Below is my column in the Hill on the leaking of the draft opinion on abortion from the Supreme Court. While lionizing the leaker, media and political figures have ratcheted up their rhetoric to “burn down the Court” or to pack it with reliable liberal votes. Because these pundits disagree with the constitutional interpretation, they are now suggesting that the entire institution is illegitimate.
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick wrote “we need to be focusing on the legitimacy of the court itself” while CNN’s chief political analyst Gloria Borger suggested that the Supreme Court Justices were “just a bunch of politicians in robes.” Historian Jon Meacham declared “If you had any reservations about the system’s capacity to deliver justice, they have just been affirmed.” Because the Court has adopted an opposing constitutional interpretation, we are once again deluged from calls ranging from packing the Court to burning it down. In this environment, the White House could not even muster enough courage to denounce protesters descending on the homes of justices to harass them. While the legitimacy of the Court is questioned, the targeting of justices and their families is not.
Here is the column:
Five seemingly perfunctory words from the Supreme Court — “The Court has no comment” — hit like a thunderclap late Monday night. Politico had just posted a draft of a majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade and its progeny in the blockbuster abortion case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Most court observers surely must have hoped this was an elaborate hoax, that someone had not shattered every legal and judicial ethical rule by leaking a draft opinion. But there was no denial from the court.
The draft opinion is subject to change and may indeed have already changed in both its analysis and support. Draft majority opinions have a nasty habit of becoming dissents or fracturing into pieces as justices work through the details on a case.
The opinion was written by Associate Justice Samuel Alito and joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. If unchanged, it would declare that “Roe and Casey must be overruled. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
Such a ruling would return the question of reproductive rights to the states. Most would likely continue to support the right, but it would become a matter for each state to resolve through their own democratic process.
The indeterminacy of the draft and uncertainty of the future did not stop instant, dystopian predictions. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) immediately declared: “So, this would appear to be an invitation to have, you know, Handmaid’s Tale type anti-feminist regulation and legislation all over the country.”
The final language and meaning of the decision is literally yet to be written. What is clear is that the court itself has been hit with one of the greatest scandals in its history, and certainly the greatest crisis faced by Chief Justice John Roberts in his tenure.
Even in a city that traffics in leaks from every agency and every corner of government, this was an unspeakably unethical act. The Supreme Court deals with transformative cases that drive to the very heart of our political, cultural and religious divisions, yet justices and clerks have maintained a tradition of strict civility and confidentiality on such drafts.
So what changed?
We changed.
We do not know what motivated this leaker other than to unleash a public and political firestorm. The assumption is that the individual wanted to pressure the court to reconsider its purported path, and to push Congress to pass pending legislation to codify Roe. Yet, this act is such an attack on the very foundation of the court that it is dangerous to assume a specific motivation other than disruption.
What is clear is that the court has become a tragic anachronism in our age of rage: an institution that relied on the integrity and ethics of its members and staff at a time when such values are treated as naive. It relied on justices and clerks alike remaining bound to the institution and to each other by a constitutional faith.
But we are living in an age of constitutional atheism, so it is only surprising that it took this long. For years, politicians, pundits and academics have called for reckless political action against the court.
Many Democrats in Congress have pledged to achieve political goals “by any means necessary,” including packing or gutting the court. Democratic leaders have hammered away at the court and its members, demanding that the court adhere to political demands or face institutional disaster. The threats have grown increasingly raw and reckless as politicians sought to outdo each other in their attacks. In the age of rage, restraint is a lethal liability.
The message has been repeated like a drumbeat: The ends justify the means.
Recently, Roberts even went public with a warning over “inappropriate political influence” affecting the court. Yet, the day before this leak, the court itself defied critics who portrayed it as hopelessly and dysfunctionally divided with another unanimous decision. It ruled in a major case on speech that Boston could not discriminate against a religious organization that wanted to hoist a flag outside of its city hall. It spoke with one voice in defense of shared constitutional values.
Given the relentless calls from political leaders, we may have been naive to think that a staff member or clerk would not yield to the same “ends justify the means” rationale. Former Justice Louis Brandeis once warned that “Our government … teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”
With our leaders continually expressing utter contempt for the court and its traditions, it is hardly surprising that such traditions lose meaning for some working in the court itself. That did not happen overnight, and it really cannot be dismissed as the act of a single rogue employee. It was a collective effort by those who bred contempt for our legal institutions and values. This is not a crisis of the court. It is a crisis of faith.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
Am I missing something? A preliminary confidential draft was stolen from the Supreme Court and leaked to the ravenous media. No ruling has been made nor are drafts ever final documents. We are not returning to 1973. Yet we witness hysteria and apoplexy. “The sky is falling down!!”
Radicals and professional protesters threaten to do many things. Are these the protesters from the 1960s orchestrating the process? Trying to bring back the glorious days? “That loving feeling?”
We live in a bizarre and dangerous world. The radicals are hell bent to destroy what they touch.
Meanwhile we have an imbecile in the White House. Everything he’s touched so far has crumbled and people are hurting because of his inability to lead and the WH policies. Try grocery shopping or taking a trip to fill up the car. The southern border is a disaster and the Cartels are running the show. They seem determined to destroy this nation, divide the people and derail the economy. Why? That is the question.
“A preliminary confidential draft was stolen from the Supreme Court …”
We don’t know that it was stolen. Can’t you talk about it without confusing guesses with facts?
“The radicals are hell bent to destroy what they touch.”
Your extremist language makes you sound like a radical.
We do not live in a world of constitutional atheism. We live in a world of constitutional elasticity.
Gloria Borger is right, but it would be more accurate to say “right-wing” politicians.
There is no right to homicide provided by the Constitution or Bill of Rights.
Undifferentiated people are provided rights by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
An embryo is not a person.
The embryo is an inclusive stage in human evolution. The viability of a human life from six weeks following conception matches the viability of granny. Planned parent/hood is a wicked solution.
No, n.n., a human embryo is not a “stage in human evolution.” Learn the difference between human evolution (a species-level issue) and prenatal development (an individual-level issue). Many human embryos don’t even have the biological capacity to develop into a person, which is why the majority die prior to implantation or in a miscarriage later.
Learn more science.
noun
any process of formation or growth; development:
noun phrase: human evolution
“the lengthy process of change by which people originated from apelike ancestors.” (https://humanorigins.si.edu/education/introduction-human-evolution)
Words have field-specific definitions as well as everyday-English definitions. For example, a legal “opinion” from a judge is not like an everyday English “opinion,” and a legal “stay” is not the same as “stay” in everyday English.
The word “evolution” in science has a different meaning than its everyday meaning, just like “theory” has a very different meaning in science than in everyday English, and “root” has a different meaning in math than in everyday English.
A decent regular dictionary will give both the scientific and everyday meanings: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evolution
(Re)read the scientific definition.
any
“The embryo is an inclusive stage in human evolution.”
Just as is an acorn an inclusive stage in a tree’s evolution. However, that doesn’t mean that an acorn is an oak tree.
Learn the difference between a potential and an actual.
The scientific meanings of “evolution” and “development” are quite distinct.
For tree species that produce acorns, an acorn is a stage in a tree’s development. But an acorn is not a “stage in a tree’s evolution.”
Species evolve. A single tree does not evolve. A single tree may introduce an adaptive or maladaptive variant into the species (other times, it may have an adaptive or maladaptive variant that doesn’t get introduced into other members of the species), but it’s the species that evolves over time, and evolution in the species occurs over generations.
Hear, hear!
The baby (i.e. communists, liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs) wants what it wants, truth and facts be damned.
You are looking in the mirror when you talk about a “baby … [that] wants what it wants, truth and facts be damned.”
Did you just circuitously call me “baby?”
If you’re a girl, you may continue.
If you’re a —–, “Them’s fightin’ words.”
The embryo is an inclusive stage in human evolution.
A sperm cell and an egg cell are incomplete “stripped down” cells by design; they are also known as gametes. All other cells in the human body, numbering 30 trillion cells, are vastly different from gametes. The former are called “germ cells”, the latter “somatic cells”.
Germ cells have 23 chromosomes which makes it an incomplete cell. Germ cells can not undergo cell division. Germ cells lack cytoplasmic cellular components. Germ cells do not possess biochemical pathways like the Krebs cycle, electron transport chain, Cory cycle, etc to keep alive continuously independently.
Somatic cells have 46 homologous chromosomes. Somatic cells have the unique ability to undergo cell division. Somatic cells have cytoplasmic cellular components (e.g. Peroxisomes, Endoplasmic reticulum, lysosomes, Golgi bodies, etc) making them the basic unit of life.
Gametes fuse to create the basic, core structural and foundational unit of life. Knowing science is key.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26914/
The viability of a human life from six weeks following conception matches the viability of granny.
