There is an old story about a man who comes upon another man in the dark on his knees looking for his wedding ring under a street lamp. Sympathetic, the man joined the stranger on his knees and looked for almost an hour until he asked if the man was sure that he dropped it here. “Oh no,” the stranger admitted, “I lost it across the street, but the light is better here.”
The story came to mind yesterday when U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland was widely covered in pledging that the Justice Department would defend women in Texas seeking abortions. Garland appears to be answering a different question than the one raised by the new law.
The announcement in the press release came after President Joe Biden promised a “whole government” response to the new Texas abortion law. However, Garland was pledging to enforce a law that has long been robustly enforced. The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) to “protect those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services.” It specifically protects against the use or threat of force and physical obstruction that injures, intimidates, or interferes with a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services or to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.
That is not the basis of the new threat posed by the Texas law to abortion services. The Texas law exposes providers to private enforcement of a rule that sets an abortion bar during the pre-viability stage of a pregnancy.
The fanfare given by the DOJ to the use of the FACE reflects the limited range of possible options for the Justice Department. Indeed, as I previously wrote, efforts to create a new federal law or new federal enforcement effort to create a new basis for challenges by pro-life litigators.
“Abortion Clinics”
“[Murder] Clinics”
“[Murder] Clinics”
This is all just political theatre, not based on any facts. SCOTUS already explained the flaws in their first lawsuit. They know how to proceed with another, properly crafted suit. While I am glad that there is a side advocating for the rights of the unborn, to bring balance to this difficult topic, the TX law was as poorly crafted as the lawsuit against it. It will probably be thrown out just like the first lawsuit against it. But not before the rhetoric reaches the fevered pitch of a 3 day Revival.
The issue of abortion should have been left to the states. Then the people would feel like they had a say, instead of SCOTUS really reaching to claim abortion was a constitutional right. Surely it would be obvious to most that the Founding Fathers neither implied nor intended any such thing. If each state legislated abortion, then the laws would evolve to reflect the values of the citizens therein. If you didn’t like a law, it could be changed. If you didn’t like your state, you could move. People would have more direct power over this issue.
I suspect that in spite of all the drama and rhetoric, there are many who would rather the Supreme Court just handle the thorny abortion issue for them. Congress would not have to legislate such a difficult issue, on record. If SCOTUS ever decides that abortion up until the moment of birth is a constitutional right, even the most far Left Democrat or Socialist would be able to throw up their hands and claim they didn’t do it.
It’s so much easier to kick the can to SCOTUS than it is to have the tough debates and wrangle out legislation with some semblance of fairness to all parties. That would be difficult indeed. How do you find a fair and just balance between the mother and the child she wants to kill? But thinking through tough legislative philosophical quandaries is supposed to be part of the job of Congress.
“The issue of abortion should have been left to the states.”
You’ve explained why you think that, but you didn’t address the issue that privacy is a protected right that has already been incorporated against the states.
“SCOTUS really reaching to claim abortion was a constitutional right”
Why do you think it’s a reach for SCOTUS to acknowledge that people have a right to privacy for medical decisions and that abortion involves balancing the woman’s right to privacy with the State’s right to regulate medical practice for safety and right to regulate after viability because of the State’s increasing interest in the developing fetus? Why do you think that’s the wrong balance?
“It’s so much easier to kick the can to SCOTUS than it is to have the tough debates and wrangle out legislation with some semblance of fairness to all parties. That would be difficult indeed. How do you find a fair and just balance between the mother and the child she wants to kill?”
I’ve been trying to have that tough discussion with you. Elsewhere, I’ve told you what I think is a fair and just balance, and why (if you want me to find it again and link to it, let me know). I’m interested to hear what you think is a fair and just balance, and why you think that’s the right balance.
I can’t sell sex, or a kidney. Why no protection for my privacy
It has always been a leaky sieve of a basis to rule. To subvert the power of the people to self govern.
You’re free to donate a kidney or sex. Do you have a good argument for why you think privacy has to allow the sale? (You haven’t presented one, but perhaps you will, and then I can consider it.)
Do you have a good argument for why you think privacy has to allow the sale?
You have such a backwards view of self governance.
What interest does the State have with my kidney?
I don’t have to justify my behavior. The State MUST reach a high bar to interfere in my privacy.
The state is interested in the SALE of all sorts of things vis-a-vis health, safety, preventing coercion, …
“The State MUST reach a high bar to interfere in my privacy.”
As they ruled in Roe and Casey.
You asked why I think it was a reach for SCOTUS to rule that abortion is a federally protected right. This is one of the most hotly contested, controversial decisions of SCOTUS. As you are aware, the Constitution nowhere list pregnancy, abortion, or the unborn. It talks about the right of citizenship to those born in the US, but this was not in the context of childbirth, but rather granting citizenship to the freed slaves. You would also probably agree that the Founders would have had no intention of making abortion a Constitutional right.
Abortion rights were not mentioned in the Constitution, implied, or the intention of its writers. It was a right fabricated by SCOTUS. It is an oft-used example of legislating from the bench. When they did not agree with the law, they essentially created law and a right out of thin air.
One can, and certainly did in Roe v Wade, argue that there is a right to medical privacy. However, as Roe v Wade acknowledged, the woman is not alone in her pregnancy. Her privacy is not absolute. This is because she shares her pregnancy with another person, with unique DNA.
I actually don’t know what the perfect legislation would look like. I don’t think abortion is a Constitutional right, for the reasons above. I have read articles about how the threat to a mother’s life reasoning is so broad as to be useless. One could argue the stress of motherhood is a threat to mental health, thus justifying a third trimester abortion of a healthy child.
