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Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

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Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#711
post #617
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…

It looks like either we will have a January 6th like raid on the SCOTUS or a total collapse of the United States at this point and end up with a civil war with a second republic. Hopefully that won't possibly happen. But we'll see in 2024.

I will bet you a lot of money no such raid on the Supreme Court occurs, unless you mean a street protest with signs and public speakers to be a "raid"

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#712
post #695

When I was a child in the Catholic Church (70s and 80s) there was NEVER any political discussion that entered into the service (“..render unto caesar what is caesar’s..” or ‘separation of church and state’. Or, more probable, perhaps it was felt that it simply was not the forum for present-day politics. I don’t know). Since lapsed, A few years ago I was encouraged by a priest, as he enjoyed his fourth old fashioned,…

Except that the court relinquished its power to decide on these matters. It may not seem like it now to you, but it actually gains credibility by the courts, because they are not put in the middle of such a consequential decision. It allows the legislature to act. This isn't a power grab, but a relinquishing of power.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3535841-thomas-...

It is a powergrab. Christian conservatives have the Supreme Court. This was all planned. Don't kid yourself.

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#713
post #647

When I was a child in the Catholic Church (70s and 80s) there was NEVER any political discussion that entered into the service (“..render unto caesar what is caesar’s..” or ‘separation of church and state’. Or, more probable, perhaps it was felt that it simply was not the forum for present-day politics. I don’t know). Since lapsed, A few years ago I was encouraged by a priest, as he enjoyed his fourth old fashioned,…

The framing of this debate is often religious, but it doesn't have to be. The fact is that at some point between inception and time of delivery, the fetus becomes a person and has some rights. Most people agree that it's probably not inception and it's probably not the moment before birth. So the question is when does this happen? In that way, the pro-life crowd has at least a closer framing of the issue. The pro-cho…

Except that's not the universal framing.

There is one side that is fighting very hard to not only make it at conception, but potentially even before conception (there are reasons to believe that the supreme court might come for birth control next - and there are large portions of the same religious community that put them in power that want that).

For many people on the other side the fetus doesn't get rights until it is born. And up until that point, it is a bundle of cells wholly dependent on the mother, and therefor part of her body (and thus, her bodily autonomy). Indeed, there's a reading of the bible that supports this interpretation - it mentions multiple times a baby becoming alive "at its first breath".

For many people, the answer lies somewhere in the middle, but it's not clear at all that those people represent a majority.

The issue touches on strongly held moral beliefs on both sides - rights to life, right to bodily autonomy, and questions about when life starts.

There is no simple universal framing that we can all agree upon.

----

And even aside from framing, even if we could agree on a framing, the issue gets really complex, really fast. Lets say we do agree that the question is about when a life becomes a life.

Pregnancy is dangerous, as I well know. My wife and I lost three pregnancies. One of them was at 20 weeks. My son was already dead by the time we got to the hospital, but they had to remove his body from my wife's body or it risked a deadly infection. The medication they used to do that, in this case to trigger labor, was an abortion medication. The procedure they would have performed had that failed, was a DNC - an abortion. Both are already being banned by trigger laws in many states. In a room down the hall, a dear friend of ours who'd been struggling with infertility and loss was having a DNC the same day we lost our son, due to yet another failed pregnancy. Again, without that procedure, she would have died.

So you very quickly get into other complexities even when you do boil it down into a question of when life starts. And even then, the argument for banning it the way many states are (completely, with no exceptions) becomes hard to make about anything but control.

You can say it's about saving the life of the child - but we don't force dead people to donate their organs even when it would save a life. These laws will force women to die, even when there is no living child left to save.

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#714

Scientists have shirked their responsibility around abortion. The vacuum and silence around this topic helped push towards this day. The "viability" debate, or the re-branded "when does this ball of cells become a person" debate, has been monopolized by philosophers and religious people. And as a result many women will die due to botched abortions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerri_Santoro or the inability to get on…

None of this matters because the majority (probably overwhelming majority) of pro-life people also don't believe settled science like evolution or that the earth is more than 6000 years old. If we can't reach consensus on those things, how is telling someone that believes a zygote has a human soul that its okay because it isn't conscious? Keep in mind that the protections provided by Roe and PP v. Casey only extended…

It's not the ardent pro-life people that I'm concerned about reaching, but most Americans who aren't that radical. The lack of scientists speaking out about abortion and bringing reason to the public discussion has led to a vacuum where the only voice they hear are either religious nuts or social activists trying to be heard. Social activists usually lack the scientific training and background to break it down and explain the problem.

