A CNN legal analyst asks a question:
John Roberts has a plan that would gut — yet save — Roe v. Wade. Can it work?
The answer is yes. We know because Roberts has done this before, “saving” the Voting Rights Act while extracting its teeth. An excerpt from the article:
By his questions during the intense session that ran nearly two hours, Roberts suggested the high court reverse a significant part of Roe v. Wade but preserve some constitutional right to abortion. Roberts would end the existing protection for a woman’s abortion decision before viability — that is when the fetus can survive outside the womb — at about 23 weeks. He suggested he would let states ban abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy, as Mississippi has done in the case before the justices, but that he would not go further to completely ban abortion.
This is exactly how a reactionary “institutionalist” would approach it — strip away well-established rights and deliver a solid victory to the fanatics while leaving a fig leaf in place. The other five “conservatives” — including the three appointed by the twice-impeached, two-time popular vote loser who tried to overthrow the government — seem less inclined toward such fig leaves. But maybe they’ll come around.
Roberts should point out to them that “soft” autocracies like Orbán’s in Hungary (so admired by Fox News personalities) are generally less risky to those in power. They still have elections, and they generally maintain the trappings of democracy while concentrating real power in a single party’s hands. The question is, will Roberts’ more fanatical colleagues be able to resist spiking the ball. We’ll see.
Open thread.
Joe Falco
This battle between whether to strip people of their rights in all but name or to strip people of their rights in both policy and name is great. Just fantastic. /s
rikyrah
Naw, Muthaphucka.
Naw.
Gut it with your whole, entire chest.
Or save it.
Period.
Hildebrand
I would rather them show themselves for the utter misogynistic control freaks that they are instead of Roberts’ knavery – because the two ‘options’ are the same thing, just with different verbiage. But if they are wholly honest in their hatred of women, the scales may fall from the eyes of those who keep propping up these Handmaid’s Tale hopefuls.
cain
I would prefer they dont’ touch anything. If they just abolish it out right – what will be affect on the voting public – especially women? Roberts way might be more insidious as the news will say it’s saved and the political naive will think that it’s just business as usual when something significant will be taken away
ETA – btw I don’t think they are going to go for the fig leaf – I think they’ve been eager to gut this thing completely for awhile. I”m hoping that this is a step too far.
Kent
So glad I live in a state in which abortion rights are enshrined in the state constitution
But we are at the end point of abortion rights in much of the south and conservative Midwest one way or another. I don’t frankly think the technical process they use to eliminate abortion in states like Mississippi really makes all that much practical difference. Congress and the president could put an end to this nonsense tomorrow if they really wanted to with Federal legislation. But they don’t want to because abortion is “icky” and who wants to have that fight. It is easier to pretend to be helpless.
cain
@Kent: one of the advantages of living in Oregon. That and the right to die with dignity.
ian
From the article
At least they looked serious while they stripped people of rights //
Brachiator
The Southern California Public radio program Air Talk, had a very insightful discussion of the Court’s arguments yesterday. You can download the podcast or listen to the discussion here.
Trump’s appointees seem eager to wrest control from Roberts and put their own stamp on the Court with respect to abortion and other issues.
A decision is expected in June.
NotMax
Solomon weeps.
Emerald
I don’t see how they could get away with that approach. The fanatics who’ve been trying to get rid of Roe for the last 40 years want to *get rid of Roe.* The fanatics are in charge. They’ve won, and they want their precious. If they don’t get it they could walk away and go home. They only started voting in the first place because of Roe. These justices are hyper partisan political actors and can’t risk that result.
Nah. Shit’s coming down.
Leto
Why wouldn’t they? They don’t need Roberts “vote”. The last three were picked for just this purpose, while Alito and Thomas have long wanted to get rid of it. Who is he going to “persuade” for this? Sotomayor, Kagan, and Breyer won’t go along with any gutting, the other 5 crazies won’t go along with just a partial gutting… Roberts has been left out in the wind with his dick in his hand.
cain
I think though it will create more demagogues – that’s going to join the Democratic party. Women’s health is a big deal and they are going to be forced into doing something legislatively.
Also what about privacy rights? Is that also going to go, that would have other repercussions I would warrant.
Ohio Mom
About ABC’s “you can just put the baby up for adoption!”: We already know there are tons of “unadoptable” kids languishing in the foster care system.
She may have adopted but she did not give a home to a single American foster child, she went abroad.
Also, to state the obvious, this is the party that will never vote to strengthen the safety net these foster children depend on.
MisterForkbeard
Yes. This bill would magically pass the filibuster when 10+ Republicans decide to save abortion. I get what you’re saying here, but no. Republicans want to get rid of abortion to damage women. And that’s what they’re going to do, in much of the States.
MisterForkbeard
@Emerald: Josh Marshall at TPM had a point about this. Roberts’ pretend “I’m a moderate and I’ll only mostly gut this” approach kind of worked in the past, but it won’t work here.
Basically, there are five fanatical conservatives on the court who don’t care about optics or precedent, and really want to kill abortion. We know this, because their nominating presidents explicitly said so.
Secondly, even an ‘incrementalist’ approach won’t really work. The right is so fanatical and engaged in so much bad faith that if MS got their way and abortion was restricted to 15 weeks on incredibly specious reasoning, they’ll just immediate file ANOTHER law that bans it or outlaws it. And then Roberts will face this same exact issue in another year.
Leto
@cain: They, the shitbag conservative justice, continually spoke about how a right to an abortion wasn’t in the Constitution. Same argument that the MS solicitor made. Sotomayor pointed out that a lot of things aren’t in the Constitution, including the fact that the SC has the final word in matters. If they’re going to argue that abortion can’t be legal because it wasn’t spoken about in the Constitution, then you can simply apply that to a multitude of decisions made over the past 100 years. Including privacy, bodily autonomy, marriage (LGBT marriage as well as mixed race couples), contraception, and the list goes on.
They’re coming for it all. That’s been their purpose behind their entire legal movement. Tax breaks from the legislature, rolling everything back via judiciary.
bluegirlfromwyo
@Leto: My take too. My prediction: we’ll have 2-4 opinions in this case. Exactly how many will depend on whether Roberts caves and joins the majority or concurs in part, and whether Sotomayor writes her own scathing dissent. I thought from Barrett’s appointment that Roberts was going to lose control of the court and we’ll probably see that play out here.
MisterForkbeard
@Ohio Mom: What really messes with my head is that “adoption” was never the answer. It removes some of the burden. But pregnancy is a medical condition with huge costs – medical, professional, and emotional. Having to raise the kid isn’t the problem.
The problem is that you’re condemning a woman to a 9-month transformational and invasive medical condition that can kill them, have long-lasting medical effects, badly affect their careers or personal lives, and explicitly leads to depression in a large segment of the population.