That doesn’t mean there is never any reason to have an abortion. An ectopic pregnancy comes to mind. By having two sides strongly advocating for the rights of pregnant women, and the unborn, we might be able to come up with something as fair as possible to all sides. There are two separate issues, morality or what is right, and law, which don’t always coincide. Then there is simply the desire for more public messaging to get people to think of the unborn as children. Their offspring. Go look at pictures of what they look like at every gestation. When I was pregnant with my son, I was so happy, looking at his heart beat thrumming like a hummingbird. He was moving around in there, tiny. I think my first ultrasound was somewhere around 10 weeks. I’ll have to go find it. I remember suddenly realizing that people aborted their babies at this stage. I clearly remember wondering if they would still go through with it if they saw their baby floating in a warm sea inside them on an ultrasound. I hope our culture evolved to value life more than it currently does. Right now, the rhetoric is that the unborn are medical waste. Just clumps of cells and tissue. But that’s not accurate.
I think abortion is tragic and sad. At bare minimum, I think a child has the right to live once he or she reaches viability. That means I oppose such permissive laws as in NY. When I hear about the rape argument, I can see both sides of the issue. Carrying the child of your rapist would be traumatic. On the other hand, the child has committed no crime, especially not a capital one. It is unjust to kill an innocent person for the crime of another. One of my family members was adopted. All we know is his mother was young. We know nothing about his conception. What if he was the child of rape? Should he have been sentenced to die? We’d never have known him. I will always have a lot of love for his mother who allowed him to live, and gave him to us. I can’t imagine not growing up with him.
I’m glad that you are interested in a two-way conversation. It would make it easier for continuity if you would pick an avatar. Just select a random name or nickname. Otherwise, I have no idea to whom I’m talking, and can’t continue a thread. I hope you pick one, because I never know if you’re Anonymous-who-hates me, Anonymous-who-quarrels-with-the-other-Anonymous, or the various other Anonymous in their own taxonomy.
Hi Karen,
I’m an Anonymous who wants sincere discussion. I don’t hate anyone here, though I do dislike some people here who undermine sincere discussion (via insults, dishonesty, …). I’ll think about picking an avatar, but otherwise, at least in my interactions with you, I’ll try to identify myself to you.
“You would also probably agree that the Founders would have had no intention of making abortion a Constitutional right.”
I don’t assume that. I don’t know what their views were. If that interests you, we can try looking it up. Would you like us to do that?
SCOTUS has stated that abortion prior to “quickening” — when the pregnant woman starts to feel the fetus moving, ~4 months — was generally legal at our founding. Moreover, the Constitution doesn’t end with the Founders. The Founders didn’t intend for women to have a right to vote. They didn’t intend for slavery to be unconstitutional. SCOTUS also has to consider the entire Constitution in their rulings, not just the views of the Founders. They should also consider any relevant facts, including facts that the Founders didn’t know — things we’ve learned since then.
“the woman … shares her pregnancy with another person, with unique DNA.”
For you, when does personhood start?
Many people, including me, don’t agree that an embryo is a person. Going back to the Founders, they clearly didn’t consider embryos and fetuses to be people. If the Founders had believed that, then they would have counted pregnant women as two people in the early censuses, which they didn’t do. If an embryo is a person, now we’d also have to count frozen embryos in IVF embryo banks. Do you consider those frozen embryos to be people?
As for unique DNA, the mix of DNA in someone’s body is actually more complex than a lot of people think. If a woman has been pregnant, she’ll retain some DNA from all of the conceptions (regardless of whether they ended in miscarriage, abortion, or birth). All people also have some complete DNA solely from their mother, and sometimes some complete DNA solely from their fathers. Sometimes two pre-embryos merge and a person is born with more than one kind of distinct DNA. This also occurs when cells from a previous pregnancy get incorporated into a new pre-embryo. There are yet more biological complexities, but I won’t go into all of them.
“I actually don’t know what the perfect legislation would look like.”
It doesn’t have to be perfect. Start with your first guess as to what you’d like it to be, and let’s go from there, and you can refine your first guess if the discussion helps you realize something important to you.
My first guess is that I think abortion should be legal without restriction before the fetus develops a brain with a frontal cortex and the kind of brain waves that correspond to a capacity to think, learn, develop memories, … (for me, it is our thinking, learning, remembering, … brain that is the essence of our personhood, which is why I’m comfortable with doctors killing a living body with a beating heart by cutting organs out after brain death — for me, that person has already died). After that, I’d restrict abortion to situations where the pregnancy seriously endangers a woman’s life or health, or if the fetus has a serious medical problem that makes it unable to live after birth, and perhaps some situations with a multiple pregnancy where one fetus is endangering another if it’s possible to do a selective abortion.
“When I was pregnant with my son, I was so happy …”
You clearly had a wanted pregnancy, and I’m happy for you. But you know that that’s not always the case.
“Right now, the rhetoric is that the unborn are medical waste. Just clumps of cells and tissue. But that’s not accurate.”
I don’t think of them as medical waste or just a clump of cells. But I also don’t think of them as persons.
“It is unjust to kill an innocent person for the crime of another.”
It’s also unjust to force one person to save another’s life. Suppose your bone marrow could save someone with leukemia: should the government be able to force you to donate your bone marrow? (This procedure only takes some of your marrow. The government cannot currently force you.) Suppose someone just needs blood to save their life and you’re a local blood match: should the government be able to force you to donate blood? (The government cannot currently force you.) Pregnancy requires women to donate the use of their bodies for 9 months, with their circulatory system delivering oxygen and nutrients to the embryo/fetus, etc., definitely harder on the pregnant woman than donating blood. Why should the government be able to force this when it can’t force you to donate anything else from your body (except a bit of DNA, but only after getting a warrant)?
“I can’t imagine not growing up with him.”
It’s almost certain that women in your family have had embryos that didn’t implant, as this is very common, and you grew up without the people they might have developed into. Do you miss them or even think about them?
