen to resolve it that way, but the parties turned the case into a challenge about Roe v. Wade itself in their arguments, which gave an opening for a broader ruling.

> The SCOTUS did that. As noted in Roberts' concurring opinion (which was still one of the 4 votes against), this specific case could have been solved without tearing down the RvW ruling.

The parties opened the door:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/01/us/abortion-mississi...:

> In the [Mississippi’s] petition seeking Supreme Court review, officials told the justices that “the questions presented in this petition do not require the court to overturn Roe or Casey,” though lawyers for the state did raise the possibility in a footnote. Once the court agreed to hear the case, the state shifted its emphasis and began a sustained assault on those precedents.

It's true the court could have rejected that and went narrower (Robert's preference), but it appears to not be true that "the court wasn't even being asked to overturn Roe v Wade" -- it was during oral arguments.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#153

Post by vorpalhex »

swearwolf wrote: post #143
vorpalhex wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purvi Patel was sentenced for wrapping a live, viable baby in a plastic bag and then throwing it in a dumpster.

There is not a consensus that the baby was alive when she delivered it. The prosecution claimed that it was, based on a very old testing methodology called the “lung float” test, which posits that if the lung floats in water, the baby must have drawn at least one breath. It is an old and discredited methodology.

The lung float test is 98% accurate when used within an appropriate time span (before the body off gasses).

They found the dead child wrapped in a plastic bag, in a dumpster. The child was over the viability line for both weight and size.

Patel didn't report it. The Obgyn realized the STILL ATTACHED umbilical cord was too large and the baby was missing and called police to do a search.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#154

Post by falcolas »

core-utility wrote: post #15

Is this anything more than just fear-mongering? I don't see how this is related to the Roe reversal at all. Not a single state has given any inkling of ruling/law aimed at prosecuting the receiver of the abortion, only doctors/person who performs them. Privacy is good and these issues should be evaluated, but to talk about them in the context of the recent Supreme Court decision is dishonest.

Have you looked at Tennessee's law? Not being the target of a specific law doesn't mean you aren't culpable. For example, if you drive someone to and from a bank robbery, you're still culpable for the bank robbery.

But others (read lawyers) say it better.

"Tennessee law does not criminalize women who have abortions, but that does not mean they can't be prosecuted. In fact, the women could be charged with conspiracy or solicitation for seeking an abortion. And [Constitutional attorney David] Raybin said that with abortion being illegal, the father of a child could now sue a doctor or mother for performing the procedure."

And frankly, does it matter if the recipient of an abortion won't be prosecuted, if they can't legally be a recipient? See the case of the 10 year old who was recently evacuated from Ohio to get an abortion.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#155

Post by falcolas »

tablespoon wrote: post #152
falcolas wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, my wording is based on the constitution. specifically, Amendment 9, which states: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." So what rights are those? That's up to the courts and lawmakers to decide. And they have. Folks disagree with the choices they made and the justifications they gave. For example, I disagree that a ri…

> "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." > So what rights are those? That's up to the courts and lawmakers to decide. And they have. Folks disagree with the choices they made and the justifications they gave. I'm not a lawyer, but the word "retained" seems pretty significant there. You can't retain something you don't have.…

> You can't retain something you don't have.

One SCOTUS said you do have it. One says you don't. Who's right?

Not that it matters. Like I said, it's on Congress now.

> footnote

And the decision was still with the SCOTUS, footnote or no footnote. Regardless of what the lawyers say, it's ultimately up to the judges to determine what's an appropriate response to their arguments.

If every footnote begging for an overturning of precedent was taken to this extreme, we would see a lot more turnover. This sweeping and disruptive change is solely on the SCOTUS' heads.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#156

Post by StewardMcOy »

SllX wrote: post #103
StewardMcOy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American here. I think it's important to not characterize judicial review in the Row case as lawmaking. Although lots of anti-abortion advocates criticized Roe as legislating from the bench, the court was actually doing was checking the power of various state governments to take away individual rights. Judicial review has certainly been misused by the court in other cases to legislate, and the concept is anti-democra…

> In Roe, the court didn't write a law saying abortion was legal. It struck down laws stating that it was illegal. That's an important difference. Correct, it did not pass a law, it made a ruling that read like legislation that struck down the laws of States passed by people’s elected representatives, i.e. the people selected to pass laws. The Court does not exist to “check” the States except where the laws of States…

> The Court does not exist to “check” the States except where the laws of States conflict with the laws of the United States, in which case either party may be “checked”.

This is arguably correct prior to the passage of the 14th amendment. However, Roe was decided on 14th amendment grounds. The 14th amendment provides that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States…" This means that any state which does infringe on individual rights does conflict with the federal constitution, and therefore may be checked.