Surgical centers, trauma centers, emergency rooms, hospitals, cancer centers, et al, exist for when people are not viable. Using the viability argument is a fallacy. If viability is the rubric, then once a person is a victim of a heart attack, stroke, crushing motor vehicle accident or lethal stab would, they become ipso facto, not viable. Due to our belief that life is sacred, we care for them and protect their life until they become viable. That is what Archibald Cox and Mother Teresa argued: a civilized society protects life. While it is true that black on black violent crime is inordinately high, rapists like Harvey Weinstein violated women while Hollywood elites approves, and grave injustices occur in America, we do not discount a people because of the actions of those people. Life has intrinsic value even if that person is a blood thirsty murderer. Pro-life means valuing life from conception to natural death. The death penalty is never permissible because all life has intrinsic value.
Planned parent/hood is a wicked solution.
Yup.
“The viability of a human life from six weeks following conception matches the viability of granny.”
Nonsense. If your grandmother is alive, she’s viable, whereas if a 6 w.o. embryo is alive, it is not viable.
“Surgical centers, trauma centers, emergency rooms, hospitals, cancer centers, et al, exist for when people are not viable.”
BS. Viable means capable of living outside a uterus with medical support. Those centers all exist to provide medical support to people who are viable. If those people weren’t viable, they’d be dead.
“Archibald Cox and Mother Teresa argued: a civilized society protects life.”
Then there is no civilized society on earth.
“life” =/= “person.”
Species like our that eat food cannot live without killing other life.
Even if you limit “life” to “human life”, it’s not synonymous with “person.” For example, human males regularly kill their living human sperm cells.
And, history shows that pretty much all societies kill people: in war, via the death penalty, …
ATS, you are confusing yourself with the word viability by conflating specific meanings for the word and the word used in a more general sense.
Neither the baby nor granny is viable without assistance. Assistance is a significant part of your dogma as to why we should permit the baby to be murdered.
How refreshing to read a commentary on abortion from a scientific perspective. Wow. And thank you!
“An embryo is not a person.”
*********************
Neither is a cat or dog but we prevent cruelty and wanton death to them under notions of decency. Why would we not protect a person in the making when they are clearly viable and on their way to becoming a person? Are they worth less than a pet? It seems it would take a vile person to place their prerogatives over a human life regardless of stage of development.
We prevent cruelty to cats and dogs that have been born. We do not prevent owners from getting abortions for the cats or dogs. It’s legal for owners to have their dog or cat get an abortion. So IF that is your analogy, THEN by your own analogy, human abortion is also OK.
As for “Why would we not protect a person in the making when they are clearly viable and on their way to becoming a person?,” it’s because the woman who is gestating that pregnancy has rights, and her rights regarding the use of her body are primary, not secondary.
No one could force you to donate bone marrow to save an actual person’s life, even though a bone marrow donation doesn’t have nearly the same negative side-effects that pregnancy does, and even though it would save an actual person, not what you call a “person in the making.”
Re: “it would take a vile person to place their prerogatives over a human life regardless of stage of development,” abortion generally isn’t legal “regardless of stage of development.” It’s generally legal prior to viability. I support it remaining legal prior to viability, with exceptions only (1) when a woman’s life or health are seriously endangered and the decision is made in consultation with a physician who can assess her medical condition, (2) when a fetus is diagnosed with a condition that’s incompatible with life after birth, again in consultation with a physician who actually knows the fetus’s medical condition, or (3) in rare cases enabled by the court, such as a pregnant 13 y.o. who has to fight in court to be able to have an abortion without parental consent, which delays the abortion.
The vast majority of Americans believe that abortion should sometimes be legal and sometimes illegal, largely depending on the stage of prenatal development.
And now that vast majority will be able to decide through the democratic process where to draw the lines. According to a recent poll, 54% would draw the line at the first trimester, which is inconsistent with Roe/Casey. If Roe/Casey is overturned, states will adopt different rules, and politicians will be accountable for the outcomes.
Re: “now that vast majority will be able to decide through the democratic process where to draw the lines,” you seem to presume that the Court’s final ruling will be similar to Alito’s first draft from February, though you later note that it’s not known whether Roe and Casey will be overturned. I do not assume that the Court’s final ruling will be similar to Alito’s first draft from February. I assume that the current version of the ruling is already different in some unknown ways, because that is the nature of the drafting/feedback/editing process.
I am curious to see the Court’s final ruling. I also hope that the leaker is caught and we find out their identity and motivation.
As for poll results, they look different depending on the poll (depending on sampling, depending on the wording of questions, etc.). Here’s a contrasting poll: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/06/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases/
Combined polling results are almost always more reliable than a single poll.
And now that vast majority will be able to….
While using the vast majority as an argument to decide what is good, there are too many examples where the vast majority have chosen and still choose evil. People are fickle
US Civil war, slavery, segregation, depriving women of voting rights, child forced labor, US Prohibition, bombing Hiroshima/Nagasaki, stealing land from Native Americans …the list is long indeed where the majority chose evil.
“bombing Hiroshima/Nagasaki”
M, I don’t want to criticize because I know where you are coming from on this one item. Did you ever read about the firebombing of Japan? Some of those individual actions caused more loss of life than the nuclear bomb did. If the US had to firebomb Japan into surrender while starving all the people on the island, the death toll would have tremendously increased.
When Col. Tibbets, pilot of the Enola Gay, visited Japan after the war an older Japanese gentleman came to shake his hand and say, ” Thank you for saving my life,”
He knew what many choose to forget, that by ending the war Japanese as well as American lives were saved.
“The vast majority of Americans believe that abortion should sometimes be legal and sometimes illegal, largely depending on the stage of prenatal development.”
If what you say is accurate and that is what you hang your hat on, then why should the Supreme Court have any involvement in creating a construct that determines when it is legal to kill the developing child? That sounds like something to be resolved through the legislative process.
24 Hours To Make A Human Being
“It takes about 24 hours for a sperm cell to fertilize an egg. When the sperm penetrates the egg, the surface of the egg changes so that no other sperm can enter. At the moment of fertilization, the baby’s genetic makeup is complete, including whether it’s a boy or girl.”
– WebMD
I don’t turn to WebMD for biology. Apparently the author can’t even keep straight that 24 hours is not a “moment of fertilization.”
The phrase “24 Hours To Make A Human Being” comes from you, not WebM. In fact, the phrase “human being” is not on the page of theirs that you quoted from: https://www.webmd.com/baby/ss/slideshow-conception
The “genetic makeup” of the majority of human embryos is sufficiently flawed that ~1/2 die prior to implantation, and ~30% of the remainder die spontaneously after implantation — many, many more than are killed via elective abortion.
I do apologize. I thought “my” title was obvious. I was wrong on that.
The point that you are evading, for obvious reasons, is that within 24 hours of the act of sex, a zygote is produced and it will continue to grow, as what is commonly referred to as a human being, for an average of 78.8 years, in not interdicted by a person committing homicide.
Next question, you consummate science denier and general fool with no name (i.e. liar, fraud and coward)?
George,
AGAIN, your claim that “within 24 hours of the act of sex, a zygote is produced and it will continue to grow… for an average of 78.8 years, in not interdicted by [an elective abortion]” is FALSE.
Not only is there no guarantee that fertilization will even occur, but when it does occur, the majority of the time the embryo will quickly die of natural causes, most often prior to even implanting.
When you repeat a false claim … it’s still false.
anonymous:
“An embryo is not a person.”
(…)
“We prevent cruelty to cats and dogs that have been born. We do not prevent owners from getting abortions for the cats or dogs. It’s legal for owners to have their dog or cat get an abortion. So IF that is your analogy, THEN by your own analogy, human abortion is also OK.”
*************************************
It was your facile observation that we only protect “persons” and not embryos. I merely pointed out that we protect all manner of life and that if we can protect a lowly pet we surely can protect a viable human in utero. Twisting it so that I equate a person with a pet is a typical Leftist subterfuge but anyone reading it knows I simply disproved your assertion and did not state a false equivalence. Pointing up your absurd argument and equally specious conclusion was easy; explaining your sophistry takes time but is easily done also. Keeping tossing softballs.
“I merely pointed out that we protect all manner of life”
No, mespo, you *claimed* that, even though it’s clearly false. We do not protect the cows and pigs that people eat, we do not protect embryonic cats and dogs, we do not protect dogs and cats that aren’t adopted from the pound, …, and there’s barely a year in human history without a war somewhere on earth.
“if we can protect a lowly pet we surely can protect a viable human in utero”
Only if you value the embryo more than pregnant woman or girl. That woman/girl has bodily autonomy, and it is wrong to try to force her to carry a pregnancy to term against her will.
If you want to save a life, become a living organ donor, or make sure that a woman or girl who wants to bring a pregnancy to term has sufficient medical care, so she doesn’t die of pregnancy-related complications or have a preventable miscarriage, or … (there are other ways to save lives). But don’t force a woman/girl to carry a pregnancy to term against her will.
Actually we protect all of the things you say we do not.
Though we protect them LESS than human life.
Regardless, like embryo’s the people through elected representatives get to choose he extent of protecction we give cows and dogs,
So long as the choice of govenrment does not infringe on actual; human rights.
The vast majority of Americans believe that abortion should sometimes be legal and sometimes illegal, largely depending on the stage of prenatal development.
True. The people.