I’m glad that you were willing to respond to me, and hope you’ll respond again.
Hello Anonymous:
You asked when do I consider someone to be a person. A person is an individual human being. Reason and intellect is not required, as people with dementia are still people. Someone in a coma is still a person. I view a fetus as a human being in early development, at the very beginning of all sorts of potential. There’s a little person in there that we haven’t met yet. Even after a baby is born, we don’t really know him until he begins to show his personality, his likes and dislikes. When he speaks is when we begin to learn his opinions, his dreams, and in short, who he is. Prior to that, he’s a mystery.
You cannot compare an aborted fetus with an embryo that failed to implant. The former was a deliberate act against a helpless, innocent person, while the latter never was a pregnancy. A pregnancy is an implanted embryo. If the dividing cells never implant, it never becomes a pregnancy. It’s brief moment of potential never was. I suffered a miscarriage before, and I definitely grieved the loss of that human being. The loss of a pregnancy can be traumatic for women, especially because society doesn’t really recognize the scope of that loss, sometimes. An abortion is the deliberate killing of a developing human being. It is a directed killing by the very person a baby should feel the safest with, his mother. I don’t know at what point that should be illegal, but it should always be considered tragic.
I do think there are times when it is unavoidable, such as if there is an ectopic pregnancy. I don’t know what a perfect law would be, but it would need to balance out the needs of the mother and the developing human.
There are certainly strong arguments made for early abortions. The Texas law allows early abortions. It would prevent most of the risks of pregnancy. An early pregnancy could prevent a woman from getting chemotherapy during a small window where remission might be possible. On the other hand, if it is a developing human at 9 months, it is a developing human at 9 weeks. It’s still a human, and you’d still be killing someone else. It’s not just your own body you are taking control of, and it’s not your “tissue” that is being removed.
You say the government shouldn’t force you to donate anything from your body, and you have a good point. However, most people agree that by a certain point in gestation, often viability, the government can and should prevent a pregnant woman from killing her child. It becomes a horrific idea, killing a viable, healthy fetus. A third trimester abortion still requires labor. She’s already gone through the risk of pregnancy. It would be faster and lower risk to simply deliver the child alive, either through a C-section or through induced labor. A third trimester abortion takes several days, and has the added steps of killing and dismembering the child. It’s gruesome. So the argument that the government has no right to interfere with a woman’s body has a limit for the majority of Americans.
I don’t know what the law should be. What I want is for society to acknowledge that there is a person in there. Someone who wouldn’t want to die. Pro Choice arguments need to stop calling them a ball of cells or a piece of tissue. If you look at gestational photos, that’s not just a clump of cells. A developing human very quickly becomes recognizably human, even sucking his or her thumb at only 12 weeks gestation.
Time goes fast during a pregnancy. Already by the 2nd Trimester, this is what an abortion entails:
https://youtu.be/53tzMV9OmvY
In human history, humans killing humans has been common. Abortion is the ultimate law of the club. The person with the power has the control over life and death. This included ancient practices of abortion. Women did not have access to birth control other than “anti-fertility” herbs which were actually abortifacients. Rue. Pennyroyal. Wormwood. There were many herbs that could damage a fetus or bring on contractions.
It would have been impossible to determine if an early abortion were a miscarriage.
Something also to consider is that in olden times, women generally had children until they died in childbed. This was before germ theory, and midwives were infamous for having old-blood caked fingernails with which they contaminated newly delivered women. Childbed fever could turn septic.
All cultures had to decide when a human being was a member of society, and ours was no exception. The Puritans believed that a person had no soul until they were baptized. If a baby died before then, they were damned. If you go to a Puritan graveyard, you may see headstones reading that monsters were buried there, because the child had not yet been baptized.
Therefor, the quickening meaning that is when a pregnancy was recognizable had no significance, other than this was when a woman was certain of her pregnancy. Prior to that, she was simply “late.” Until quickening, you could not feel them quick, and there would be no physical evidence of the pregnancy.
Hundreds of years ago, scientists believed that sperm contained entire miniature people, and that a woman’s womb was just a garden to plant it in.
Now we know that a delivered baby is still a human being even if they are not baptized.
We know through ultrasound that a baby is in there, and what he or she looks like, long before the quickening.
We know how gametes work.
This idea that woman took herbs to kill early pregnancies was just fine because it was the quickening when a woman was considered pregnant has no bearing on modern society, with the availability of pregnancy tests, Plan B, birth control, etc.
FWIW, people with dementia are generally still capable of some reasoning (e.g., limited communication), even though their reasoning is much more limited than it once was.
“A pregnancy is an implanted embryo.”
But I wasn’t asking when pregnancy starts. I was asking when you believe *personhood* starts. Are you saying that for you, personhood also begins at implantation? Or are you saying that it’s a human being without being a person initially?
“the argument that the government has no right to interfere with a woman’s body has a limit for the majority of Americans.”
Yes, including me, as I already said.
“What I want is for society to acknowledge that there is a person in there. Someone who wouldn’t want to die.”
A fetus doesn’t have any wants until the brain is sufficiently developed. And personally, I would have preferred not to have been born. But my mother, although pro-choice, did not want to have an abortion, and I respect that the choice was hers to make, not mine.
“Electrical brain activity begins at 5 weeks gestation.”
Not the kind of brain activity I was talking about (the kind of brain waves that correspond to a capacity to think, learn, …)
“A newborn baby doesn’t have much capacity for higher learning.”
The frontal cortex of a newborn is already active. For example, a newborn can distinguish his mother’s voice from other voices due to exposure prior to birth, they are able to sense discomfort, …
“At which of these weeks would a fetus have enough brain activity that you want to limit abortion?”
Around viability.
As an aside, if you haven’t watched it, you might enjoy the British drama “Call the Midwife.”
Electrical brain activity begins at 5 weeks gestation.