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#715

For those who say this is the logically correct decision, how exactly did you conclude that? - USA Constitution 14th Amendment Section 1 ...no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal pro…

Roe v Wade didn't argue that. You can argue that independently if you wish - but it was not a justification for it. Also, people who oppose Abortion believe that this is the government _taking away_ a life. Which would also be at odds with the constitution.

You are incorrect.

"This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or ... in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether to terminate her pregnancy."

— Roe, 410 U.S. at 153

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#716
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 general I think state rights lowers division, as a federal system is winner-take-all while a State system can be live or let live. of course the issue is when States violate Constitutional rights and hide behind State rights. however, diminishing States rights in favor of Federal rights ultimately has the same risks, i.e. let the lesson of Trump scare the hell out of us.

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#717
post #647

When I was a child in the Catholic Church (70s and 80s) there was NEVER any political discussion that entered into the service (“..render unto caesar what is caesar’s..” or ‘separation of church and state’. Or, more probable, perhaps it was felt that it simply was not the forum for present-day politics. I don’t know). Since lapsed, A few years ago I was encouraged by a priest, as he enjoyed his fourth old fashioned,…

The framing of this debate is often religious, but it doesn't have to be. The fact is that at some point between inception and time of delivery, the fetus becomes a person and has some rights. Most people agree that it's probably not inception and it's probably not the moment before birth. So the question is when does this happen? In that way, the pro-life crowd has at least a closer framing of the issue. The pro-cho…

>If the fetus is a life, none of this stuff matters.

This is irrelevant to my personal views on abortion because I believe that individuals have rights over their own body which supersede anyone else's rights to their body. We hold this as true in all other facets of bodily autonomy. I have no legal responsibility to risk my life to protect my fellow citizens. I have no obligation to regularly donate blood or bone marrow. I can't be compelled to donate a kidney. I can even arrange for all my healthy organs to be thrown in a fire or buried underground after my death rather than allow them to be used to save the lives of multiple people. This is all because my body is mine and I can control what happens to it. If I refuse to allow it to be used to support another life, that is my choice.

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#718
post #647

When I was a child in the Catholic Church (70s and 80s) there was NEVER any political discussion that entered into the service (“..render unto caesar what is caesar’s..” or ‘separation of church and state’. Or, more probable, perhaps it was felt that it simply was not the forum for present-day politics. I don’t know). Since lapsed, A few years ago I was encouraged by a priest, as he enjoyed his fourth old fashioned,…

The framing of this debate is often religious, but it doesn't have to be. The fact is that at some point between inception and time of delivery, the fetus becomes a person and has some rights. Most people agree that it's probably not inception and it's probably not the moment before birth. So the question is when does this happen? In that way, the pro-life crowd has at least a closer framing of the issue. The pro-cho…

In the middle ages it was considered to become a person at the 'quickening', when it started to move. The reasoning being that the soul had entered the body at that point.

Re: Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

#719
post #647

When I was a child in the Catholic Church (70s and 80s) there was NEVER any political discussion that entered into the service (“..render unto caesar what is caesar’s..” or ‘separation of church and state’. Or, more probable, perhaps it was felt that it simply was not the forum for present-day politics. I don’t know). Since lapsed, A few years ago I was encouraged by a priest, as he enjoyed his fourth old fashioned,…

The framing of this debate is often religious, but it doesn't have to be. The fact is that at some point between inception and time of delivery, the fetus becomes a person and has some rights. Most people agree that it's probably not inception and it's probably not the moment before birth. So the question is when does this happen? In that way, the pro-life crowd has at least a closer framing of the issue. The pro-cho…

That's not a "fact" at all, actually. I can tell that you tried hard to frame the issue in such a way that you could present this "fact", but it's still just an opinion. In fact, for many centuries, a lot of people have felt and thought and believed that personhood is not conferred until birth.
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