Who raises a child is beside the point. You’re forcing women to give up autonomy of their bodies in a way that’s explicitly harmful to them. That’s it.
jonas
For all the 2nd Amendment aficionados out there, how is this different from saying firearms are legal to own, but states can ban the sale of all ammunition if they want?
(Answer: Fuck you, that’s how. Conservatives can do whatever they want.)
Another Scott
@Leto: As I mentioned yesterday, (as we know) abortion is a political cudgel that the GQP uses to divide natural Democratic voters. If they completely gut it, then they can’t use it to rile up their voters any more. They will lop an arm off, but they won’t completely kill it (by saying that, e.g., abortion is murder and is outlawed in every state because blastocysts are people, also too). They have to keep the controversy to rile up their voters, because nothing else is as effective for them.
It will be horrible. They will do their best to make abortion nearly impossible to get in areas they control. But they will keep a stump of Roe (and Casey) out there so that the crazies in the states and in the Congress can keep saying that they have to do even more, so everyone has to vote for the GQP…
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cmorenc
It would still be extremely significant if a majority of THIS Rw court recognized that the institutional and political damage from indulging their wish to abolish Roe and the constitutional principal it is based on was too great – and ended up effectively recognizing a constitutional right to abortion up to eg 15 weeks instead of the full extent of roe. Let thomas and alito rant at the missed chance to set us con law right.
Leto
@Ohio Mom: sorry, you need to address her by one of her two titles: OffBarrett or Aunt Barrett. /s (well, maybe not that much /s). Your points are spot on though, especially going abroad to adopt a child. “Justice OffBarrett, what’s wrong with adopting an American child? Do you not like American children? Are American children not good enough for you?” Apparently not.
Kent
I agree, it ain’t happening. But let’s get real. We are here because the GOP abandoned the filibuster for SCOTUS nominees when Trump nominated Gorsuch, followed by Kavanaugh, and Barrett. They are the only three justices in history confirmed by a simple 50 vote party line vote. Had the Senate kept the 60 vote threshold in place for SCOTUS nominees I expect Trump could have found three conservative judges that could have gotten 8 Democratic votes. But it wouldn’t have been these three.
So if abortion rights can be eliminated through a simple 51-49 vote in the Senate, it is only reasonable to think they can be restored with another 51-49 vote in the Senate.
The fact that no one thinks this is possible or viable is a separate issue. And the media mostly lets the Democrats get away with it. They are not helpless. They have agency. It isn’t just the conservative majority on the court who are flushing away abortion rights. It is the obstructionist Democrats in the Senate like Manchin and Sinema who are also making it happen.
GoBlueInOak
Can we talk about 83 year old Stephen Breyer needing to effing retire already?
Betty
I wonder if Roberts is trying in the process of limiting abortion protection to save the Constitutional right to privacy that affects birth control and LBGTQ rights. There are those who want it all gone, and that would cause damage they couldn’t control. It may be why he was bringing up the concept of viability.
Omnes Omnibus
@bluegirlfromwyo: Three opinions. One with five votes from the usual suspects. One concurring in part and dissenting in part (and entirely useless) from Roberts. And one dissent from the decent people probably written by Sotomayor, the liberal three will all sign on in a show of unity.
brendancalling
I hope the right wing six get cancer and die in excruciating pain. I don’t care if that’s not nice. Fuck them.
Mike in DC
This is kinda how he’d “save” Obergefell, by turning it into a “states rights” thing…which would mean it’d be promptly banned again in most red states.
Kent
@Another Scott: Oh no. They have plenty of other divisive culture war issues to fall back on if abortion is “off the table”. You greatly underestimate GOP creativity. Without abortion to wave around they will still have: ANTIFA, BLM, “defund the police”, immigration caravans, MS-13, CRT, systemic racism, “school choice” transgender bathrooms, gay marriage, drag queen story time, death panels, vaccine mandates, mask mandates, and a hundred more things they haven’t even thought about yet.
Leto
@Another Scott: They can still repeal it totally because they’ll use Kavanaugh argument: it’s a state issue. Not directly mentioned in the Constitution, so hand it back to the states. Why are you liberals crying? It’s legal in California and New York, go there! Our good Godly people don’t want it here.
Their entire legal philosophy/schools/movement has been based around getting rid of it. These shits were selected just for that. Yes Roe will be gotten rid of, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a national issue. It’s still not illegal in the form of legislation at the Federal level. They’ll def go for that. Is it illegal in all 50 states? No? They’ll keep going. And as many women have mentioned here, that’s only the first step. They’re coming for it all.
debbie
@rikyrah:
The last thing he’d be saving with a plan like this is the Court’s reputation.
MisterForkbeard
@Leto: I’ve been seeing “OffBarrett” or “OfBarrett” around recently and I have to admit I don’t understand it at all. Can I pull a Watergirl and ask for a clarification? :)
Another Scott
@Kent: They’ve tried all those things. Flag Burning, Balanced Budget Amendment, also too. Nothing works as well for them – that’s why it’s been an issue that they continue to go back to since the mid-70s. People can be (and many are) single-issue voters on abortion. They’re not on the other things.
But, time will tell.
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@NotMax:
No, he laughs at the inept childishness.
JPL
@Leto: The bigger plan is to rid us of OSHA and possibly the entire EPA. We don’t deserve safe drinking water and fresh air.
MisterForkbeard
@Kent: Yes. If we could get every Senator to agree to skip the filibuster to save abortion rights, we could do that. We can’t do that, because at least a couple of Senators aren’t necessarily pro-choice.
It’s a huge problem, but the problem is (again) that we’re a coalition party with incredibly bare control. We could have done this (maybe) back in 2009, but at a big political cost for something that wasn’t an immediate threat. Since then… it just hasn’t been possible because we haven’t hard the margins to do it.
Leto
@Mike in DC: Most of the news programs were running the graphic showing how, approximately, 27 states have laws on the book to either full out automatically ban, or do a partial ban, as soon as Roe is overturned. It’s fucking insulting the reasoning they’re trying to use.
Betty
@Another Scott: I agree that there is a hard core group of women for whom the only issue is abortion. Now threaten birth control and you will lose most of them. I think Roberts gets that.
Omnes Omnibus
@GoBlueInOak: His retirement would have no effect on the current issue. If he announced his retirement today, it would almost certainly not be effective until end of the current Court term. That means no new justice until at least July.
debbie
@MisterForkbeard:
Handmaid’s Tale. The women lost their names and were instead provided with a name that included the surname of the man who would forcefully impregnate her. “OfBarrett” for instance.
ETA: “OffBarrett” may be because she’s off her fucking rocker.