That’s why abortion is not a SCOTUS matter. When life becomes an interest of the state, is a matter for State legislatures. As all have agreed, abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution. The people will decide when the baby becomes protected by the state.
“abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution”
So what?
Here are some other terms that aren’t mentioned in the Constitution:
“women”
“slavery”
“separation of church and state”
“Electoral College”
“Executive Order”
“Executive Privilege”
“innocent until proven guilty”
“primary elections”
…
[it’s a long list]
You bizarrely seem to suggest that anything that isn’t mentioned in the Constitution cannot be a 9th Amendment right, despite the Constitution explicitly telling you “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
The debate: When does the States interest in the rights of the baby/fetus begin?
A right to privacy does not preempt the right to life.
The issue isn’t when they begin, but whether they become stronger than the women’s right to bodily autonomy (a liberty interest under the 14th Amendment). And Roe and Casey answered that: at viability.
And Roe and Casey answered that: at viability.
The people say 15 weeks.
Nothing in the constitution contradicts the determination of the people
In your claim, who are “the people” saying that?
You expertly demonstrate what is wrong with Rowe and Casey.
The fetus is NOT the woman. It is a distinct entity.
Her right to bodily autonomy or whatever you wish to call it is limited to HER body.
Just as my rights allow me to eventually evict people from my property – so can a woman evict a fetus from her body.
Just as I can have unwanted occupants of my property removed, but I can not kill them, the same for the woman.
Almost always when there is a purported balancing of interests or rights – what is actually true is a FALSE understanding of reality.
As I have said repeatedly WORDS MATTER – they reflect and shape our thoughts.
Failure to accurately describe pregnancy, or abortion creates a FALSE understanding of the issues involved.
It is not critical to this debate whether a fetus is human or not.
All that matters is that it is alive, it is in the womans body, and it is not her.
Viability is irrelevant with respect to the constitutionality of restrictions on abortion.
Viability has no place in the law or the courts opinions.
Viability is relevant to the CHOICE of the state to step in and try to preserve the life of the fetus after abortion.
Viability determines the wisdom of a choice, not the legality.
State powers rarely have a start or end. They just are.
People have rights for atleast as long as they are alive.
I keep trying to point out that conflicts in rights and balancing interests nearly always reflects a logic failure.
Abortion is legally and constitionally easy – using ACTUAL rights.
But we avoid that – because neither side gets what they want.
Article II
Section 1
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted.
An embryo is a nascent, very young person, and nothing else.
If an embryo is not interdicted, aka aborted, it will develop into and remain a mature adult human being for an average of 78.8 years.
An embryo is a human being.
Abortion is the killing of a human being, or homicide.
Repeating a false claim doesn’t make it true.
Next you’ll be insisting that 2+2=5.
Funny…. that is the very fuzzy math you are indulging in. Pot meet kettle !.
Yet you’re either unable or unwilling to quote anything I wrote that’s false.
ATS, you state falsehoods all the time, and they are pointed out to you regularly. Along with the lies is deceit.
George, don’t infringe on ATS’s turf. 2+2=5 belongs to ATS.
It is CRT advocates that are actually insisting 2+2=5
And you are a ——- idiot.
____________________
A zygote is formed by the combination of the sperm and the ovum in the process of fertilization which takes less that 24 hours.
A zygote is a human being – its growth will continue, if not interdicted or aborted, for an average of 78.8 years.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Merriam-Webster
homicide
Word Origin
Latin homicidium, from homo human being + caedere to cut, kill
__________________________________________________
Fertilization
If one sperm does make its way into the fallopian tube and burrows into the egg, it fertilizes the egg. The egg changes so that no other sperm can get in.
At the instant of fertilization, your baby’s genes and sex are set. If the sperm has a Y chromosome, your baby will be a boy. If it has an X chromosome, the baby will be a girl.
– WebMD
_______
Fertilization is a process that usually happens within a few hours of ovulation. It’s that critical point in reproduction when the sperm meets the newly released egg. At this meeting, 23 male and 23 female chromosomes mix together to create a single cell embryo called a zygote.
Fertilization. Fertilization takes place when the spermatozoon has successfully entered the ovum and the two sets of genetic material carried by the gametes fuse together, resulting in the zygote (a single diploid cell). This usually takes place in the ampulla of one of the fallopian tubes.
– Healthline
_________
Merriam-Webster
homicide noun
ho·mi·cide | \ ˈhä-mə-ˌsīd
, ˈhō-
\
Definition of homicide
1 : a person who kills another
2 : a killing of one human being by another detectives investigating a homicide
“A zygote is a human being”
That’s a matter of opinion. It’s certainly a living human cell, but there is no scientific consensus on when it becomes “a human being.”
“its growth will continue, if not interdicted or aborted, for an average of 78.8 years.”
That’s absolutely false. The MAJORITY of the time, in the total absence of elective abortion, a human zygote will die of natural causes prior to birth, most often prior to implantation.
Nitpick. Look that up.
I stand corrected.
A zygote is a very young human being which, if not interdicted, will grow and live an average of 78.8 years.
You are a wholly unproductive waste of time.
Next question.
If an embryo is not a person why are they harvesting its organs?
I doubt that anyone harvests organs from an embryo. The embryonic stage lasts the first 8 weeks. It’s about an inch long at the end of the embryonic stage, and none of the organs are fully formed.
If you have evidence that someone harvests organs from an embryo, present it, and I’ll change my mind.
If an embryo is not a person why are they harvesting its organs?
Because Pro-Aborts do not follow the science. None of their “arguments” have anything to do with science. None. Embryonic tissue is a hot topic in medical research precisely because it is human tissue.
In vitro fertilization and stem cell harvesting from human embryos: the law and practice in the United States
The human embryo is a human being as clearly defined by embryology, and as such should be protected by the codes governing human subject research.
Hook CC. In vitro fertilization and stem cell harvesting from human embryos: the law and practice in the United States. Pol Arch Med Wewn. 2010 Jul;120(7-8):282-9. PMID: 20693959.
I don’t know anyone who is a “Pro-Abort.” I doubt that many people are. If no one chose to have an abortion, fine by me. I’m pro-choice, not “pro-abortion.” This dishonesty on your part, Estovir, is contrary to your God’s commandment that you not bear false witness.
The very definition of “pro-choice is pro abort” . These are the very shoes you fill and wear proudly. This is dishonesty on your part…but your hypocrisy somehow is missed by you on this just a little bit .
You can lie and falsely claim that, but that doesn’t make your lie true.
You’re unable to factually respond to my point that if no one chose to have an abortion, that would be fine by me. I have never suggested to anyone that she have an abortion. I want the choice to be legal, but the choice is theirs, not mine.
I likewise support the 1st Amendment, even for abhorrent speech, but that doesn’t imply that I’m advocating neoNazi speech (for example).
” but that doesn’t imply that I’m advocating neoNazi speech (for example).”
That doesn’t stop you from doing so.
+1
Of course pro-choice means “pro abortion”
Or are you arguing for the right to choose drugs ? Prostitutes ?
Pro choice is about choosing something – abortion.
There is no right to an abortion.
There is a right to control of your own body.
You may CHOOSE to have a fetus removed – even if that kills it.
But the state does have the power to attempt to preserve the life of the fetus.
You are not pro choice – you are pro choice about abortion.
These are not the same. Do you support the choice of others to murder their neighbor ? To sell herion ?
Choice is always about something. In this case Abortion.
“our Posterity” judged, excluded, and aborted as a life deemed unworthy of life, a “burden”, under the Pro-Choice “ethical” religion for social, redistributive, clinical, and fair weather causes.
The Supreme Court knows that its Roe v Wade decision was stolen.
The Supreme Court “didn’t know” that the 2020 election was stolen.
It knows now.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1522408945880555521
Republicans need to immediately claim they support the rights of the ACDEFHIJKMNOPRSUVWXYZ×÷=/_][!@#$%^&*)(-‘”:;,? community. Specifically the vowels. Then when the Democrats need to buy one, they’ll be on the outside begging to get in. They’ll have to get a new keyboard as well.
Has Jackson chosen her clerks yet? Has either she and/or they been given access to court documents?
KBJ is not a Justice yet. She will not become a Justice until Breyer retires.
My money’s on activist Ginni Thomas.
Despite Assurances, Alito’s Opinion Could Undo Other Rights
Alito’s 98-page draft is thick with logical fallacies and assertions that bear no scrutiny. These tend to serve a single purpose: to give the public a false assurance that the ruling has no bearing on any other rights.
Although Alito insists, through his rhetoric, that his ruling is limited in scope, as a matter of law he would eviscerate the idea that Americans can gain liberty except by legislative action or constitutional amendment. His legal reasoning for striking down abortion rights is equally applicable to the right to marry a person of the same sex and the right to choose a partner for consensual sex.
Like the right to an abortion, the rights of same-sex couples are not enumerated in the Constitution. None of these rights was recognized at the time the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. All these rights were a matter of considerable public debate when they were recognized by the Supreme Court. All were considered matters of great moral significance at the time they were decided. In striking downs laws that criminalized homosexual relations and forbade same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court short-circuited debate in state legislatures and diminished the power of some Americans to impose their moral views.