The brain will continue to develop from that point until a man or woman is aged 25 years. The greatest capacity to learn is around ages 11 to 13 years.
A newborn baby doesn’t have much capacity for higher learning. Not yet. They nurse, sleep, poop, pee, and cry. You don’t remember anything from inside the womb, or from the first couple of years of life, so forming long term memories cannot be a qualifier.
Reflexes begin at 8 weeks gestation. Frontal and temporal poles develop at age 12 weeks gestation. By week 13, the two hemispheres of the brain communicate via the corpus callosum.
By week 23, a fetus is viable outside the womb, although he or she would need to be in NICU.
At which of these weeks would a fetus have enough brain activity that you want to limit abortion? I’m not entirely sure which gestation you mean, as brain development occurs during all 3 trimesters.
Up to the age of fetal viability, there are NO “rights of the unborn”. And, to call a non-viable, undeveloped collection of cells an “unborn baby” or a “child” is a misnomer. It has been explained to you already that you have no right to a “say” in a woman’s reproductive choices up to the age of fetal viability, so up to that point there aren’t any “parties”. You aren’t a “party” to a woman’s decision about her reproductive rights. This is something you just refuse to accept or understand–it’s none of your business. Your religious or personal beliefs are not involved. Until the election cheater appointed 3 radical conservatives whose views do not align with most Americans, Roe was the settled law of the land. At least, that’s what they told Senators during their confirmation hearings. Could it be that they were lying? Someone’s Constitutional rights are subject to your control or opinion.
You claim that the Founding Fathers “neither implied nor intended” that a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy prior to the age of fetal viability was protected by the Constitution, then what about the right not to have your telephone calls monitored by the government, or your e-mails reviewed by local police without a warrant issuing upon probable cause? The Founding Fathers didn’t imply or intend these specific examples either, but they did intend for there to be a right of personal privacy that the government cannot interfere with, and abortion up to the age of fetal viability, telephone privacy and email privacy fall under 4the Amendment protection.
From CNN
—
The world’s most premature baby has celebrated his first birthday after beating 0% odds of surviving
(CNN) — A baby born weighing less than a pound has beaten the odds and celebrated his first birthday, becoming the most premature baby to survive, according to Guinness World Records.
When Richard Scott William Hutchinson was born five months prematurely — recognized by Guinness as the world’s most premature baby — his doctors prepared his parents for the worst.
Richard was born at Children’s Minnesota hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after his mother, Beth Hutchinson, suffered medical complications that caused her to go into labor.
Born 131 days prior to the expected due date and weighing just 11.9 ounces, Richard was so tiny his parents could hold him in a single palm of their hands, Guinness said.
=====
What is the age of viability today, tomorrow and next year?
Why do we encourage young people to be irresponsible and, in the process, devalue life? We see life devalued in Democrat-controlled urban areas. Look at how easily children can die in those cities, and however, our warmest and most loving leftists on the blog never mention anything about these youth that die in huge numbers. Those are the ones that say they care, but not a peep.
SM
“The issue of abortion should have been left to the states. “
Being one who has said that many times, I think we should all look at the havoc created by the Supreme Court by overstepping the authority intended. There is no way abortion will be abolished and there are ways to alleviate problems that might occur.
Perhaps Biden is following his handlers directives on purpose, letting the handlers think they are in control all the while tanking his numbers on purpose, so as to Make America Great Again? thoughts?
The Economist/YouGov Poll September 4 – 7, 2021 – 1500 U.S. Adult Citizens
YouGov/Economist, first poll that has Biden’s approval under 40%. (approve/disapprove)
Overall: 39/50
Men: 36/53
Women: 42/46
White men no degree: 28/61
White women w/ degree: 53/42
Black: 65/26
Hispanic: 41/36
Registered Voters: 43/53
Dems: 77/15
GOP: 9/89
Indie: 35/56
Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) September 8, 2021
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/hlzpfslijb/econTabReport.pdf
Maybe blue state legislators can make a law that can have citizens turn in people that won’t wear a mask. Hell, make it a incentive with money and encourage them to be on the look-out for such people. I believe that would be called pro-life too.
Democrats have done that before with things other than masks. In fact at one time they encouraged children to turn their parents in.
A strawclown posing in a strawman’s clothing. No one is threatening to #OccupyClincs, abort abortionists, abort reproductive rites, abort medical progress, or even abort carbon sequestration (e.g. population control), or to abort unarmed women in prone and vulnerable positions. Men and women are equal in rights and complementary in Nature.
That said, there is no mystery in sex and conception, a woman and man have four choices: abstention, prevention, adoption, and compassion, and still six weeks. Baby steps to a world with less wicked solutions to purportedly hard problems. Keep women appointed, available, and taxable? Dreams of feminists and masculinists alike. The Pro-Choice religion denies women and men’s dignity and agency, and reduces human life to a negotiable asset (e.g. diversity [dogma] or color judgment).
There is no way, that if power were returned to the states, that liberal states would ‘kill Roe’. Either people are unfathomably ignorant of the law or the precedent, or they have just completely lost it. Given the situation, one of those is undeniably true. Leads me to believe that most on the left in the 21st century are simply ignorant, to the point of making toddlers that can’t yet speak seem cogent. Relax. Nothing is going away. If you don’t live in Texas, then you really don’t have to worry about it, and I’m guessing all of the harpies do not live in Texas. If you would really like to help, then encourage birth control and stop letting your sixteen year-old children have sex under your roof.
