I think the issue is most people tend to strive to what feels like a reasonable position on difficult issues. Personally pro-life and legislatively pro-choices feels like one of those, but like most of these compromises it doesn’t make sense. Unless you personally would willingly sacrifice your wife for your unborn baby, and do so under all circumstances with no consideration for your medical options, then you aren’t personally pro-choice. You just think its a serious issue that needs to be taken seriously and somberly, which is consistent with the majority of “pro-choice” people. Basically this “personally pro-life” position takes us back to Clinton’s “safe, rare, but legal”
I think one of the things that gets lost in the discussion is that life vs choice are not really alternative sides of the coin, as much as they are different perspectives for how to think about the question. Obviously, the alternative to being pro-life is not pro death, or anti life. But the difference comes in what do you prioritize, medical autonomy or life of the fetus? That might be a distinction that is lost on lots of people, but its a critical one for understanding the other side’s argument and why there is so little constructive conversation on the issue.
We need to hear more of that kinda stuff. Those religious creeps over there need telling they can’t impose their bullshit on everyone else and just expect people to suck it up.
Anyway, slight change of direction, but the reaction to this JD Vance victory in the OH GOP primary is wild and illustrates the challenge with opposing Trumpism. It is so intellectually dishonest that there is no way to effectively go against it as for them it is whatever they say it is in that moment with no requirement to be consistent with what they previously said or we know they will say tomorrow.
Vance is an Ivy League educated man who came to prominence as a vocal anti-Trump republican, with what you might think of as a traditional heartland Democratic message focused on the working class. Yet, he’s funded by Peter Thiel and has increasingly become Trump aligned. Not just pursuing the MAGA crowd with MAGA red meat a la DeSantis, but kissing the ring of Trump the person, and now MAGA Trump world are treating this as a win for Trumpism and Trump himself.
It seems the only consistent thing that binds these people who they are willing to make the enemy, which far more than anything constructive is what defines this politics. Like Stalin and Hitler, they might not be natural allies, have the same vision or beliefs, but if they can put that aside for a moment and focus on who they can collectively fuck then they will.
She is railing against having to be bound by what the Bible says, when she absolutely has the freedom to not be bound by that. As such, she is making a straw man argument.
If a law comes onto the books that says something along the lines of, “Abortion is outlawed because of what the Bible says” then she will have a point.
I haven’t looked at the wording of the law on abortion, but presumably the rationale for it will be grounded in the Constitution, or at least, in an interpretation of the Constitution. The difficulty we are experiencing with the current shift is that the Constitution has been interpreted a certain way since Roe in 1973, but that may now be changing.
With that said, when Roe was adopted it represented a shift in terms of what was before it, as at the time 30 states prohibited abortion without exception, 16 banned abortion except in certain special circumstances, 3 states allowed only residents to obtain an abortion, and only 1 state, New York, allowed abortion generally.
The basis of Alito’s opinion is that Roe was decided incorrectly because abortion is not mentioned in the constitution and therefore cannot be a constitutionally protected thing. It is difficult to describe just how much of an outlier this is even among originalists. It’s not something Alito has come close to before. It has been described as most consistent with Bork’s judicial philosophy, someone who at the time was dismissed as qualified even by the party of the nominating president. Of course it is utterly BS because it is exactly what you’re pretending it isnt…a religious doctrine of religious extremists in positions of power being foisted on the rest of the country to make us live according to their principals. They cannot say that though as that is explicitly unconstitutional so they invest this ridiculous legal argument.
I think that what she is actually railing against is the imposition of a law that reflects the fundamental christian views of three judges who were appointed with the sole intention of bringing such a law into being. She is using the bible as a metaphor.
The Constitutional basis for Roe was the due process clause of the Fourth Amendment. People on the pro life side of the argument generally believe that the Constitution was misused in 1973 to ratify abortion, and it represented a big swing away from existing precedent.
Fair enough, but the flip side of that would be pro life people railing against the imposition of a law they strongly disagree with.
Whole thing is a shitshow, mind.
I’m still very British with regard to reserve and understatement. I’d much rather this was all a private matter. Education beefed up. Contraception free and freely available. And abortion rates dropping.
And politicians concerning themselves with other matters.
What is your point? Mine was that the legal argument that has now been put forward to undo this is pretty much universally regarded as utter BS. IOW, there is a result they want to happen for reasons other than judicial philosophy or reading of the constitution and have invented a rationale to do so because as indefensible as that is, they know their real reason (creating a rule of law aligned with their religious interpretation) stands up even less well.
Also, there really wasnt a pro-life side of the argument at the time of Roe other than the Catholics (because of religion). That political faction did not form until several years later, which again is evidence of them starting at a desired outcome (which in this case was not so much undoing Roe, but getting a voting block onside by promising them you would prioritize doing so) and then retrofitting (bad) legal arguments in the interest of this.
It’s all very similar to one of the common arguments from the right against gay marriage - “I’m not homophobic and dont want to punish gay people, but I don’t agree with gay marriage as I (almost always a legally married man) think the government has no place in personal relationships and think they should get out of the marriage business altogether.”
My point is both sentences of my post. Don’t overlook the part where I said, “People on the pro life side of the argument generally believe that the Constitution was misused in 1973 to ratify abortion, and it represented a big swing from existing precedent.”
I described the situation at the time of Roe in a post above - 30 states prohibited abortion without exception, 16 banned it in certain circumstances, 3 allowed only residents to obtain an abortion, and 1 state, New York, allowed abortion generally. That was the situation when Roe was adopted.
I’m not sure the Constitution is adequate for ruling on abortion one way or another.
My personal view is I’d much rather it was a private matter and there was more decorum around the whole thing.
The elephant in the room , quite apart from this one decision , is how did the SC (the highest authority in the land) become a policy arm of the GOP ? We all know the answer , but somehow there is still absolutely nothing that anyone can do to right this aberration ? … and now we can expect the SC to continue helping along the Republican agenda to rig elections , strip away constitutional rights and impose their ‘morality’ on a majority of the population. If people weren’t already aware that they were in the midst of a constitutional crisis , then they certainly should be now.
Really odd that you can’t tell if Madison Cawthorn shagging his cousin will end or enhance his political career, such is the state of the current Republican.party.
It’s actually even worse than that. It’s not just the Supreme court, it the entire Federal Court system.
You go back to Harry Reid taking “the nuclear option” over the appointment of lower court federal judges, and people on the right position that as a naked political power grab. They then use that as a justification for doing the same for the Supreme court, the only way they were going to get Gorsuch’s stolen seat over the line for Trump. Yet the reason Reid felt he had to take such an extreme move was was McConnel had created a historical backlog of open seats by just outright stopping the process of getting them appointed. The result of the nuclear option having already been taken and a historical backlog of positions to fill meant Trump was able to fill them are record pace, and did so with exactly the sort of people you’d think he would. Several were outright rejected by the Bar Association for being unqualified and were approved by the Senate anyway. See the recent lifting of the mask mandate for a result of this sort of political weaponization.
As for what can be done about it, essentially nothing, at least in practical terms. Technically federal judges can be removed by congress using the same process as is used to remove a president. But not only is that not going to happen, you can see with the relative lack of response to Thomas’ actions that there isnt even the appetite to pursue it.