In all these respects, Alito’s legal argument for striking down Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) applies equally to the right to choose one’s consensual sexual partners, recognized in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), and the right to marry a person of the same sex, recognized in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). Only Alito’s dicta separate the cases.
In still more dicta, Alito asserts without legal grounding that the right to an abortion moments after conception — via the “morning-after pill,” for example — can be clearly distinguished from the right to contraception recognized in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972). Those rulings interrupted public debate just as Roe did, and at roughly the same historical moment. They extended rights not enumerated in the Constitution, nor acknowledged in 1868. And like Roe, they imposed a secular view of liberty in opposition to the “natural law” theology espoused by many conservative Christians.
Edited From:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/06/alito-roe-rhetoric-smokescreen-radicalism/
This fails to take into account the difference between finding new substantive due process rights and overturning rights already found.
This court is unlikely to find new substantive due process rights (or reinvigorate the privileges and immunities clause, as Thomas might consider). It is hard to imagine sudden discoveries that are deeply rooted in our history and traditions or implicit in the concept of ordered liberty (whatever that may mean). This applies both to social and economic rights. To the extent there is a curb on overreaching government, it is likely to focus on the federal level and rely on doctrines to control executive branch actions, such as the major questions doctrine and non-delegation. One area where they may secure individual rights is in finally tackling reverse racism by recognising that, by virtue of the equal protection clause, the constitution is colour blind. We’ll see.
But it is a different thing to reverse precedent. In the draft opinion, Alito considered five factors:
1. The nature of the error (essentially how much damage the mistake has caused);
2. The quality of the reasoning;
3. Workability;
4. Impact on other legal doctrines (Alito noted that the Court consistently disregarded in abortion cases principles it regularly applied in other contexts); and
5. Concrete reliance (not the distant and general societal impact Casey considered).
I very much doubt that any of the other substantive due process cases would be considered even by this court to meet this five-part test.
On top of all that Alito said multiple times in his draft opinion that abortion was different from all the other rights because it alone raises the question of extinguishing life. The moral issues raised by killing a fetus are in a different category from questions of sexual preference, marriage partners and contraception. I suspect that isolating abortion in this way was critical to forming a majority.
So in my view the parade of horribles is very much a scare tactic to incite opposition to the court and to mobilise for the upcoming elections.
Let’s be clear: when you claim “it alone raises the question of extinguishing life,” you’re not talking about “life” in general, because if you were, then the claim would be false. Medical care might extinguish the life of a tumor, for example, and a legal case might involve extinguishing the life of an intelligent non-human animal, or even extinguishing the life of an entire species of non-human animals.
You’re either talking about the life of a person (in which case the claim is false, as an embryo isn’t a person) or the life of a human being (in which case you really should come up with a legal definition that bounds what is and isn’t a human being). As an example, according to you: is a frozen embryo a human being? Does this case have implications for the disposal of frozen embryos? Can states require that for every IVF embryo that’s created, an attempt must be made to implant it?
Alito meant extinguishing life in the form of a fetus. The cases used different formulations which Alito quoted each time.
He clearly isn’t only talking about a fetus. Most abortions take place in the embryonic stage, not the fetal stage.
The language he uses isn’t entirely consistent. He says things like:
* “abortion is fundamentally different, as both Roe and Casey acknowledged, because it destroys what those decisions called ‘fetal life’ and what the law now before us describes as an ‘unborn human being.'”
* “Roe and Casey each struck a particular balance between the interests of a woman who wants an abortion and the interests of what they termed ‘potential life.’”
* “Abortion destroys what those [Roe and Casey] decisions call ‘potential life’ and what the law at issue in this case regards as the life of an ‘unborn human being.’”
* “Those on the losing side-those who sought to advance the state’s interest in fetal life could no longer seek to persuade their elected representatives to adopt policies consistent with their views.”
* “The Mississippi Legislature’s findings recount the stages of ‘human prenatal developmen’ and assert the State’s interest in ‘protecting the life of the unborn.’”
* “These legitimate interests include respect for and preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development”
That last wording has very clear implications for IVF. It suggests that if states wish to, they can require that for every IVF embryo that’s created, an attempt must be made to implant it unless it dies prior to the implantation attempt, and they can make it illegal to discard living IVF embryos, including embryos that have been frozen.
So despite the claim that this case is only about abortion, it’s not only about abortion.
Another horrible to add to the parade. Alito distinguished abortion from the other substantive due process cases that were stated to be precedents for Roe/Casey, as well as a few cases that came later. Those cases had nothing to do with IVF. If cases about IVF were to come up, asserting a constitutional right of one kind or another to invalidate a state law, the Court would deal with them on the basis of the facts and the law at the time. I don’t see what that has to do with overturning existing precedents regarding marriage, sexual conduct or contraception, which is what you wrote about.
Daniel,
FWIW, I (the Anonymous who wrote the May 6, 8:53pm and 9:34pm comments) am a different person than the Anonymous who wrote the May 6, 7:37pm comment. You haven’t been here that long, but the latter Anon. used to post under a fixed name, Seth Warner, and he was hounded by many of the conservatives here with homophobic comments (an example: https://jonathanturley.org/2020/01/17/feeling-the-bern-sanders-rises-in-polls-as-more-women-support-him-over-warren/comment-page-2/#comment-1913730 ) and is also referred to by harassers as “Peter Shill” and “Paint Chips.” He is also the one who complains endlessly about the “blog stooge.”
I’m not sure how to interpret your claim “Another horrible to add to the parade” — whether it means that you consider people disposing of IVF embryos as “horrible” (as would presumably be the case for anyone who believes that personhood begins at conception) or if it’s instead meant as a flippant response re: the legal cases that Alito described in “These attempts to justify abortion through appeals to a broader right to autonomy …” (not sure if you saw my last response to you in our previous exchange about that: https://jonathanturley.org/2022/05/04/no-conservative-justices-did-not-commit-perjury-in-confirmation-on-reversing-roe/comment-page-2/#comment-2180689 ). My guess is that you mean the latter.
Yes, “Alito distinguished abortion from the other substantive due process cases that were stated to be precedents for Roe/Casey, as well as a few cases that came later,” but for better or worse, I do not trust Alito to always be truthful.
More to the point, IVF was not a topic of the cases that Alito distinguished from abortion. He clearly stated “These legitimate interests include respect for and preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development,” and it’s a fact that IVF embryos are a stage of prenatal life.
ACB signed a full-page newspaper ad sponsored by St. Joseph County Right to Life that said “We, the following citizens of Michiana, oppose abortion on demand and defend the right to life from fertilization to natural death.” That “right to life from fertilization” includes a right to life for IVF embryos. Jackie Appleman, the executive director of that group, is explicit about that: “Whether embryos are implanted in the woman and then selectively reduced or it’s done in a petri dish and then discarded, you’re still ending a new human life at that point and we do oppose that.” “We would be supportive of criminalizing the discarding of frozen embryos or selective reduction through the IVF process.”
If you’re not familiar with selective reduction, the issue is that many IVF embryos do not implant when placed in the uterus, so in a single cycle of IVF treatment, doctors often simultaneously place more than one IVF embryo in the uterus. But, sometimes more than one implants. This increases the risk of medical complications, so it’s fairly common for a doctor to then remove all but one of the implanted embryos with the goal of increasing the likelihood that the remaining embryo survives to birth. Selective reduction is a form of abortion, and it would be outlawed in those states that outlaw abortion at all stages of development.
Again, if a state passes laws about IVF that are challenged on one constitutional basis or another, those challenges will be heard and resolved at the time. That has nothing to do with whether overturning Roe/Casey means the substantive due process cases about marriage, sexual conduct and contraceptives will follow. Alito’s draft distinguishes those cases, and the five-part analysis he applies to consider the applicability of stare decisis suggests very strongly to me that there would not be a majority to overrule any of them. That is what the earlier article was about, and I think it wrong.
Daniel,
The sole thing I was discussing here was your claim “Alito said multiple times in his draft opinion that abortion was different from all the other rights because it alone raises the question of extinguishing life,” and my point that his statement “These legitimate interests include respect for and preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development” has legal implications for IVF, as IVF embryos are a stage of prenatal life, and IVF treatment often involves abortion in the form of selective reduction. The treatment of unimplanted embryos would have to wait for a separate case, but if the eventual ruling in Dobbs looks like Alito’s draft — and the likelihood of that is totally unknown — then in any state that totally outlaws abortion (with an exception for a serious risk to the mother’s life), that state is outlawing selective reduction, with no new court case needed.
If that is what happens, I suspect any application of the law to selective reduction will be challenged and will have to be decided. I have seen no indication, however, that any state is seriously contemplating that. And I do not think the outcome in Dobbs will determine the outcome in that case.
Daniel,
When you say “I have seen no indication, however, that any state is seriously contemplating that,” it’s unclear what the referent of “that” is.
If you’re suggesting that selective termination is legally and/or medically distinct from abortion, you’re mistaken. It’s a subset of abortion.