“If you don’t live in Texas, then you really don’t have to worry about it”
Have you read the Texas law? If you haven’t read it, I suggest you do so: https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB8/id/2395961
Even if you don’t live in TX, you should worry about a state attempting to “evade federal judicial scrutiny by outsourcing the enforcement of unconstitutional laws to its citizenry” (Justice Sotomayor’s words), because if Texas can do that for abortion, other states can do that for other unconstitutional laws. The Texas law does not allow the court to reject nuisance suits, does not let the defendant be reimbursed for legal costs when the defendant prevails, allows people to sue if they believe that someone merely *intends* to aid an illegal abortion (without actually doing so) or aids one unknowingly (say, by lending a woman money without knowing how she’ll use it, by driving her to a clinic if she says it’s just for a check-up but is actually for an abortion after a fetal “heartbeat”), … There’s a lot for us to be concerned about even if we don’t live in Texas.
Dear James: multiple red states are working to get the same unconstitutional Texas law on the legislative docket. You are the one who is unfathomably ignorant of the law and precedent. You claim “nothing is going away”. In Texas, right now, almost all abortion clinics are unable to offer services to women because 70%+ of women don’t know they’re pregnant until more than 6 weeks. But, you must be forgiven because you watch Hannity, and he didn’t have any interviews with clinic workers. Your “unfathomable ignorance” is displayed by the comment about 16 year olds having sex. You don’t know anything about women who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy and are seeking abortion. A surprising number of them are married and don’t have the emotional or financial resources to add to their brood. Their spouse might have a fatal illness. They may be overwhelmed with caring for a disabled child or parents. Birth control fails more than many people realize. In any event, like all pro-lifers, you have no appreciation for the fact that it’s none of your business. That’s your “unfathomable ignorance”.
Since we’re now in Trumpland, where everything is a culture war of Trumpists vs. everyone else, and the Trumpist judges sit on our Supreme Court, how about this: how about blue states outlawing owning of handguns, and further, how about if anyone who knows you have a gun can sue you and be enriched to the same extent of the bounty that Texas allows? Plus, they take away your guns. All of them, including hunting rifles. How’d that go over with people like you? That’d be OK–right? I mean, shouldn’t everything be “states rights” without regard to the U.S. Constitution? If a woman’s right to an abortion up to the age of fetal viability, protected by the Constitution and established as settled law for 50 years can be done away with by deputizing citizens and offering financial incentives, how about Second Amendment rights?
A strawman apology. The Second Amendment is multipurpose, where commission of elective abortions are few and far between, including cases of police, criminal, and self-abortive choice. Perhaps we should also ban cars, the double-edged scalpel, vacuums, syringes, bats, Fentanyl, and other dual-use items.
That said, fetus is a technical term of art to plausibly deny human evolution and socially distance technicians and abortionists from their victims of social and medical progress. Abortion a.k.a. reproductive rites are single-purpose, single-minded with nearly 100% mortality (there are some survivors) and collateral damage. This is why extremists carried out witch hunts with labels and conducted warlock judgments to affirmatively deny civil rights to the male sex. Edge cases of involuntary exploitation (i.e. rape… rape-rape) and incest (e.g. superior exploitaiton) can and should be handled separately.
The nominally “secular” Pro-Choice (“ethical”) religion denies women and men’s dignity and agency, and reduces human life to a negotiable asset. There is no mystery in sex and conception, a woman and man have four choices: abstention, prevention, adoption, and compassion, and still six weeks of viable legal indemnity to indulge the wicked solution. Baby steps.
Well, just like Karen S. thinks she has the “right” to a “say” in a woman’s reproductive choices, how about those who think they have the right to a “say” about whether a Trumpster like you should be allowed to carry a gun around. And, the Second Amendment mentions a “militia”, not individuals prancing around with their heaters. In fact, your carrying of a firearm is closer to being a threat to the health and well being of others than someone you don’t even know terminating a pregnancy prior to the age of fetal viability. There’s no “negotiation” involved in choosing to end a pregnancy.
I saw a film clip once. A man was sitting in the jungle eating. A child of about two years of age was sitting nearby crying. You could see that the man was irritated by the crying child. The child would no stop crying. The man got up and grabbed the child by the ankles. The man swung the child striking his head against a palm tree. The man sat down and continued his meal. You see, the beating heart of the child had become just an inconvenience.
At least they’re concerned about not offending the Taliban
😉
Pro-aborts planning protest at Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s house cautioned not to be Islamophobic and compare him to the Taliban
Speaking of insurrections, remember when that angry mob tried to force open the doors of the Supreme Court to prevent Brett Kavanaugh from being sworn in? That didn’t work, but the hatred of Kavanaugh still burns bright. ShutDownDC is planning to protest in front of Kavanaugh’s house Monday to demand that he resign immediately in light of the Supreme Court not blocking Texas’ heartbeat law from going into effect.
Twitchy, September 7, 2021
https://twitter.com/NicXTempore/status/1435229880778698757
There should be hearings about whether he lied in his nomination hearings, as alleged by many people under penalty of perjury. If he lied to Congress, he should be impeached and removed.
(OT)
College Football Fans: 1
Fauci Panic Brigade: 0
How wonderful it was to see a uniquely American form of protest: Individuals pursuing their happiness.
Yes, rational convention: 1, social contagion: 0. Pro-Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, without diversity [dogma] to color people with labels and judge them in blocs.
Two things.
Media: Ten years down the road, media, like the NYT, or MSNBC will explain the history of 2021, when the DoJ was forced to act to protect abortion clinics from violent right to life proponents seeking to harm women. When we know that not even a verbal admonition, let alone actual violence threatened.
Like the big lie that Trump called Nazis good people. it doesn’t have to be true for the left to repeat it.
The Attourney General of the United States offers not a single avenue that SCOTUS could have used to stay the law.
L. Luppen: “The Supremacy Clause, the All Writs Act, and the Court’s cases construing it absolutely give it the power to ‘issue an injunction against state judges.'”
Garland didn’t comment on what SCOTUS could have done. The issue now is how to act in light of what they did.