Kelly
Banning abortion in the red states while it remains legal in the blue states will work fine for Republicans. They can still campaign against it at a federal level and it’ll remain conveniently available for Republican women prosperous enough to travel to a blue state. If you can’t afford a trip out of state you are not worthy of concern.
satby
@Ohio Mom: she went abroad to a country where adoption is a cover for human slavery in the restavek system.
Leto
@MisterForkbeard: It’s from Margaret Atwood’s, “The Handmaid’s Tale”. The main protagonist, “Offred”, is a woman who’s a slave to the Commander. Her entire purpose is to simply be a breeding vessel. His name is, presumably, “Fred”. Since she’s his property, she’s “Of Fred” shortened to “Offred”. That’s how she’s referred to throughout the entirety of the book.
The Handmaid’s Tale
MisterForkbeard
@Kent: CRT is the real winner here, I think. BLM has sort of gone away because there aren’t huge protests right now.
But “CRT” fits all the bills: It lets them attack education, black people, democrats, and “plausibly” lets people indulge in racism while enshrining white supremacy.
They’re going to focus on racism because that’s what they’ve got and what a large part of the country silently agrees with. Even the vaccine mandate opposition isn’t that popular, because a) it worked and b) most of the population approves of it.
sdhays
@MisterForkbeard: Roberts doesn’t care if he faces this question again next year. That’s great, as far as he’s concerned. He just wants to avoid a backlash that ends up making him preside over a newly expanded Court that proceeds to undo his accomplishments thus far and making him irrelevant for the rest of his tenure.
I’m not saying that’s what would/will happen, but pulling the plug on Roe v. Wade outright would be the kind of thing to create the conditions for that result. He’s right to be cautious.
zhena gogolia
@MisterForkbeard: It’s from Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Women’s names are formed from their husband’s/master’s name, so the heroine is Offred, for “of Fred.”
I think. Never read it.
Nora Lenderbee
@brendancalling: Preferably within the next three years.
MisterForkbeard
@debbie: Thanks! This makes sense.
I admit I didn’t watch Handmaid’s Tale because I got the point from the series description and didn’t want to rub my face in something so depressing.
Also didn’t read the book because… I’m not sure why. Same thing, probably.
WaterGirl
@Ohio Mom: They don’t care about kids, but lots of people want to adopt babies. Imagine all the conservatives that could raise those babies to be indoctrinated with the horrid world view.
Citizen Alan
@Leto: I prefer to call her Justice Serena Joy, after the Commandant’s wife who, pre-Gilead, was a popular female evangelical speaker who genuinely thought that after the revolution, she’d have a prominent place in the government instead of being reduced to a trophy wife.
I genuinely want to ask Barrett why she stopped at two children, whether her doing so was the result of a tubal ligation or some other form of contraception contrary to God’s will, and whether she should really be serving on SCOTUS instead of home with her ten kids. Serena Joy wasn’t expecting to have to live under the rules she helped install either.
bluegirlfromwyo
@Another Scott: I disagree. Next step would be promising a national abortion ban if they ever get back the trifecta. They know full well the SCOTUS five would uphold it because reasons.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty:
There are people who voted for the GOP until the Depression because Lincoln won the Civil War (I’m talking about white voters btw). There would be a number who continue to vote for the GOP for a number of years because they got rid of Roe.
debbie
@MisterForkbeard:
Yeah, I almost quit after the fourth episode because it was too bleak — even for me! I’ve watched the first three seasons, and it’s been really pretty good.
Leto
@JPL: don’t you libruls know that regulashuns kill the economy, keeps the CEOs down? Unless we can poison everything on this planet, well, we’re just not freeeeeeeeee…..
Brachiator
@Cmorenc:
One of the justices suggested that the entire notion of viability was a mere legal expediency, not grounded in any medical reality. This would let states (as we see in Texas) ban abortion at an earlier point, or at any point they wished.
MisterForkbeard
@sdhays: The thinking here is that the backlash would be huge anyway. So he’d face backlash now and then backlash again in a year or so.
That’s my take on it, at least. But I agree that Republicans just aren’t willing to say that quiet parts quietly anymore. They not only want to oppress women, they want to do it in the most obnoxious way possible so that they can crow about it – making liberals/women/minorities mad is basically the ballgame now.
So I don’t expect any of the 5 cultist court members to go for this compromise at all.
Kent
@Another Scott: I think you misunderstand how abortion works as an issue for the GOP. I lived in Texas for a decade and a half and watched it up close.
The real truth is that abortion is mostly a proxy for race among many GOP voters. A small minority are single issue anti-abortion true believers. But it is a small percentage. Many have simply latched onto abortion as a convenient proxy to hide their racism.
What do I mean by that? I knew a ton of guys in Texas who were absolutely not religious and I am positive didn’t give the slightest personal shit about abortion. And who would pay for one in a heartbeat if they got a girl pregnant. They know it isn’t really acceptable to say that they are voting for Trump or other GOPers for racist reasons. So they don’t say that. They say they are voting for X-horrible GOP candidate because he is “pro-life and no one will EVER question their sincerity. But if they say they are voting for him because he is racist they will look like racists themselves.
Guns provides the same exact fig leaf. They can say they are voting for any horrible GOP racist for 2nd Amendment reasons and no one questions that.
It is always about race, especially in the south.
bluegirlfromwyo
@Kelly: Yep. Until the true believers rise up again. Then they’ll just go abroad.
Leto
@Citizen Alan: yeah, that’s a more apt character to compare her to. Serena’s disappointment with her place in the new order is an apt comparison to what would probably occur under her religion’s desired expression of how “civilization” should be ran. So we have “Aunt Barrett”, “OffBarrett”, and “Justice Joy”. Personally I just refuse to reference her by the first three letter acronym. That shit’s reserved for RBG, AOC, MLK, JFK… she’ll never do anything in her life to warrant that honorific.
Jeffro
Hunter Biden’s artwork didn’t make the cut?
Betty Cracker
@MisterForkbeard:
True. We’ll find out soon enough if all 50 think preserving voting rights is more important than the filibuster.
Leto
@MisterForkbeard: the book is a shorter read versus the TV show, which expands upon the novel in a number of different ways. I’d recommend reading the book, even though it is bleak, because there’s hope at the end.
bluegirlfromwyo
@Omnes Omnibus: That sounds right. I’m just leaving room for Sotomayor to go out on her own. It’s a nice dream to have in this insanity.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker:
How can it not be? The mind boggles.
If you don’t think voting rights are key to the democracy that you are fucking serving in, then you ought not to be in office.
Not challenging what you said, just remarking on the crazy lack of priorities from of a few of our democrats.
randy khan
Roberts isn’t in control here, so he has to hope that he can persuade at least one of the Furious Five to adopt his approach (two would be better, but not necessary). He’s always been a salami-slicer because he thinks that advances his agenda better in the long run.