We also already know that several states have laws on the books that if Roe and Casey are overturned, abortion will be almost entirely outlawed in their state: https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2021/10/26-states-are-certain-or-likely-ban-abortion-without-roe-heres-which-ones-and-why
In that mini-thread, you insult Estovir.
“And isn’t he the one who poses as a good Catholic, Seth? It’s disgusting.”
Allan S. Meyer, you often confuse liberal commenters. I didn’t post any comments to that column.
If you don’t like that example of multiple conservatives attacking Seth Warner, it’s not hard to find others. Here’s another example: https://jonathanturley.org/2020/04/17/china-revises-figures-on-coronavirus-cases-and-deaths/comment-page-3/
ATS, you can say what you wish. You can make up what you wish. You can act how you wish. But you can’t prove you didn’t say that. All you are doing now is making a self-serving statement. That is not an intelligent form of debate.
S.Meyer, all you’re doing is trolling again.
You troll a lot.
“you can’t prove you didn’t say that”
And you can’t prove that I did say it.
Here are some of your insults to multiple people on just 3 threads (said to Svelaz, to Jeff, to me, to others):
“You act like a Nazi and talk like a Stalinist.”
“That you are a child looking for a grown-up to fight his battles is laughable.”
“You are unable to learn. … If you are too stupid to pay attention, live with your stupidity. … How Stupid can you be? … You use words without understanding what they mean. I feel I am talking to a six-year-old. … More stupidity. … I explained this to Enigma, who at least has a brain. … you will kill at the drop of a hat. You are a barbaric hypocrite, along with being totally ignorant. … That is only in your imagination, and your head otherwise is almost entirely empty. … I think it is time to make sure you start to recognize your lack of ability. …”
“Here anonymous the Stupid is up to his old tricks. … he has NO CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS.”
“I use the word Stupid a lot. That is what you are, STUPID. … You prey on those that do not know what is happening around them and do not care. You are an animal of prey that kills his own future. Even most in the animal kingdom understand better. You don’t, yet you want to be known by another name than Stupid.”
“you deserve every insult you get.”
“Then there are the others, whether Jewish or not, who act like Nazis and talk like Stalinists. You belong to that latter group. No, I don’t get along with that group because they place their ideology ahead of the lives of others. They are mean, nasty and hateful people.”
“That undresses ATS, stuffs him, and makes him ready for the table, November 25.”
“ATS has self lobotomized himself permitting only filtered material to reach his cerebral cortex.”
“you will say anything to trick people into believing your lies and factual distortions.”
“You know nothing, and you can’t seem to extract yourself from your lies and deceit.”
“Boy, do you lack intelligence.”
“people like you have the Stalinist, Hitler, and Mao genes where, if led in the wrong direction, will be willing parts of the killing machines. … you blocked out the horrors of the victims and chose to be part of the victimizer class.”
“Deep down, you are not a good person, which comes out loud and clear.”
“That you act as if tearing apart a viable child limb by limb only demonstrates how sub-human you are.”
“Dumb. … Are you too stupid to recognize … More stupidity. … And more stupidity.”
“Of course, you and your friends find it a happy event when an illegal rapist enters the country to rape and kill American citizens. … You never cease in your abilities to make yourself look like a fool.”
“Your intellect is very thin if it exists. … A six-year-old can do better than you.”
“Your self-serving arguments make you look like an idiot.”
“Your words betray an ignorance undiscovered by yourself. … You have a lazy mind.”
“ATS does not support free speech. He is a fascist of the Stalin / Mao type.”
“You are a fool … you are collecting dog Sh1t and packaging it.”
“There is no proof that will convince you of anything. Your eyes and ears do not count when the brain is soft and mushy. The mush prevails while the truth doesn’t.”
“You are dumber than sin.”
“Stupidity is what you demonstrate daily … [Try] removing your head from your A$$.”
“the intelligence of a birdbrain.”
“You chose to act like a fool, and you have chosen to lie”
“Anonymous the Stupid, you got 50% right which approximates your critical thinking skills. It is not a passing grade but far better than Svelaz’s whose critical thinking skills are somewhere around 0%.”
“you are an abusive person … You deceive and lie.”
“his posts are based on regurgitated superficial knowledge”
“You are a fascist of the Stalinist or Mao type even if you don’t choose to recognize it. … [you] lie and deceive. Most of the time, your statements are shallow. You are obviously are regurgitating leftist talking points provided in much of the media.”
“to the Borg (Democrats) what you say is meaningless”
“you are more transparent than you think. We know your modus operandi, deny, deny, and deny while you lie and deceive. Your motto: Always blame someone else for your Stupidity”
Unlike you, I provide evidence for my claims about you. Let me know if you need links to the columns where you posted your rivers of insults.
No, ATS, I defined you, or should I say, you defined yourself. Deceit and lies, all hidden behind anonymity. You are a Troll.
What I am suggesting is that when and if abortion legislation affects IVF practices, that will likely be the subject of separate challenges. So far I have seen no evidence that any state legislatures intend that.
This is far afield from the original article posted, which was warning that the Alito opinion would lead ineluctably to overruling precedents on marriage, sexual relations and contraceptives. I disagree with that.
Unless you address yourself to that concern, I will not be responding further.
My reply was decoupled. Second attempt …
Daniel,
We don’t know what the ruling will ultimately say. Even if it were identical to Alito’s Feb. 1st draft, I don’t assume that it “would lead ineluctably to overruling precedents on marriage, sexual relations and contraceptives.” But we already have exchanges like the following last night about contraception, so we can expect some legislation and legal cases:
Q: How about abortion pills via mail or IUDs or Plan B, would you hear legislation to ban those?
Idaho State Affairs Committee Chair Brent Crane (R-Nampa): I would, absolutely. There is some concerns, health concerns actually with the medication … [talking about abortion pills] Yes, I think we need to look at that legislation -, or look at legislation that would deal with those particular -, prescribing of those abortifacients.
Q: How about IUDs and Plan B though?
A: Um, Plan B I probably would hear that legislation. IUDs I’m not, I’m not for certain yet on where I would be on that particular issue.
I’m not going to transcribe the entire exchange. You can watch/listen here: https://video.idahoptv.org/video/a-post-roe-idaho-may-6th-2022-73mxhr/ That particular exchange starts ~10:44.
Note that Plan B is not an abortifacient. There’s some question of whether the mechanism of action is partially as a contragestive (reducing the odds of implantation), but the research I’ve seen is that it’s just a contraceptive (reducing the odds of conception). Similarly, research indicates that the mechanism of action by which IUDs work is as a contraceptive, not an abortifacient.
As for IVF, we already know that if Roe and Casey are overturned, several states will outlaw abortion from conception. We don’t know legally what the implies for discarding IVF embryos (which is not an abortion), but we do know what that means legally for selective reduction, because selective reduction is a form of abortion, even if some people don’t think of it that way. Selective reduction is a medical intervention to kill one or more implanted embryos in a woman’s uterus. So whether or not IVF interests you, it may be directly implicated by the ruling, depending on what the ruling ultimately says.
You are concurrently correct and incorrect.
Abortion extinguishes a life.
Whether that is a human life is subject to debate.
It is NOT however critical.
While we allow killing non-humans – SOMETIMES – we do not others.
The protection of life – including that of non-humans is the legitimate domain of states.
To trump a legitimate state power it must run afoul of a right.
Abortion is not a right.
Control of your body is – it allows the woman to remove the fetus, but it leaves the state the power to try to protect it afterward.
The fundimental error – both of Rowe and of Alito is presuming the right involved is the right to Abortion.
It is not – it is to control ones own body.
If you agree to donate a kidney and just before the anesthetist puts you under – you change your mind – the court would not force you to go forward.
You can not compel a human to provide their own body to sustain another human.
The right is control of YOUR body. Not abortion.
BUT that works BOTH ways.
The woman can insist on ending her support of the fetus – even if that results in its death.
But she can not require that it is killed.
The 9th amendment which the courts – but NOT the founders have given short shrift, provides infinite unenumerated rights.
But it does NOT as the left wishes – make something a right – just by wishful thinking.
Abortion is not a right.
Control over your body is.
Control over the fetus is not.
Ignoring the spin, you are mostly correct.
Further Alito is NOT originalist – the 9th amendment exists. It is clear that our founders intended rights beyond those enumerated int he bill of rights.
But Alito is also correct – Rowe is and always was legal crap.
There is no right to an abortion and never was.
It is not at all hard to build a constitutional argument for a right to control of ones own body. That right would allow the removal of a fetus from the womans body right through to birth. It would not however preclude the state from requiring that the fetus be given every chance to survive.
There are far more rights that the constitution enumerates – but your every wish is not a right.
This article implies the Court is a victim here and not a willing participant in its own politicization. These 5-4 decisions are most tiresome. For my money, the last person I saw who behaved like a Judge was Justice Kennedy — and he has left the building.
So we’re basically stuck now with 2 branches of government involving the Presidency, Congress, and mini-Congress. And the people in mini-Congress got their new name the old-fashioned way. They earned it.