Nobody has written the SCOTUS order you claim can be written
The internal quote in my quote of Luppen — the source that Luppen himself was quoting — is the majority SCOTUS ruling in US v. NY Telephone Company. You can read the details of Luppen’s argument here, and he also links to that SCOTUS ruling, should you want to read it: https://www.nycsouthpaw.com/p/the-supreme-court-guts-roe-and-opens
Jonathan: Whatever happens in the courts over Texas’ new abortion law it’s clear where the Lone Star state is headed. The Taliban have taken over Texas. Texans can now carry a gun without a permit–it’s part of their “personal freedom”. The same Texan can also claim a 10K bounty for preventing a woman from exercising her constitutional “freedom” to choose. Texas women, you better put on your burkas!
On an unrelated subject we are upon the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. After the Twin Towers fell Trump boasted that he now had the tallest building in NYC. Trump is now trying to capitalize on the Anniversary by offering a new scam. Evander Holyfield and Vitor Belfort will fight at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel in Hollywood, Fl. Trump and his son are offering a live running commentary on the fight. Price to tune in? $49.99! So, rather than a somber reminder of all those who died on 9/11, Trump will use the Anniversary as a cash cow. Classic Trump!
Trump is a private citizen doing business like he has done his entire life.
Quite different than past Presidents like Obama, who had never done anything prior to be elected President, but is now trying to be a major player in an arena he knows nothing about. Living on his title of Ex-President to scam the masses
The true scammer is obvious
+100
Trump once again shows himself to be a greedy malignant narcissist. It’s disturbing how many people do not understand that.
It sounds like Anonymous the Stupid is trying very hard to denigrate people.
The 11:51am comment denigrated only one person: Trump.
S. Meyer, do you often confuse a single person with multiple people? If you object to denigration, why are you denigrating the people (yes, “people,” not “person”) you repeatedly call “Anonymous the Stupid”?
Anonymous the Stupid, the word is, people, because you denigrate many people on this blog. I have no objection to denigrating a person that acts like you. You are asking for it, and I am providing the service you have requested.
SM
Dennis
You are a drama queen.
“The Texas law exposes providers to private enforcement of a rule that sets an abortion bar during the pre-viability stage of a pregnancy … unconstitutional under existing case law”
Yes, as Justice Sotomayor said in her dissent, the State is attempting to “evade federal judicial scrutiny by outsourcing the enforcement of unconstitutional laws to its citizenry.” Her entire dissent is worth reading: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a24_8759.pdf#page=7
Yet you’d rather complain about Garland than deal with the legal details of the Texas law, the implications for the country if they succeed — enabling other states to pass unconstitutional laws limiting other rights and outsourcing enforcement to the citizenry, the implications for the women in Texas who are already prevented from accessing abortion services for most of the period prior to viability, …
“The fact is that greater challenge to Roe is not coming from Texas but Mississippi.”
The fact is that women in Texas are ALREADY being prevented from accessing abortions for most of the period prior to viability.
The fact is that Texas has passed an unconstitutional law in which they’ve worked very hard to prevent judges from effectively enjoining enforcement, and if they’re successful, other states will undoubtedly follow suit, creating a challenge for a whole slew of rights.
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT SB8 ITSELF AND SCOTUS’S COP OUT?
You are copping out as a legal scholar by refusing to discuss the legal issues raised by the text of SB8 and by the unsigned SCOTUS opinion delivered via their shadow docket without holding a hearing.
“the Court could ultimately decline to review the Texas law which is likely to be declared unconstitutional under existing case law by the lower courts.”
Tell us how the enforcement of the law will be prevented without bankrupting abortion providers, if the only people who can be enjoined are the individual people who sue, tens of millions of people can file suit, and the defendants still have to pay their own costs even when they win?
“The new Texas law allows for private enforcement…”
So act like a legal scholar and discuss the legal implications!
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT SB8 ITSELF AND SCOTUS’S COP OUT?
I’ve been following this since SCOTUS ruled. Not a single legal voice has laid out the legal/constittuional SCOTUS has availible to address the issue brought before the court. The conclusion, just exactly as the majority lays out, there is nothing SCOTUS could do. Even the dissents offered not a single order the court had the power to write.
SCOTUS did not “cop out”
No judge has ruled the Texas law unconstitutional.
“Not a single legal voice has laid out the legal/constittuional SCOTUS has availible to address the issue brought before the court. Even the dissents offered not a single order the court had the power to write.”
SCOTUS could have stayed implementation of the law while it works its way through the lower courts. That HAD that option available, but the majority refused to do this. The challenge is what to do now.
“No judge has ruled the Texas law unconstitutional.”
Both a district court and a 5th Circuit panel ruled it unconstitutional. It was reheard en banc, and there was some subsequent legal action involving both the district court and the 5th Circuit. I’m still working my way through all of that.
SCOTUS could have stayed implementation of the law while it works its way through the lower courts.
No they cannot. It is a state law. But ignoring that big hurdle. Judges don’t stay laws. The stop Government agents from actions to carry out the law.
Judges have power over people. Not ideas. This has been explained by all legal minds. They hate it, but it is the structure of law.
Write the order, you think is so simple
If one looks at this law in a certain way, one could conclude that the Supreme Court should have involved itself and put a hold on the law. That is Anonymous’ position. The reason is there is the seen, but there is also the unseen that too frequently outweighs the seen. That is why Anonymous is entirely wrong. He should brush up on Bastiat.
There is a Bastiat sight, and if one googles the ‘seen and the unseen,’ one can read the logic behind what I am trying to say. The left hates to even think about the unseen. That is why their policies ultimately end in failure.
“No they cannot.”
Justices Roberts, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor have all explicitly disagreed with you.
Roberts, with whom Breyer and Kagan joined in dissent: “I would grant preliminary relief to preserve the status quo ante—before the law went into effect—so that the courts may consider whether a state can avoid responsibility for its laws in such a manner.”