But in this particular case – where there will be a brand new ban that says women can’t get abortions, not just restrictions that make it harder – I’m not sure the political result will be any different. And, of course, once they act on Mississippi they still have to deal with the Texas law and the follow-on cases that will come when states start banning abortion earlier and earlier. So he can’t kick the can too far down the road.
Leto
@Jeffro: whoa whoa whoa… you don’t pull out the big guns until you’re reeeeaaallly desperate… /s
Betty Cracker
@Leto: I prefer “Bony Carrot,” as some commenter here called her. She participated in a heist engineered by an appalling old ghoul and perpetrated as a campaign event by a crass conman and therefore isn’t worthy of any respect.
Hungry Joe
@GoBlueInOak: If the GOP retakes the Senate in ‘22, McConnell will flat-out refuse to allow Biden to appoint a Supreme Court justice after Breyer (or another Justice) croaks or retires. He’ll just say, “No. And fuck you.” And that will be that.
Can Breyer be that oblivious/self-centered/misguided?
burnspbesq
@Brachiator:
Delaying the release of the decision until the end of the term would be an own goal. It would still be fresh in the minds of women voters in November, and maybe, just maybe, they would make Republicans pay.
Kelly
The Hyde Amendment is for campaigning against abortion is OTHER COUNTRIES.
randy khan
@burnspbesq:
This is one area where tradition will work in favor of the Dems – the big cases almost never get released before June. And the dissenters can help control that because the decision can’t be released until everyone is done.
bluegirlfromwyo
@Kelly: The Hyde Amendment’s going to stop wealthy GOP women from going to France for abortions? Really?
Brachiator
@burnspbesq:
I agree. But this is the date that I have heard from a number of legal analysts.
We shall see what happens.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
They want to hurt less powerful people, and they want to see the agony of those they hurt, and they want to rub their victims’ noses in the fact that the victims will have no recourse.
I think Roberts’ legacy as Chief Justice is secure, though not the one he’d prefer; the obvious association is with Roger Taney of Dred Scott infamy.
Craig
@Leto: exactly. Chief Justice In Name Only for real.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: How often does the Court issue a decision before the end of term?
Suzanne
Oddly, I think the success of the feminist movement in convincing women that they are active agents of their own lives has made a lot of women complacent. I really think a lot of women, especially younger women, underestimate how tenuous and imperiled that status really is.
Kind of like how vaccines are so good that now dumbasses are convinced we don’t need them anymore.
Betty
@Omnes Omnibus: What I am saying is they make a distinction between abortion and birth control. They want abortion gone. They use birth control.
Hoodie
@Kent: There’s probably some truth to this, just look at the Southern Baptists, who didn’t seem to care much about abortion until the 70’s, coinciding with the wars about busing for school desegregation that affected their kids. However, I’d say it cuts across regional boundaries and isn’t limited to race, e.g., this kind of virtue signaling is used to hide a lot of stuff, including misogyny and plain old greed. Performative patriotism is a similar ploy, i.e., wave the flag but don’t give a shit about actual vets, crusade against abortion but do nothing about childhood poverty.
Betty
@Betty Cracker: Manchin is already on record saying he is anti-abortion and this week told the press liberals need to elect other liberals because he isn’t changing his mind about anything. So….
Kelly
@bluegirlfromwyo: Not at all. Comment is just my fumbling attempt to express my jaw dropping amazement at the weird twists the R’s take with this topic.
Kent
@bluegirlfromwyo: France? Unlimited abortion is 100% legal in Canada. They only need to go to Toronto or Vancouver if it gets outlawed in states like WA, OR, and CA where it is not only legal, but abortion rights are guaranteed in the state constitutions.
Omnes Omnibus
@Craig: The Chief Justice has administrative responsibilities and can chose who writes the opinion on cases where they are in the majority, but otherwise the Chief is just another vote on the Court. The position has never meant that the person is the boss of the other justices.
trollhattan
@GoBlueInOak:
re. Breyer. It remains to be seen how Manchin and Sinema would respond to voting on a Biden SCOTUS nomination, so his retirement is not without risk. Lord knows, we’ve had one stolen and another shoved down our collective throats by reversing the process used to give us the first.
WaterGirl
@burnspbesq: Speaking for myself, whether the ruling is in February or in June, I am most certainly not going to forget about it by November.
And neither is any woman who cares about the ruling.
bluegirlfromwyo
@Kent: Could be Canada, could be France, could be Ireland. Doesn’t really matter. France was just the first country to pop into my head.
Kent
@Hoodie: Well yes, it is a big fig leaf that can hide a lot of other unsavory sins. You just notice it the most with respect to race in the south where the two parties have more or less split on the issue of race. People won’t admit to voting against Democrats because they are the “Black” party. So they toss out bullshit like abortion which they have learned is the one thing (along with perhaps gun rights) for which no one ever questions their sincerity. You can’t imagine how many people I met in Texas who just automatically assumed I was Republican because I was a middle aged white guy. That never happens here in WA but it happened all the time in TX.
Scout211
So the ban on medical abortions after 7 weeks went into effect today in Texas.
(bold added)
This may have been posted numerous times but I am trying to keep my blood pressure down so I have been avoiding these threads. But this one . . .
Leto
@Betty Cracker: I can dig it.
cain
@Another Scott:
If the Congress and the Presidency is all GOP you can expect federal challenges to all the blue states who have liberal abortion laws. They will try to punish the blue states by withholding money, power, whatever.
Doc Sardonic
@Hungry Joe: Yes
Enhanced Voting Techniques
One would think after the thriving multi ethnic democracies of Attila King of the Huns, Grand Prince Valk of the Avars, the Habsburgs, Admiral Horthy and General Secretary Kadar, Hungary could do better.
Brantl
@Kent: Oh, sure with a 50-50 senate, Manchin and Cinema (not mis-spelled, intentional) needing spine implants, and the Supreme Court full of yahoos to declare it unconstitutional. SURE.
Betty
OT but this made my day. I just got a like to my tweet referring to Midnight in Washington from none other than Adam Schiff himself. I said that he and Jamie understand the importance of public hearings for the 1/6 Committee which are to start in the new year.
Kent
@Scout211: Question here for those who know about such things. Which I don’t really know about as a guy.
But how is this counting of weeks actually enforced in practice? Do they just go by what the woman says in terms of her last period?
If, for example, a woman is actually 9 weeks pregnant and simply claims that she is 6 weeks pregnant, who actually checks and how would the state government enforcing a 7 week abortion ban actually enforce it? How could they actually prove that a woman’s last period was 10 weeks ago instead of 6 weeks ago?