You oppose 5-4 rulings? Don’t like Obergefell then?
Wow, this Sunday we’re going to celebrate anti Mother’s Day. I wonder if this will be a new holiday for left.
Great to say I’m a Virginian after Gov. Youngkin’s announcement to day. Been awhile.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/05/06/exclusive-gov-youngkin-orders-virginia-state-police-to-monitor-protests-at-scotus-justices-homes-assist-if-necessary/
It doesn’t matter which side of the abortion issue you’re on, because the bigger issue is the “democratic process.” Democracy is not an outcome, it’s a process. When you reject that process and impose your will instead, you’re no longer living in a democracy. You’re living in a totalitarian dictatorship.
I am firmly in the camo that this was a law clerk.
If I am right…
There needs to be an immediate consequence to this that akin to an NCAA violation. Namely Chief Justice Roberts can mandate that the law school which produced such a “lawyer” gets banned from clerkships for 10 years… wrecking all their careers.
The leaker (and those cheering them) needs to know that they didn’t just “harm” themselves but forever impugned the reputation of their classmates and their Alma Mater [I have in mind here that instance of the shouting down by law students of the 1st amendment lecture/guest when I say this swwms to be a law school idealouge problem]
The law school can then wreak their own vengeance in those (professors) who raised such a miscreant.
And what consequence do you want if it’s a Justice or a member of their family?
Any justice who leaked this, or connived in the leaking, should be impeached.
My money is on Ginni Thomas.
interesting take on the leak from Legal Insurrection.
“Roberts will push hard to gain consensus not to overturn Roe v. Wade explicitly, preferring in the interest of the Court to dismember it limb by limb.”
“If that is where the majority is, not the Alito approach, then leaking makes even more sense for a lefty activist in the courthouse. If Roe survives, there are no protests, there are no Democrat talking points, and there is no help for the midterms. So an activist could leak using a false narrative that Alito represents the majority, can generate the protests and the energy in the base, can create an issue for the midterms, and at the end of the day, Roe survives, which can be spun as a victory for the protesters, proving the mob was able to intimidate the Justices”.
This makes a lot of sense, no need to add anything to Jacoboson’s analysis.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/05/what-if-there-is-no-majority-to-overturn-roe-an-alternative-theory-of-the-supreme-court-leak/
Roberts has already confirmed that the leak is of an actual February 13 draft that had 5 votes.
It is most likely a democrat clerk – fundimentally because a lack of ethics is more a democratic attribute.
Predicting how this leak will play out is like ouji.
So far I am not seeing much evidence that it accomplishes anything beyond energize the extreme left AND pro-life forces.
The effect on the mid term may be NIL or even negative for D’s.
Further a leak diminishes the midterm impact – because outrage fades.
The worst outcome for democrats is Rowe dies AND there is no backlash.
Rape And Incest Questions Now On Front Burner
Most of the recent GOP bills preemptively banning abortion or severely curtailing it include no exemptions for rape and incest. That includes bills signed recently in Florida, Kentucky and Oklahoma. Red states have passed about a dozen such laws this year, and only three include such exceptions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks such legislation and supports abortion rights. Arizona’s ban after 15 weeks makes no exceptions for rape and incest.
And as the GOP begins nominating candidates for November’s elections, several of them have explicitly said no to exceptions for rape and incest.
This is a significant departure from how the highest-profile Republicans have spoken about this issue for decades. Even Donald Trump, who ran in 2016 in part on nominating justices to overturn Roe (and has now apparently succeeded), emphasized his exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother as recently as 2019. He noted at the time that this was the position of Ronald Reagan.
Some Republicans including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) have long opposed rape and incest exceptions. But along with the broader issue of banning abortion, this may now transition from the abstract to the real world. And in a party like the GOP that has lurched to the right in the Trump era and placed such an emphasis on appealing to the furthest parts of the right wing, there will surely be plenty of pressure to go there.
But that doesn’t mean the American public more broadly agrees with that position, however rhetorically consistent. One of the most recent polls to ask about this specific issue, a Quinnipiac University survey from late last year, found that just 16 percent of Texans said abortion should be illegal in the cases of rape and incest. Fully 77 percent said it should be legal — in a socially conservative, red state. And even Republicans opposed making it illegal in those circumstances by a 2-to-1 margin.
Nationally, polls generally find that between 1 in 10 and 3 in 10 people say abortion should always be illegal, depending upon how you ask the question. An Economist/YouGov poll this week found just 14 percent said abortion should “never be allowed” — after the next, less-restrictive option was “legal only in special circumstances, such as when the life of the mother is in danger.”
Edited From:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/04/gop-abortion-dilemma-exceptions/
There are symptoms that allow a women to know if she is pregnant. These symptoms appear after six weeks. A pregnancy test can be administered so a women can know if she is pregnant. This is the reason that the Florida bill allows for an abortion up until the fifteenth week. If a women has had unprotected sex she can know if she is pregnant after ten days which puts her well within the limits required by the law. No one wishes to discuss how many pregnancies occur because the woman had unprotected sex. Fifteen weeks is enough time to know if a pregnancy has occurred. Some would have you believe that the Florida bill would totally ban abortion. It does no such thing. We live in a nation where even if a women is poor she can get birth control provided by the government at no cost. If the pro-abortion faction think that the time period allowed before an abortion should be longer they should specify what time period would be reasonable. They have not done so because they believe that an abortion should be allowed at any stage of a pregnancy. Just like Elizabeth Warren they believe that abortion should have no limits. The rape and incest talking point is just meant to allow them to say that people who do not think that an abortion should happen after fifteen weeks are just mean people. They always seem to be looking for a new devil to blame their lives on.
Thinkitthrough — That is highly naive of you. Nubile 11 and 12 year olds who have been raped may not know the first thing about it. See what Ob-gyns write about their practices.
Ti T,
All birth control sometimes fails, and if a woman or girl is raped, there’s a good chance that the rapist didn’t use a condom.
Some women have symptoms early on, and some do not. Some have such irregular periods that they mistakenly believe that they cannot get pregnant. Sometimes, if a young girl is raped and she doesn’t tell anyone, she doesn’t yet understand that she might get pregnant, she doesn’t understand what the symptoms mean, and so 15 weeks may in fact not be enough time to learn that she’s pregnant. Maybe you want to force a pregnant 10 y.o. to give birth. I do not.
Poor women face additional hurdles in saving up money for the abortion itself, for the travel needed to get to the clinic, to cover lost wages if they have to take time off of work, ….
As I pointed out to you yesterday — and you were totally silent in response, as you were too cowardly to respond — women sometimes need to have abortions with wanted pregnancies, and the diagnoses that lead to abortions in these cases may come well after 15 weeks. Why are you too cowardly to respond to the Adlers’ story of deciding to have an abortion at 24 weeks after the fetus was diagnosed with congenital amegakaryocytic thrombocytopenia at 23 weeks?
“If the pro-abortion faction think that the time period allowed before an abortion should be longer they should specify what time period would be reasonable.”
I’m pro-choice, not pro-abortion, and I answered that question yesterday (https://jonathanturley.org/2022/05/05/supreme-stench-how-politics-replaced-principle-in-the-high-court/comment-page-3/#comment-2181101), but you lacked the balls to respond.
“They have not done so …”
You’re a liar. I did do so.
You accuse someone of being a coward but you hide behind anonymity.
Turley gives everyone here the choice of posting anonymously, pseudonymously, or under their name. Most people here either post anonymously or pseudonymously. If you consider that cowardly, then most commenters here are cowards.
The fact is that Ti T asked me a question, and I gave him a long and forthright answer, but he couldn’t bring himself to deal with that. Personally, I consider that much more cowardly. If your opinion is different, fine.
Anonymous, when I said that there are politicians on the left who favor unlimited abortion you called me a liar. You flatly stated that there are no such politicians. In response I am posting the link once again. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/policy-2020/medicare-for-all/abortion-restrictions/. In a previous post on May 5 you said that abortions should not be performed after viability but you will not specify when you think viability occurs. Please tell us if you think that partial birth abortion should be allowed. All that you have to do is state your beliefs plainly in the written word so we can understand where you are coming from. Please be specific. Please tell us if there are any abortions that you think should be prohibited.
“Anonymous, when I said that there are politicians on the left who favor unlimited abortion you called me a liar. You flatly stated that there are no such politicians. ”
Prove it by linking to it. Your word is worthless.
“In a previous post on May 5 you said that abortions should not be performed after viability but you will not specify when you think viability occurs.”
Liar.
I said There is no “age of viability” that applies to all fetuses. An individual fetus is either currently viable or it isn’t. For a fetus that isn’t currently viable, it might become viable later, or it might not. Many fetuses become viable in the 22-26 week range, but some do not. Some of those become viable later, and some aren’t viable even at 9 months.
Viability is a physical status, not an age. If a fetus is capable of living outside the womb with support, it is viable, but the age at which that occurs varies with the fetus, and some embryos and fetuses never become viable. They may die in utero, or else they die shortly after birth, no matter how hard doctors try to save them.