I'm not going to pretend that's not controversial. It came out of the civil war and was forced on a lot of states as part of reconstruction. We may have to fight another civil war over it, among other things, in the future. But the Supreme Court definitely has the power to check states when they curtail individual liberties.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#157

Post by StewardMcOy »

heartbeats wrote: post #116
StewardMcOy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American here. I think it's important to not characterize judicial review in the Row case as lawmaking. Although lots of anti-abortion advocates criticized Roe as legislating from the bench, the court was actually doing was checking the power of various state governments to take away individual rights. Judicial review has certainly been misused by the court in other cases to legislate, and the concept is anti-democra…

> In Roe, the court didn't write a law saying abortion was legal. It struck down laws stating that it was illegal. That's an important difference. I don't get it - this seems like sophistry. Isn't the end result the same, i.e. nationally permitting abortion? > It's also worth remembering that there was never a realistic chance of a nationwide right to abortion being passed through congress. There are a few reasons fo…

> Isn't this how the system is designed to work? And if that's not desired, why not change the system instead? "The SCOTUS gets to make the rules" only works about half of the time, and it seems mostly like a matter of dumb luck as for when it does and doesn't.

Yes, this is how the system is designed to work. It's a bad system, but the system cannot be fundamentally changed in an environment much short of political unanimity. The biggest changes to the system only came after a civil war.

No system is perfect. The founding fathers did as good a job as they could at the time, but no system can work well without fundamental rethinking forever. Unfortunately, the compromises (i.e. slavery) that lead to the constitution are no longer relevant, but we are left with a system that is difficult to change specifically to protect those compromises.

> Using the courts to enforce uncodified abortion rights is like using a shoe to beat a nail in; it's pointlessly brutal, and makes a mockery of the rule of law. I get that it may be expedient for a specific purpose, but why do people celebrate it as a good system in the abstract?

It's not a good system, and people don't celebrate it as such. Pretty much everyone recognizes that lifetime appointments of un-elected individuals to the supreme court has serious drawbacks. But it's the only way to preserve rights within the current system, and people would prefer that to another civil war.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#158

Post by dragonwriter »

notinfuriated wrote: post #23

I still don't understand how the Roe = privacy take has been legitimate when the US has completely ignored the privacy of its citizens in many other contexts, including decades of the NSA and other alphabet agencies spying on us. Granted, I would love there to be an explicitly stated right to privacy from government (up to some limitations determined by the courts, e.g. when government needs to investigate, say, an a…

> the US has completely ignored the privacy of its citizens in many other contexts, including decades of the NSA and other alphabet agencies spying on us.

You mean the spying that was struck down as illegal by the Court once the barriers to identifying it sufficient for a legal action and thus challenging it were broken through?

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#159

Post by SllX »

falcolas wrote: post #134
SllX wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most law that affects the most people day to day has always been State law. I wouldn’t expect any kind of legislation coming out of Congress on this (but many attempts both ways regardless), and I think if there were any that passed that would not actually help our politics. Not everything need be an Act of Congress. Every State has an elected legislature.

> The most law that affects the most people day to day has always been State law. So, I'd actually disagree. This argument isn't well thought out yet, but... until you're actually breaking local laws, most of the laws you interact with are actually interstate and international laws. Most of the businesses you interact with are either engaging in interstate or international commerce. For example, all of your interacti…

I appreciate you trying but no, the laws that affect your direct surroundings are State, because the State is the direct sovereign power over the land you live on whether you rent or own or squat.

The streets around you are governed by State laws; the parks around you may have park hours and if not set directly by the State are governed by a State-empowered entity like your City (national parks are the obvious exception to this). The utilities you mentioned are typically local businesses, except maybe the banks and the ISPs and even the ISPs are operating with local charters and the bank branches are operating under local business rules.

You don’t think about it because it’s so pervasive as to be invisible, but local and State laws are a massive influence in your daily life. The most regular encounter most people have with the Feds is the postal service. Even our “federal” elections are run by the States.

Re: Roe's overturn is tech's privacy apocalypse

#160

Post by s1artibartfast »

swearwolf wrote: post #144
core-utility wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In both cases, intentional harm or neglect was caused by a person resulting in the death of the baby. I see no difference between this and someone being charged for double homicide in killing a pregnant mother. Still doesn't prove the point of any state aiming to prosecute a mother seeking legal options in another state.

The goalposts will move. These two were the test cases, to find out how much appetite there was for prosecuting a mother for losing her pregnancy, using two less sympathetic defendants. States like Indiana will continue to follow that line of reasoning as far as they can. The people who have worked for decades to overturn Roe believe in their hearts that abortion is murder. They aren’t going to be okay with “murder”…

Slippery slope argument aside, do you in your heart think that throwing a live baby in the trash to suffocate should be legal (assuming the facts are correct)?
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