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
“Our sample includes 7219 cases decided between the 1946 and 2012 terms. We exclude all reargued cases and those argued or decided in special sessions (usually in July, August, or September), as well as Dixon v. Duffy, 344 U.S. 143 (1952), which was continued twice. This eliminates 181 cases. The mean time from oral argument to decision in the 7219 sample is 83.6 days (the median is 75), with a standard deviation of 46.2.”
Epstein, Landes & Posner, The Best for Last: The Timing of U.S. Supreme Court Decisions, 64 Duke L.J. 991, 993 fn. 5 (2015).
cain
@Kent:
Actually it can just be Democratic voters are not American. That should be enough – watching the HermanCainAward subreddit and seeing all the memes these people post.. they seriously believe all of us are anti-American and they plan on taking their country back.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: I was told there would be no math.
Another Scott
@Kent: My perspective’s a little different. My grad-school apartment was up the hill from an abortion clinic in Cincinnati that was bombed. Those types were really, really about abortion – not race. And they still have a hold of the GQP, even while the racists (and Qanon crazies) have moved up and out into the open. The two groups aren’t the same.
But they’re both dangerous, of course.
Cheers,
Scott.
MisterForkbeard
@Leto: I’ve gotten to the point with <gestures at everything> where my favorite parts of most books are the part at the beginning where everything is normal and you just get to see people doing their thing and dealing with normal problems.
The drama, the ‘saving the world’ stuff, whatever crisis is happening is just more stressful and less interesting than watching people in a book live their lives. It weirdly results in me loving to read new fantasy and sci-fi series for the initial worldbuilding and then getting progressively less interested as the book goes on.
I’ll read the book eventually, I think.
Kent
@cain: Exactly.
The larger point is that taking “abortion off the table” is not going to diminish the crazy within the GOP in the slightest. And Democrats who are naive enough to think that are not paying attention. Repealing Roe is just going to embolden them.
burnspbesq
On the off chance that anyone is interested and has plenty of time on their hands …
https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3799&context=dlj
rikyrah
@Leto:
quite an image
cain
@Kelly: Not if those red states decide that going to another state and getting an abortion is still a state crime if they are a resident in a red state.
They could also just deputize people to go after those kinds of people just like they did in Texas. They will be spending a lot of time looking at ways to fuck over women and non-whites and trans and LGBT+ –
They won’t be spending any time making things better for the rest of us that’s for sure. It’s all culture war and tax cuts.
MisterForkbeard
@WaterGirl: The other part of this is that Manchin is getting enormous support from Republicans to continue to break things. McConnell talks about how awesome he is and he’s getting lots of funding and media time from conservatives for the assist.
If we had 49 senators who absolutely believed in dropping the filibuster for voting rights, we’d still run into a problem with Manchin – because he’s being bribed to block things.
Ksmiami
@Kent: just wait until women start dying; we need to hang the illegitimate court with this and run on in everyday in 2022.
rikyrah
@Ohio Mom:
truth
Brantl
@Kent: You can’t get more than 48, never mind 51, can’t you count?
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
You were lied to, probably by a Republican. They do that.
Ksmiami
@MisterForkbeard: cut Manchin loose. He’s not a team player and it no longer matters
cain
@sdhays:
As long as Machin is in place, there won’t be an expanded court. This is just the kind of thing he would object to.
Rusty
@MisterForkbeard: They will back again for the law banning after 14 weeks, then another state will ban after 13 and so on. Eventually you have to draw a line and Roberts approach has no definable line. It’s either viability or nothing. The party arguing to strike down the Mississippi law understood this, all or nothing at this point.
Ksmiami
@cain: I’m rooting for Covid.
debbie
@Leto:
I usually prefer books too, but they really, really nailed the visuals.
Joe Falco
@Betty:
This is a more comprehensive understanding of his politics.
MisterForkbeard
@Ksmiami: It really does matter, unfortunately. He gets Schumer as minority leader.
WaterGirl
@Betty: Tweet back, tell him we are doing the book club on his book in January and tell him we would be honored if he was up for participating in a Q&A on the book, either in the blog or a zoom, or both!
He goes on Pod Save America pretty often, and if he can take Jon Lovett, we’re not going to shock him.
Ksmiami
@Betty: then put his office in the fucking latrine. He’s a trash human anyway
Kent
@Brantl: Of course I can count.
The point is that if abortion rights vanish it won’t just be because of McConnell, Trump, and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. It will also be because there are Senators with a D next to their name who also want to see it happen. Because they choose not to use their power to stop it
Manchin is probably unreachable. But people should run ads against Sinema pointing out that she let Roe be repealed and refused to let the Senate restore reproductive rights due to her filibuster fetish.
Ksmiami
@MisterForkbeard: eh at this point I say we fucking fight it out. I’d rather not sustain anymore damage from Manchinema
patroclus
My view is that Roberts has not lost control of the Court and that he will get what he wants. That is, they will overturn the Texas law (for reasons having little to do with abortion and more to do with vigilante justice and the end run around the system) and uphold the Mississippi law. That will be reported as a “split” decision. He will vote with the majority of 6 to uphold the Mississippi statute and thus control who writes the court’s opinion, which will either be him or the Justice he convinces to go along with his reasoning (or makes up his own reasoning that is okay with Roberts). My guess is that that will be Gorsusch (but it could be Barrett or Kavanaugh). That reasoning will pay lip service to Roe and thus “uphold” the precedent and adhere to stare decisis but distinguish it in some way. A 15-week ban will be upheld – that’s the bottom line – and the anti-liberty for women forces will prevail and it will set a terrible precedent for other states to emulate. But it will state that it isn’t overturning Roe, so that remains “good law” even though states can distinguish it in new statutes. In the internal politics, a Thomas/Alito opinion will compete for votes with it but it will be too strident for all 6 Republican appointees (or even all 5 others) to go along with it.
Ksmiami
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: my thing is this: if rules and norms are all corrupt anyway: time to turn over the board.
Betty
@Ksmiami: Manchin or Schiff?
cain
@Ksmiami:
That isn’t going to work. I’m not sure why I think that – but considering people have been dying by the thousands daily in this country due to Covid – what do they care? Many will even say it’s God’s plan or some other bullshit.
Ksmiami
@Hungry Joe: we have to win in 2022.
Kent
And how to do plan to do that? Storm the Capitol with a bunch of your like minded compatriots?
Eolirin
@Ksmiami: We can only cut him loose in the run up to the 2022 elections, and only if done in a way that increases our odds of expanding our majority. We need those judges that Biden’s getting appointed at a fast clip. We need Schumer able to set the schedule and move legislation. Otherwise we’d be getting even less than we are now. The second he’s not the 50th vote anymore, we can kick him to the curb entirely, but he’ll start playing nicer under those circumstances, not that it’ll matter much.