It’s as if you asked the age at which children are able to walk. Many infants start to walk ~1y.o., but some children only become capable of walking later, and some people never become capable of walking, due to various disabilities.
Are you truly too stupid to understand the difference between a physical status and an age?
Or are you simply too much of a troll to admit that you understand it?
This is why I consider you a troll: you will latch onto any possible angle to prevent a good-faith exchange.
I’m able to make headway with good-faith discussants like Paul and Daniel, even though I disagree with them about some things. But you are a lost cause.
Anonymous, you say that poor women have trouble saving up the money when you know that abortion is provided for poor women free of charge. In the future a poor women in Florida can get an abortion without the necessity of travel if she gets the abortion within the three month and three week time limit. Planned Parenthood has eleven locations in Florida. https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-south-east-north-florida. Do you really think that Planned Parenthood will close their doors in Florida if Roe is overturned. I think I can make a reasonable prediction. If Roe is overturned in Parenthood of Florida will simply add a “Don’t wait to long” recommendation in their literature. Your inconvenience travel time off of work heart string point just doesn’t hold water.
We are talking about the constitutional protection of life. That would include life that is the result of rape and incest. The child is an innocent.
Which is irrelevant to the fact that it has no right to use a woman’s body against her will.
You want it to develop to birth? Then create an artificial womb and a means of transplantation.
While you’re at it, figure out what you’re going to do with all those “innocent” frozen embryos that people sometimes discard.
Which is irrelevant to the fact that it has no right to use a woman’s body against her will.
Just make crap up from scraping stuff off your shoe. That is not a constitutional directive nor any statute.
Why are you so afraid of a self governing populace? Leftist lose when the people make their own rules to live by. Which is why they insist Judges do the legislating.
That whole trimester thing? That’s is pure legislating. Judges have zero guidance to create such a stupid frame work
That “trimester thing” was already overruled with Casey.
Why are you so afraid of abiding by the 9th and 14th Amendments?
I have no problem with the 9th and 14th amendment.
That does not solve the problem there is no right to an abortion.
There are rights involved, Those rights allow a women to end the dependence of the fetus on her body.
They do not give her the power to kill it.
That position is consistent with the 9th and 14th amendment, as well as colonial and early US history.
I already responded to your argument:
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/05/06/the-license-to-leak-how-years-of-attacks-on-the-court-may-have-created-a-by-any-means-mentality-on-the-court/comment-page-2/#comment-2181530
Apparently you have no response to that.
Yes, you responded badly.
You are still under the delusion that medicine is relevant to law.
That “trimester thing” was already overruled with Casey.
Yes, and created from the emanations, Then promptly invented another standard lacking any constitutional influence.
“That would include life that is the result of rape and incest.”
You want to compel a rape/incest victim to bear the child?!
That is unspeakably evil.
That is unspeakably evil.
Killing a baby is unspeakable evil. But we’re into the millions of dead babies since Roe.
But the People….The People are best position to write that law.
Rape And Incest Questions Now On Front Burner
And the people will make a decision.
“And the people will make a decision.”
Tyranny of the majority.
Charming.
A representative republic is the check on the tyranny of the majority. What ever are you talking about? Of course you prefer being ruled by unelected, unaccountable, blacked robbed oracles.
Of the People, by the People, for the People.
“What ever are you talking about? ”
When a majority of people (whether federal or state) get to decide what constitutes freedom of action (or what is and is not a “right”) — that is called: Tyranny of the majority. In a constitutionally limited republic, such issues don’t get kicked to the states.
What do voters want and how much do they want it are different questions.
Regardless, assumng Rowe is reversed – it would be the legislators in those states who are accountable to the people in those states that will feel the wrath of voters – if you are right.
Regardles, you are LITTERALLY making alito’s argument – that Voters are capable of sorting this out.
The abortion debate begs the question: What is the role, the purpose and the raison d’être of women, of females?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Men persist.
Women make the men who persist.
____________________________
The differences between men and women, real or imagined, are not sufficient to have changed the course of the history of the persistence of men.
The persistence of men does not require female participation; it merely requires replication of the men who persist.
God Bless women.
Is it accretive to the persistence of men, to acquiesce to incoherence and hysteria?
What is the raison d’être of women?
What is the conviction and resolve of men?
You’re a misogynist. Though you lack a uterus, you are hysterical.
And you are a fool.
I’d hate for you to think me wise, for I doubt you’d do that unless I were a racist, misogynist xenophobe like you.
And still, you have nothing to contribute and you answer no questions.
What is a nation without a strongly positive fertility rate – without women making lots and lots of citizens?
Is it desirable and typical for a nation to import its population?
The American fertility rate is in a “death spiral” – Americans and America (Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) are vanishing.
I know you and the rest of America’s direct and mortal enemies enjoy that concept immensely.
Dzordzh sumsshamshedsiy.
The Supreme Court is trying to reverse the perception as being the place where partisan activists go to get the policy they want. They won’t be successful unless they can produce a Decision in Dobbs that both sides are only partially satisfied with, and there is no clear victory to be claimed by the warring partisans.
The person who leaked the draft may have felt like the Court needs to think much harder about this case before putting out a ruling.
They may be legitimately concerned about the Court’s credibility further losing ground, and the wisdom of preserving some aspect of Roe, even if it’s only pointing out the advantages of having a uniform national policy passed by Congress, as opposed to ginning up state vs. state conflicts which will boomerang back into Federal Courts.
The role of the supreme court is NOT to partly satisfy both sides,
It is to properly apply the constitution and the law.
Regardless of whose ox is gored.
Alito’s Twisted Logic Regarding Plessy v. Ferguson
The draft, written by Justice Samuel Alito, is sweeping and radical. The opinion itself reads like a fancy press release from a particularly loyal member of the GOP Senate caucus. Alito’s writing reflects the current tone of right-wing discourse: grandiose and contemptuous, disingenuous and self-contradictory, with the necessary undertone of self-pity as justification.
Alito claims to be sweeping away one of the great unjust Supreme Court precedents, such as Dred Scott v. Sanford, which held that Black people had no rights white men were bound to respect, or Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld racial segregation. But in truth, Alito is employing the logic of Plessy, allowing the states to violate the individual rights of their residents in any way their legislatures deem “reasonable,” as the opinion in Plessy put it.
In Plessy, Justice Henry Billings Brown held that Louisiana’s segregation law, as far as the Fourteenth Amendment was concerned, “reduces itself to the question whether the statute of Louisiana is a reasonable regulation, and, with respect to this, there must necessarily be a large discretion on the part of the legislature.” Alito has now applied this same logic to abortion—but not just abortion—arguing that in the future, courts should defer to state legislatures “even when the laws at issue concern matters of great social significance and moral substance.”
Plessy is, at its absolute core, a states’-rights case, in which the Court envisioned a notion of federalism so weak, so toothless, so bereft of substance that the federal government had no legitimate role in protecting Black people from states imposing racial segregation upon them. This draft does the same thing: It envisions a notion of federalism so weak, so toothless, so bereft of substance that the federal government has no legitimate role in protecting women from states imposing forced births upon them.
Edited from:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/alito-leaked-roe-opinion-abortion-supreme-court-civil-rights/629748/
“The draft, written by Justice Samuel Alito, is sweeping and radical. The opinion itself reads like a fancy press release from a particularly loyal member of the GOP Senate caucus. Alito’s writing reflects the current tone of right-wing discourse: grandiose and contemptuous, disingenuous and self-contradictory, with the necessary undertone of self-pity as justification.”
*******************************************************************************************************
Since I don’t have all day, here’s the rebuttal to the first paragraph of idiocy embodied in this apparent “cut and paste” job:
1. The draft, written by Justice Samuel Alito, is sweeping and radical.
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Hardly. Sticking up for deomcracy over judicial fiatism is anything but radical. It’s … well … democratic. As for “sweeping”? It’s one issue not many.
2 The opinion itself reads like a fancy press release from a particularly loyal member of the GOP Senate caucus.
***************************
No, the GOP Seante caucus wouldn’t know a penumbra from a chandelier but Alito does. He also knows that Roe was written by a Dim ideologue, Harry Blackmun, who was more infatuated with his daughter’s mental state that the state of the law.
3. Alito’s writing reflects the current tone of right-wing discourse: grandiose and contemptuous, disingenuous and self-contradictory, with the necessary undertone of self-pity as justification.
***************************
You say “potato” and I say “potatoe” and judgment on style is always in the eye of the beholder. But since you don’t like “gradiose … disingenuous and self-contradictory … with … an undertone of self-pity” and to be intellectually consistent — you gotta hate this:
“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, as the District Court determined, in
the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a
woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would
impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent. Specific and
direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. Maternity, or
additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm
may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care. There is also the
distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of
bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it. In
other cases, as in this one, the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood
may be involved. All these are factors the woman and her responsible physician necessarily will consider
in consultation.”
~Harry Blackmun, Roe v. Wade
I would add that the Alito draft is shamefully amateurish in its attempt to circumvent the 9th Amendment’s recognition that unenumerated rights do exist within the Constitutional framework, BUT TO ALITO, ONLY IN REGARDS TO ABORTION RIGHTS.