Sotomayor, with whom Breyer and Kagan joined in dissent: “At a minimum, this Court should have stayed implementation of the Act to allow the lower courts to evaluate these issues in the normal course. Ante, at 2 (ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting).”
You’re free to have your opinions. I’m free to think that those Justices have more legal expertise than you do.
The other 5 didn’t say that they could not, only “Nor is it clear whether, under existing precedent, this Court can issue an injunction against state judges asked to decide a lawsuit under Texas’s law.” I don’t believe they were telling the truth when they claimed it unclear. I think they know that they CAN but did not wish to. I think that had an analogous law been passed about some right that those 5 want to protect, we’d have gotten a unanimous court issuing such an injunction.
“The stop Government agents from actions to carry out the law.”
Yes, and SCOTUS has the power to enjoin judges from adjudicating suits filed by non-government actors based on this unconstitutional law, until the existing challenges are resolved. Implementation of the law involves judges; the law is unenforceable without them. Those non-government actors remain free to file the suits and become plaintiffs, but the defendants would not have to defend against them pending resolution of the challenges.
“Write the order, you think is so simple”
I’ll do that after you do the things I already asked *you* to do. Show me that you’re trying to treat this as a two-way street, where you are also trying to engage in a good-faith discussion. If you aren’t, then I’m not going to treat your requests as if you are.
I don’t believe they were telling the truth when they claimed it unclear.
I don’t believe Roberts. (see how that works?)
Yes, and SCOTUS has the power to enjoin judges from adjudicating suits filed by non-government actors based on this unconstitutional law
NO THEY CANT
Cite the precedent you insist exist.
All they can do is reverse an existing ruling. The are called appellate courts for a reason.
In this case, not a single lawsuit has been filed. Which is the reason no judge has ruled the law unconstitutional. No matter what talking point you repeat, no lawsuit has been filed to trigger a ruling
“I don’t believe Roberts. (see how that works?)”
Yes, of course you are free to have different beliefs than me. Duh.
“Cite the precedent you insist exist.”
I already did, in my 4:25pm reply to you yesterday.
“In this case, not a single lawsuit has been filed. Which is the reason no judge has ruled the law unconstitutional.”
That’s false, and if you were paying attention, you’d know that it’s false. I already pointed out to you that a district court and a 5th Circuit panel had ruled the law was unconstitutional, in my 12:34pm reply to you yesterday. How do you think they came to rule on it? A lawsuit had been filed! (In fact, more than one was filed. SCOTUS ruled on a different one.) You responded to that comment, but apparently you couldn’t be bothered to read the entire thing and think about what it meant. As I said earlier, you are not trying to have a sincere discussion here.
You make the case they have ruled.
No details, Ruled What” enjoined who. Who are the litigants? The State law just came into effect, but it has already been ruled on at least 3 times?
Name these lawsuits and the parties to them.
OK here is this from August 29th
“On Friday night, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals canceled a hearing planned for Monday, at which more than 20 abortion providers had hoped to persuade a federal district court in Austin to block the law from taking effect
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/29/texas-abortion-law-5th-circuit-court/
Now I have done the work you refuse to do. There must by a different 5th circuit ruling issued after 8/29/21, but you refuse to support your claim
I repeat, what everybody with a law degree has been saying.
Judges cant strike down a law. All they can do is stop govt officials from taking actions. Even the SCOTUS dissent acknowledges this truth.
I don’t believe they were telling the truth when they claimed it unclear. I think they know that they CAN but did not wish to
This is where the very simple exercise of ‘precedent’ is used extensively in the law.
Nine Supreme Court Judges, each with a four clerks (the very best students from the very best law schools). That is 45 of the best legal minds, not a single one found one case to support any action SCOTUS might take.
LAWFARE What is good for the goose, is good for the gander. How long have progressives been passing private enforcement statutes to advance their policy preferences? Quit your complaining.
“How long have progressives been passing private enforcement statutes to advance their policy preferences?”
I’d love to read one of the laws you have in mind, and since I’m not a mind-reader, I’d appreciate your linking to one of the laws you have in mind. Thanks in advance.
BTW, in whatever law you cite, I hope you’ll be focused in the key issue that Justice Sotomayor highlighted: “evade federal judicial scrutiny by outsourcing the enforcement of unconstitutional laws to its citizenry.” So you’ll not only want to demonstrate “private enforcement statutes” (as occur, for example, with defamation laws that allow private entities to file civil suits, where the underlying law is constitutional rather than unconstitutional), but that the underlying law is **unconstitutional**.
I feel like Inigo Montoya talking to Vizzini. Constitutional/Unconstitutional. I don’t think that word means what you think in means. We have already established that you think the Constitution was written on an etch-a-sketch up until the point that it is modified at the whim of nine lawyers to your liking. Then the power of precedent magically freezes its meaning in amber forever. No. Either it’s a living Constitution, or it’s not. You need to come to grips with the fact that your “living” Constitution may just now be living its best life in a direction not to your liking. Get used to it.
“We have already established …”
Only in your imagination.
” Her entire dissent is worth reading:”
Take note, Anonymous the Stupid, how you resort to copying her words without analysis and linking. You can’t formulate a cogent argument in your own words. You lack that ability.
But take a look at the word, outsourcing.
SM and the President would like certain things not to be said. There is a silent quid pro quo probability enhanced by the words of Biden and Psaki. In this manner the Biden Administration can incentivize SM to do what the first amendment prevents the federal government from doing.
“Yet you’d rather complain about Garland “
I thought Garland might have been a middle of the road leftist that had scruples, but watching him at the DOJ and on the present issues I have learned he is not a learned judge rather a political hack.
“The fact is that women in Texas are ALREADY being prevented from accessing abortions for most of the period prior to viability.“
As you would respond, they are not being prevented. They can get the abortion with or without the law.