Betty
@WaterGirl: I can ask, but that would be when they are holding public hearings so he may not have time. Never hurts to ask.
Ksmiami
@cain: as long as they’re weakened and not voting, we can reduce the margins. The Wayne county election board Rep who voted to decertify Biden’s win just died of Covid… so baby steps
J R in WV
@Citizen Alan:
I would expect she just stopped having sex, which after all is solely for the purpose of reproduction — just ask G-D about it, amirite?
Scout211
@Kent:
But how is this counting of weeks actually enforced in practice? Do they just go by what the woman says in terms of her last period?
If, for example, a woman is actually 9 weeks pregnant and simply claims that she is 6 weeks pregnant, who actually checks and how would the state government enforcing a 7 week abortion ban actually enforce it? How could they actually prove that a woman’s last period was 10 weeks ago instead of 6 weeks ago?
All good questions. Here is the information on the Planned Parenthood Site: Abortion Pill
Note the added, “depending on where you live.” Sigh.
The women I know who have used Planned Parenthood for this medication, have had to see a doctor or nurse practitioner at the clinic to get the medication prescribed but in some cases, doctors or nurse practitioners have done telemedicine appointments and called the medication into the pharmacy. I am assuming in those cases the honor system is in effect for the date of your last period. In Texas, the doctor is required to see the patient in person and perform an exam. I am not sure what evidence the doctor is required to note in the file, but I have not read the law in detail. Maybe someone from Texas will know. So I am not sure if fudging dates is something that can happen. I hope it is.
Ksmiami
@Kent: Start boycotts, protests within the Supreme Court. Find out where the judges eat, live, go to the doctor’s and hound them every minute of every day. Shut down the Supreme Court from regular operations…
Leto
@MisterForkbeard: I totally understand. Speaking of SciFi, have you read “Children of Time” by Adrian Tchaikovsky? If you like world building I think you’d enjoy that.
Kent
@Ksmiami: So storm the Supreme Court instead of the Capitol?
Good luck with that.
Eolirin
@Ksmiami: Please, that’s not possible, everyone attempting the latter bits of that would be arrested.
We don’t control law enforcement. There’s not enough public support for that kind of shaming; the only way it works is if they’re denied service by the people serving them, which would require an incredible amount unity amongst an incredibly divided population. It’s a fantasy and not a solution.
Joe Falco
@patroclus:
I doubt Barrett will write the opinion. From what I’ve read of her SC tenure thus far, she writes little and uses her power as nothing more than a stamp or checkmark in favor of the extreme right: the perfect distillation of the Christian theocratic view of women in society, excepting her being allowed into a position of power. She’ll be glad to let the men do all the writing. It gives conservatives the thin excuse that Barrett isn’t extreme; she’ll have little to no SC opinions for critics to point to.
Kent
@Scout211: Right. Being a guy I’ve never personally dealt with any of this.
But it seems to me that any woman who is keeping track of her menstrual cycle could simply add one more period to her records and buy 4 additional weeks. How could anyone prove otherwise?
I expect a good OB/GYN might be able to with a careful ultrasound or exam. But if the doctor is actually supportive of reproductive rights then maybe they don’t look as close as they could?
rikyrah
@Leto:
No lie told
burnspbesq
@Ksmiami:
Don’t expect any non-white people to join your crusade. For them, what you’re suggesting would be suicide by cop.
Kelly
It won’t be a crime (well, won’t be prosecuted) for the minor daughter of the owner of a Dallas, TX car dealership. It will be a crime for the minimum wage employee of the cleaning service the car dealer contracts with.
Betty Cracker
@Betty: That’s so cool!
cain
@Kelly: It’s odd how car dealerships have so much political power.
Ruckus
@Hildebrand:
They won’t. Those are not scales, they are mirrors that only reflect a long ago past the didn’t actually look at all what they “think” it did. They are conservatives, which means they want to conserve the past that they think existed, which really never did. The past they want to “preserve” is a past of control, of creating a life that conforms to some authoritarian structure that puts them in charge of everything. As conservatism always has. A cruder way of saying it is they have their heads up their own asses so all they see is shit, and think that’s normal. And they can’t see that because, well it’s dark in there. The past they want is the Scrooge McDuck, comic book version of the past, one where they get to roll around in currency that they have cheated others out of. Their concept of religion is a ruse to redirect your attention away from their piles of money, all of which is gotten by cheating others, by selling them BS.
Kent
He could always ask the “QAnon Shaman” for advice on how to storm Federal buildings. I expect there are a lot of 1/6 insurrectionists who can provide good advice on how to storm Federal buildings to disrupt the process of government and make political points. Some of them now have a lot of extra time on their hands.
patroclus
@Joe Falco: In my view, Barrett is 3rd out of the possible 5 that Roberts will convince to go along with his reasoning, but she is clearly capable of signing her name to an opinion written mostly by a clerk and reviewed extensively by Roberts himself. Being a woman, she could well be the best “token” writer of the opinion affirming the Mississippi statute given their desired political optics.
Kay
I had Arizona on my list but not Michigan and Wisconsin.
State Dems or allied groups should run ads on it in these states. I bet almost no one in these states knows this.
I went to a D meeting last night and I was asked what would happen right away and I was able to rattle off my list of states – I think, I may have missed one- but people seemed shocked, and these are people who are engaged enough to come to a meeting- it becomes much more real when you list the states, I think.
It could cover whole regions.
Argiope
@Kent: This is, in fact, the business that I am in, and the difference between a 6-week and 10-week pregnancy is fairly obvious in terms of uterine size on exam. You wouldn’t necessarily even need an ultrasound to tell the difference. And I can’t imagine that the Project Veritas crazy types wouldn’t try to document clinicians bending the rules and then turn them in to licensing boards and/or state prosecutors. Mail order is the only way around that, I think.
matryoshka
@Kent: It’s a good question. Women and doctors count from the first day of the last menstrual period. Not saying there is a conspiracy here, but there exists the possibility of employers monitoring the menses of the employed: https://www.workingmother.com/ovia-app-is-your-employer-tracking-your-period
Also, I dimly remember a MO legislator who was tracking the periods of women…trying to rewind the time machine to find it.
Darkrose
@Mike in DC: I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I think Obergefell is probably safe because at this point, there’s no real urgency for the right on it. Marriage equality doesn’t rile up the wingnuts like it used to, especially since the “face” of same-sex marriage is two nice young white men like Mayor Pete and his charming husband.
I think they’re going to go after easier targets, like declaring that state bans on conversion therapy violate the First Amendment, or upholding “conscience clauses” that allow health care providers to refuse treatment to trans and queer patients because religious freedom.