His look into traditional practice surrounding abortion is totally one-sided, and amounts to a fraud in concealing the truth that abortion was uncontroversial and widely practiced at the time of the Founding. He builds his false-history around the crescendo of anti-abortion law in the Civil War era, which was 1) a white supremacy-inspired tactic to get white women producing more babies in states where blacks outnumbered whites, and 2) a predatory move by male M.D.s to push midwives out of the baby-birthing business with legal intimidation.
I’ll be very surprised if the Dobbs opinion comes out this strident and one-sided. It will ruin the Court’s reputation — supporting claims that SCOTUS has become a place where conservative activists go to get policy they want. With trigger laws already sitting on the books in 15-20 states, there can be no pretense that SCOTUS is neutral.
I agree that Alito is ignoring the 9th amendment – as the supreme court – right and left have done for 250 years. What is new ?
Anyone claiming to be an originalist can not ignore the 9th amendment.
The rules of statutory construction require that all parts of a law – every clause every world must have meaning.
That one can not merely discard the portions that one does not like.
I would note that disdain for the 9th amendment is NOT a uniquely conservative trait.
Since the founding – the courts have ignored it, while those who wrote it and later the 14th amendment priviledges and immunity clause made clear – the rights of individuals are near limitless, the powers of government are limited.
Once again only libertarians are sane.
attempt to circumvent the 9th Amendment’s recognition that unenumerated rights do exist within the Constitutional framework,
“…shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Retained by the people, not bestowed by SCOTUS
SCOTUS cannot “bestow” things that people already have.
Mespo,
Plessy v Ferguson restricted rights. Roe expanded rights. But now Alito would allow states to restrict rights that existed for 49 years. By almost any measure, this marks a step backwards.
If your’re so knowledgeable about law, name a ruling where the court expunged long-established rights.
Anonymous;
“If your’re so knowledgeable about law, name a ruling where the court expunged long-established rights.”
******************************
They do it all the time. Here’s a few off the top of my head: Brown v. Board (extinguished right to separate but equal schools); Dred Scott (extinguished right of native-born slaves to be American citizens entitled to constitutional protections in federal courts under diversity jurisdiction); Loving v. Va (extinguished state’s right to prohibit miscegenation); Slaughter-House Cases (restricted rights of butchers to claim protection under the 14th Amendment); Fairchild v. Hughes, (extinguished the rights of private citizens to sue for public wrongs on standing principles).
There are lots more, some upheld others overruled, but it’s error to say it rarely happens.
Roe expanded rights.
Millions of dead babies prove otherwise
The right to privacy is found in several places in the bill of rights – but that is NOT really the underlying right in Rowe.
Control over ones own body is.
And that applies whether we are addressing forced sterilization, force vaccination, forced masking, or being forced to continue a pregnancy.
That there are rights involved is beyond question.
Beyond that Blackmum is full of Bull
Once it is determined that something is a right what is relevant is the extent to which the state can infringe on that right – not speculation about the woman’s future and mental health.
It is not the courts role to wax on the benefits of liberty – they are nearly always self evident. Equally important – we have rights, even if we use them to our own detriment rather than benefit. Government does not exist to protect us from our own mistakes. But to protect others from our mistakes.
But Alito’s Borkean originalism is as eroneous as Blackmum.
Rights – enumerated or otherwise are NOT the domain of democracy. Alitos Borkean originalism is ahistorical and undermines actual originalism.
Our founders openly scorned democracy. The constitution itself is anti-democratic.
Contra Alito the constitution enumerates powers and provides for unlimited rights.
And our founders said that over and over and over.
John Say:
“The right to privacy is found in several places in the bill of rights – but that is NOT really the underlying right in Rowe.”
************************
Somebody shoulda told Blackmun then ’cause that’s his explicit basis for deciding the case:
“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, as the District Court determined, in
the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a
woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.”
As has been noted REPEATEDLY Rowe was decided incorrectly.
Even casey changes rowe so much it might as well have overruled it.
The right of privacy is relevant to many things – plausibly birth control. Not abortion.
I strongly agree with the 9th and 14th amendment argument that Blackmum makes.
But that does not change the fact that the right to privacy is irrelevant to abortion.
Alito CORRECTLY grasps that Rowe was wrong.
He incorrectly concludes that because Blackmum was wrong about the right of privacy.
that no right to ones own body exists.
Okay Anonymous link you posted discussed a couple who decided on an abortion at 24 weeks. So we should discuss what time frame would be appropriate. Just please inform us as to wether you believe that abortion should be unlimited for any reason. This us a discussion that you refuse to have. You will notice that I have not responded by saying that you are missing a part of your anatomy that resides between your legs. Again today you have called me a liar. Let me respond that you called me a liar when I said that there are politicians on the left that support abortions without restrictions. I provided a link that said that politicians such as Warren, and Bloomberg support applying no limits to abortion.
“Just please inform us as to wether you believe that abortion should be unlimited for any reason.”
I already told you yesterday: https://jonathanturley.org/2022/05/05/supreme-stench-how-politics-replaced-principle-in-the-high-court/comment-page-3/#comment-2181101
You didn’t respond.
“This us a discussion that you refuse to have.”
YOU ARE LYING. I told you yesterday, and you chose not to respond to it.
“you called me a liar when I said that there are politicians on the left that support abortions without restrictions”
I didn’t. You are either misremembering what I said, or you’re talking about an exchange you had with someone else. You could link to whatever exchange you’re referring to, like I linked above to my comment yesterday that you didn’t respond to, and that way we’d know. But I certainly will not take your word for it.
Forrest/Trees
I agree that Alito is wrong.
But your analysis is poor – and your errors make Alito look better.
Where no actual rights are involved – and the issue at hand is not within the domain of the federal government – Alito is correct.
I am very happy that the left is starting to embrace the 9th amendment – I wish they had done so decades sooner.
There is not right to an abortion.
But there are important rights involved. Just not enumerated ones.
Further Alito is wrong in an anti-originalist sense. Few states/colonies regulated abortion in the 18th/early 19th centuries and those that did restricted it after “quickening” – approx 15 weeks.
There we have it J.T. Esq arrives at the beginnings of the Democratic Party. Andrew Jackson and the big lie “the corrupt bargain” between Adams and Clay. Two sins that our country is still suffering from. The acceptance of anything goes as long as you win tied to the formation of Political parties and partisan politics.
PROFESSOR TURLEY WRITES:
“If history has shown one thing, it is easier to lose rights than to regain them”.
……………………………………………………………………
Turley nails it here with regards to reproductive rights. Only he wasn’t referencing abortion. No, this passage is from Turley’s column, “Five Steps To Save Free Speech” (May 5).
Turley was bemoaning the censorship QAnon zombies face. That, in Turley’s mind, is something to ‘really’ worry about! The fact that far-right wackos have only limited options for publishing crazed conspiracies is deeply disturbing to the professor.
But when the topic is women’s reproductive needs, loss of rights is no big deal to Turley. He is fine with letting hick state legislatures turn clocks back to the 1950’s. If they, regional politicians, want to put women and doctors in jail, ‘that was the intention of our founding fathers’.
Like Thomas Jefferson would have wanted D.A.’s prosecuting women for miscarriages. Nothing could be more American!
What really gets Turley’s goat is when some sneak at the Supreme Court leaks an opinion that rocks the whole country. “Justice Alito is the victim here!”, Turley seems to shriek! We should all feel sorry for Justice Alito!! Forget the tens of millions of women who will lose reproductive rights! Their feelings don’t matter. Our concerns should only be with Justice Alito. And the trauma he suffered having his opinion leaked.
As we have said before, Johnathan Turley is something of a sociopath. In almost all his columns, Turley sympathizes with those parties that most of us would find deplorable. They are typically the ‘victims’ in Turley’s spin. While people oppressed by the deplorables somehow come out as a threat to the Constitution. This perspective reveals that a pundit has spent far too many years in the rightwing media bubble.
“It’s the [Constitution], stupid!”
– James Carville
_____________
The judicial branch and Supreme Court constitute a mere pass-through for the Constitution.
Never did the passions and beliefs of judges and justices bear on American jurisprudence.
It has always been the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The sole charge of the judicial branch and Supreme Court is to assure that actions comport precisely with statutory and fundamental law.
The judicial branch and Supreme Court have no power to legislate, modify legislation, or modify legislation through “interpretation.”
The Constitution is written in clearly understandable English.
All Americans can read the Constitution and know when the Supreme Court is deviating from the “manifest tenor” of the literal words of the Constitution.
Judges and Justices are not elected.
The solutions to problems related to a politicized Supreme Court are impeachment and conviction.
That process must be streamlined, accelerated and utilized proportional to the innate corruption.
The Supreme Court in 1973 issued a fraudulent, erroneous, illicit, utterly biased, political and unconstitutional decision.
The Supreme Court, for the Roe v Wade decision of 1973, must have been impeached and convicted for willful and deliberate malicious adjudication, abuse of power, usurpation of legislative power, corruption, etc.