That would be your typical hypocritical response to issues you are arguing against. You are a hypocrite.
No, I’m not a hypocrite, nor have you provided any evidence to the contrary.
Thanks for indirectly pointing out that I should have said: The fact is that women in Texas are ALREADY being prevented from accessing legal abortions in Texas for most of the period prior to viability. Of course, some women in Texas may still be able to get illegal and perhaps unsafe abortions in Texas or afford to go outside of Texas for legal and safe ones; anti-abortion laws have never constrained the wealthy from getting legal and safe abortions elsewhere.
I have no problem correcting my earlier statement. Will you now correct yours? (I doubt it, but perhaps you’ll surprise me.)
You are a hypocrite and prove it with successive postings.
This most recent revision is also wrong according to your ‘your-speak’.
“The fact is that women in Texas are ALREADY being prevented from accessing legal abortions in Texas for most of the period prior to viability. ”
Your-speak: Women in Texas can still get legal abortions. I know what you are talking about, but you like to play on every word (word games) instead of having an intelligent discussion.
My statement is valid, though I wouldn’t use it in a discussion because it is counterproductive, reflecting your type of low-level debating.
The fact is that women in Texas are ALREADY being prevented from accessing legal abortions in Texas for most of the period prior to viability.
You ignore the text in bold because you are not arguing in good faith, Allan.
You almost never argue in good faith with people whose views you deeply dislike.
Anonymous the Stupid, I am utilizing your method of debate. I don’t like it but you like the sewer system so I guess I have to get my hands dirty. Enjoy.
SM
But, Fox isn’t paying Turley to be a “legal scholar”. He’s selling his credentials to help Republicans win in 2022 and 2024, stirring up the disciples, criticizing Democrats, defending the stupid things red states do, defending Trump and Republicans and ignoring the stupid and unethical things they do. That’s his job now.
Instance of a novel self-defense included, a reform of quasi-legal precedents that established the Twilight Amendment (“penumbras and emanations”, demos-cracy is aborted in darkness) legalized a liberal interpretation of self-defense for plausible, social, and other light and casual causes that deny women and men’s dignity and agency, and reduces human life to a negotiable asset. That said, four choices, and still six weeks… baby steps.
It’s always been there for anyone with eyes to see: “It specifically protects […] a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services or to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.” Rather than wait and place infants on the glowing hot statue of Moloch, we instead slaughter them before their birth on the altar of “Choice” in worship of the god “Self.” Since God never changes, why would the Enemy need to change tactics beyond, perhaps, semantic games and renaming his practices?
“Yea, hath God said?”
– Gen 3:1, KJV
“Vanity of vanities […] there is nothing new under the sun.”
– Ecc 1:2-11, KJV
Rather than wait and place infants on the glowing hot statue of Moloch, we instead slaughter them before their birth on the altar of “Choice” in worship of the god “Self.”
Wellllll, the Left have been saying for decades that Christianity is bogus. What they failed to tell us, and would have ended the culture wars much sooner, is that they really dig the religion of the Incas, the Aztecs and those other chest cracking, heart sacrificing, throw women into volcanoes. Heck, these religions end lives for any old reason just to please their gawds! So now we know!
10 Horrors Of Aztec Ritual Human Sacrifice
The Aztecs’ divine duty was to fill the insatiable appetites of their gods through human sacrifice. Usually, the Aztecs used enemies whom they had defeated in war as offerings. But there were only so many wars to be fought and only so many enemies to capture. They needed more victims.The Aztecs made a deal to use the neighboring city-state of Tlaxcala like a farm for humans. The two armies organized staged battles just to capture prisoners for human sacrifice.It was a mutual agreement by both sides. The losing army wouldn’t cry or complain about their fate. They understood that this was their part of the bargain, and they would allow themselves to be led to their deaths.
https://listverse.com/2016/12/20/10-horrors-of-aztec-ritual-human-sacrifice/
Abort! Abort!
Abort all the way.
There’s a hole in your rubber.
To your last dying day.
A life filled with abortion, per chance self-abortion, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Life is an exercise in risk management and reconcilable behavioral protocols (i.e. morality, ethics, law). That said, ban planes, trains, and automobiles, carbon confections, and the double-edged scalpel.
Personally, I believe the law is a bit restrictive and the enforcement mechanism is bizarre. But did you expect anything different from Garland? Thank God he is not a Justice. He is dishonest and an Intellectual lightweight.
Manny: “dishonest and an Intellectual lightweight”? How about Covid-Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch all LYING to Senators when they claimed that Roe v. Wade is SETTLED law–all to get the power to do what they did? The POTUS who proposed Garland for the SCOTUS didn’t cheat to get into office either.
Turley basically concedes that Roe is going down whether due to sins of commission (the Mississippi case) or omission (the Texas case). The dog has caught the car and there will be holy hell to pay in the political sphere. Live with it, Jon.
eb
DOJ actually says it will enforce a law? Amazing!
Whig98
DOJ does enforce laws; just unevenly and against conservatives.
We now know why Merrick was selected for SC because he is a company man willing to do the bidding of his masters, willingly so. Repubs never seem to select the same kind to their detriment.
M: “We now know why Merrick was selected for SC because he is a company man willing to do the bidding of his masters”.
**
And he appears to be stupid.
The motivation to stop Garland’s SCOTUS nomination was political, but the country dodged a bullet.
Could you imagine this political hack on the Supreme Court?
Monument: “Could you imagine this political hack on the Supreme Court?”
****
Don’t need to imagine it when we have Sotomayor and Kagan and Roberts and . . . .
I wonder if Ginsburg, following a religious/moral epiphany, struggled to survive with the intent to deny Obama’s “burden” and amend her support for the wicked solution. That said, four choices, and still six weeks. Baby steps.