Ksmiami
@Kent: don’t worry I want the protests to be peaceful and photogenic… but I’m sick of a lack of action … a lack of pushback- where the fuck are the elected Dems on this? Still talking about bipartisanship?
dopey-o
I would never suggest illegal, mob action. But wouldn’t it make great TV if on the Saturday after Roe is voided, a million women in pink hats assembled in front of the Supreme Court building and peacefully dismantled it, brick by brick?
But that would be wrong. There should also be a million men alongside them, to do the heavy lifting.
matryoshka
Following up on my last comment, it was the MO state health director monitoring periods of women who used Planned Parenthood. Described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_W._Williams
Ruckus
@Kent:
I imagine that early in the pregnancy there is little risk with a pill but as time increases the health of the mother likely becomes an issue, and that increases as time goes on.
Betty
@WaterGirl: Tweet sent. I’ll let you know if he answers.
Ksmiami
@dopey-o: yes yes yes. This isn’t law, this is tyranny of an insane minority
GoBlueInOak
@Omnes Omnibus: The inability to look beyond the current horizon is why libs lose. We are where we are because the right wing has been playing the long game. Roe is lost – there’s no use crying over it at this point. We need to be thinking about 20 year long game. And that means stacking the Court with YOUNGER, more liberal justices. Just like the Right has been doing for ages.
And announcing now, starts laying ground work for getting nominations underway BEFORE midterm season starts screwing with everything.
We are losing the Senate in 2022. This needs to be assumed – and everything game planned around that. Might be get lucky in 2022? Sure – but we shouldnt be counting on it all.
Keep stepping on a rake and then getting surprised by your nose is broke.
sdhays
@cain: Of course. The Democrats need to expand their majority in the Senate and hold onto the House. A backlash could help with that, and if a large backlash is what allows the Democrats to maintain control of Congress, that’s an argument for there being a mandate for Court reform.
Again, I’m not predicting this, and I’m not even saying that it would happen in the next couple of years – this kind of thing sometimes needs to build and I’m really not sure how much people will fully comprehend the decision when it comes down. I’m just saying that major, radical, unpopular decisions by the Supreme Court that directly affect millions of people are the kind of thing that convinces more people that extreme measures need to be taken. The “extreme” measure I’d prefer would be Court reform.
Kent
@Darkrose: I expect they will do a lot of damage under the guise of “religious freedom”
Let any employer fire any gay or trans employee, for example, because to hire them would violate their “sincere religious beliefs”.
Kent
That is neither peaceful nor photogenic. That is exactly what the 1/6 insurrectionists were trying to do. It was insurrection when they tried it. And it would be insurrection if you tried it.
GoBlueInOak
@Hungry Joe: Exactly. And we should assume that we lose Senate in 2022 and build all gameplans around that. November 2022 election is 11 months away.
Its almost Xmas and the gerontocracy not named Pelosi that is the Democratic leadership are still playing grabass around BBB.
Could we get lucky? Sure. But a plan that counts on luck is a bad plan. 2020 was a weak win and seems like not enough realized that.
Ksmiami
@Kent: they beat up cops… I mean a sit in.
GoBlueInOak
@Kent: Yup. Like when the hell have fascists ever “stopped”.
Oh well, we took the Sudentenland, we can stop there.
Contraceptives, gay marriage, workplace safety, environmental protection – its all on the table. These jokers have a hard-on for returning to the Lochner era for chrissakes.
Kent
@Argiope: Thanks. I was curious how precise these weeks of pregnancy measurements are and how much they rely on the word/memory of the woman and the judgement of the physician.
I mean if you have a woman who insists that her last period was say October 20 (6 weeks ago) and not September 22 (10 weeks ago) how much would that be disputed by medical evidence collected in a normal office visit that would hold up in court?
Kent
@Ksmiami: And you think a sit-in would disrupt the court in the slightest way? Or even make the news? Protests and sit-ins are a near constant part of the Washington DC landscape. When I lived and worked there in the 1990s there was some sort of protest happening nearly every day. Dealing with that sort of thing is as routine as taking out the trash for the vast array of law enforcement agencies that patrol Washington DC. It is just part of the background noise.
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty:
That is unbelievably cool! I think Adam Schiff’s book is one of the best of its genre I have read, and I’m excited about the BJ book club discussion coming up. It would be great if he could join us!
Have you preordered Unthinkable (Jamie Raskin’s forthcoming book) yet? Because of his terrible personal tragedy less than a week before 1/6, I expect it will be very tough to read. But I adore him and am eager for the book to land in my Kindle app in early January.
Hoodie
I think Roberts will try to fabricate a fictional world along the lines of Shelby to justify letting the MS law stand. Maybe something like:
“Viability was a benchmark before because technology blah blah blah, now women can determine pregnancy earlier and are more empowered to take responsibility for their reproductive choices (no more excuses for you being such slutty sluts, just like those whiny black folks with their gripes about unequal education). The balance here is between the liberty of the loose-moraled mother and the sacred life of the embryo so, while we abhor the use of abortion, we will recognize a constitutional right of a woman to terminate a pregnancy if and only if she does it immediately after intercourse, where ‘immediate’ is a matter of local custom that may, in some jurisdictions, be limited to before actually having intercourse. Now let’s move on to relieving what we all know are onerous regulations against psychopaths’ rights to bear arms.”
Eunicecycle
@matryoshka: also some of these states require a transvaginal ultrasound that will definitively show the age of the fetus. They are extremely uncomfortable and invasive. When Ohio started this crap, some woman D legislator introduced a bill that said all men had to have a prostate exam when going for boner pills.
Gretchen
Abortions after 15 weeks happen because something terrible has happened, and traveling is often not an option. Ireland changed their law after a woman’s water broke at 17 weeks but the doctors were afraid to take the baby because the fetal heart kept beating. She died of sepsis. This won’t get fixed until a pretty married blond dies unnecessarily and puts a sympathetic face on the issue.
Bill Arnold
@Leto:
She went there? LOL, good.
janesays
The best political outcome for Democrats would be for the far right five to spike the ball and just flat-out overturn Roe with no ambiguity whatsoever (OK, the best outcome would obviously be for the MS law to be struck down and Roe to be fully upheld In that sense, but that’s clearly not going to happen here). It makes Roberts’ approach considerably more sinister, because it would give the Beltway punditocracy the cover they need to be able to claim that Roe is still technically intact, even though it will have been effectively gutted.
Emerald
What’s worked previously is women going on strike. That’s what happened in Poland last year when they banned abortion and it got results. Decades ago in Iceland women went on strike and now they control at least half the government.
Worked in Ancient Greece.
Ksmiami
@Kent: I mean 100 k ppl inside the court everyday… and wearing bulletproof vests. Let the cops try to beat up a bunch of young women….
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Hungry Joe: Breyer is that oblivious, though who knows why, other than him? He wrote a whole book about how he himself is indispensable because of his years of experience – that new justices need years of seasoning to properly settle into the SCOTUS role…which is complete BS given that as soon as they are seated they get to hear cases and rule on them. The irony is that he’s the least-essential, most anonymous Supreme Court Justice of my lifetime and I’m 52. EVERY OTHER Justice has made more of a name for themselves for good or ill over the time he’s been on the bench. He’s literally a replacement level justice. They could appoint another anonymous Justice and that justice would hear cases and vote the same way as Breyer from the get-go. But somehow he’s able to delude himself that he’s essential so he stays and probably will until they carry him out in a box.
Scout211
@Kent:
That’s one of the reasons why the law is designed to punish the doctor and not the patient seeking the abortion. It puts the doctor at risk in order to force the physician or clinic to obey the law and not the patient. So the doctor is required to do an exam with objective findings that conform to the law. It’s still unclear if there can be fudging with dates, though. Time will tell.
Nobody in particular
@cain:
Whose country?
IANAL, but I have threatened to act like one as a plaintiff Pro Se, in Superior Court. Pre-trial conference and Cha-ching! I did have a case, but who needs a lawyer? Judges don’t like non-attorneys running around their courtrooms. They will twist the high-priced defendant’s attorney’s arms to settle. So “the ban on abortions” in Texas is not actually a ban. I am only going on the basic information I’ve heard. But saying this fakakta Texas law is a “ban” Is not accurate. It does not ban the procedure. It penalizes people civilly – in Texas, where the state of Texas has jurisdiction. It does not have that jurisdiction in federal territory.
If Betty Cracker is right, and I tend to think she might be, and if Roberts does this, especially with respect to the Texas law, abortion remains available, just complicated. And it will go on happening in any Bureau of Indian Affairs Reservation or VA hospital in Texas like it has been all along. States have no jurisdiction over federal territory. PERIOD. Yet I got some static for suggesting this, as opposed to the commenter down on the other thread who wanted to start burning down Evangelical Churches.
I remember when Duncan (Black) banned a commenter, Woody Guthrie’s Guitar, permanently for using the phrase: “Dime Sized Hole” as a solution. Surely, some of you recall this. I have a near-total recall. Not a photographic memory, it’s holographic. I thought that was extreme of Duncan, but I guess Woody knew what was coming as I did in for certain in November of 2016. That is “enshrined” over at Kos. But that’s not important. And Woody was making those noises frequently. But Woody saw it earlier. But I knew we were headed this way when I saw my first Gag “Liberal Hunting Permit- No Bag Limit.” That was 20 years ago, but you all go ahead and disarm yourselves unilaterally if you think the 2A and responsible gun ownwership is the problem. And I don’t own assault rifles, not since 1975-6, When my son was born. I didn’t own any weapons from 1994 on. Old lady said they had to go and frankly, I really never felt I needed them. Until recently. And now I’ve armed myself. Fascists made me do it.
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
– George Santayana
It wasn’t Plato, as misattributed to him by Ridley Scott in the opening of that rather good film, Black Hawk Down. My son was an Army Ranger in the 1990’s. He’s out now. and on 60% Disability, honorably discharged. The point being – and I checked with a friend who is a Professor of Political Science and International Relations, the “crazy” idea I had is already happening on Federal territory in Texas. It’s not so “crazy” after all. VA hospitals and reservations will continue beyond the reach of Texas courts. There is no right to an abortion, but a tenuous right to privacy in the marriage was shoehorned into the constitutional construction of Brandeis and Warren’s Zone of Privacy, employed in Griswold into this strange legal limbo, did women have access constitutionally. As Elizabeth Warren said last, kill the filibuster and Congress can codify a right to abortion in law, once the filibuster is gone. I’m sure the “know it alls” here will be upset and rise to take issue. A hobby and guilty pleasure. But good call Betty. And Just because you are a “nuclear scientist,” it doesn’t make you an immunologist. Back in March, before breakthrough infections, I said I would be wearing masks for the duration. And so are most of you. To be honest, the only reason to come here, aside from a few of the more mature commenters, was Dr. Silverman. I’m sure some of the lawyers here will argue. That’s what lawyers do. Unless you are a legal scholar, I’m really not interested. And whatever moves are made, lawyers will continue to argue. Until we listen to Dick the Butcher, Henry VI. Apologies to Burns, he looks pretty smart. And if Roe remains intact… we shall see.
Brachiator, who I was rather gentle with, still has not provided me with a coherent narrative indicating the veracity of his claim that Jefferson “did everything in his power to preserve slavery.”
Patently false and something you’d see at Kos, along with “defund the police.” I’m damn glad I’m an independent. Markos was Republican.
janesays
This assumes that they have 50 votes in support of such legislation, which they absolutely do not. Even if the filibuster weren’t a factor, there is no universe in which Joe Manchin votes for federal legislation that explicitly guarantees abortion rights nationwide. Because he’s not pro-choice, and he doesn’t pretend to be pro-choice.
Nobody in particular
@janesays:
Kill the filibuster and it’s done.
NotMax
@Emerald
Also too in Kansas.
;)
Gravenstone
@Nobody in particular: Show us the 51 votes to do so. Go ahead, We’ll wait…
David
@Kent: Foregone conclusion in my mind how the ruling goes. When they announce the decision next spring or summer I hope it galvanizes Democratic voters like no other issue could. Republicans have been planning this for 40 years. I hope we can make them pay at ballot box.
Bill Arnold
@Kent:
I will – Republicans are the party of mass homicide for expected transitory political gain, and any assertions that they are “pro-life” are LIES.
rikyrah
@Hungry Joe:
yep
rikyrah
@Eolirin:
Truth
rikyrah
@Kay:
Did not know this, Kay. Thanks for the information.
Dan B
@rikyrah: Breyer’s interview by Christiane Amanpour convinced me that he is technically in support of women’s rights and minorities’ rights to protection but… He basically said to Amanpour, ‘Missy don’t trouble your little head. You cannot possibly understand.’ If I were her I would have ended the interview and pointed out that his attitudes are appropriate for the seventeenth century, well, maybe the beginning of the eighteenth. He is patrician, not liberal except in the broadest definition of “liberal” as in we’ll toss the poors some bone to keep them quiet.
burnspbesq
@Nobody in particular:
Ask any woman in Texas, and she will tell you you have no fucking clue. And she’ll be correct.
Gretchen
@Scout211: Texas requires an invasive vaginal probe ultrasound to look for heartbeat sounds. There is no heart, but cardiac cells start contracting at about six weeks. One woman had an exam that didn’t hear the sound, but when she came back the next day they did it again and heard the sound, so she was refused the abortion.