It is increasingly clear that Republicans will say anything that will justify what they want to do, even if it contradicts how they justified something else they wanted to do in the past. Like lawyers, and particularly defense lawyers, they will say anything they think will win their case. This is how our legal system works or does not work. Within this system, lawyers are not supposed to let what they actually believe influence their advocacy.
Behaving like this in the political realm means that we can never know what politicians really believe or why they are really supporting any policy. To ask and expect an honest answer is like asking lawyers what they really believe about their client's guilt or innocence. Asking a lawyer is out of line, because it asks them to abandon their role. Asking a politician is similarly useless, and will yield only the canned answers and talking points that have been decided on as the most effective answers. The complication with politicians is that they are supposed to give us and each other honest answers so they can have an honest dialogue and reach an honest compromise. If they cannot or will not do this, democracy is impossible and has been replaced by a pretense of competing advertising campaigns (fake newses); what interests anyone is actually supporting -- what they are really up to -- cannot be discussed or ascertained, and deliberation becomes a facade and a joke.
The are many good policy arguments for and against abortion that are laid out in numerous articles and in this op-ed and comments.
But the issues facing the Supreme Court are not of policy but of the US Constitution.
Roe v Wade is dependent on earlier decisions (e.g. Griswold) finding a right of privacy implicit in the Constitution and extending it to abortion. Even the most liberal justice would have to concede that neither a right of privacy nor a right to abort a fetus is explicit in the Constitution.
I, as a lawyer, believe Roe v Wade was wrongly decided, but, under legal principles of precedent, it cannot be overturned except in certain circumstances that don’t apply here.
But that doesn’t mean it can’t be modified. Even the justice who wrote that opinion conceded that the date of viability (at which point the potential life of the fetus must be taken into account) is a moving target.
So will Roe v Wade die of a thousand cuts? No, but it may suffer a few wounds - and likely for the better.
4
It was all an orchestrated setup to get Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.
I just found this article...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/us/politics/trump-anthony-kennedy-ret...
"The younger Mr. Kennedy spent more than a decade at Deutsche Bank, eventually rising to become the bank’s global head of real estate capital markets, and he worked closely with Mr. Trump when he was a real estate developer, according to two people with knowledge of his role. During Mr. Kennedy’s tenure, Deutsche Bank became Mr. Trump’s most important lender, dispensing well over $1 billion in loans to him for the renovation and construction of skyscrapers in New York and Chicago at a time other mainstream banks were wary of doing business with him because of his troubled business history."
Immense corruption in SCOTUS!!!
Is anyone listening!!!
5
The importance of Casey was that the Court threw out Roe’s notion of trimesters.
Well it is Noon PST and now I have read all 450 comments
Again, there is not a single comment among the Times Pick
where anyone mentions that a fellow human meets their
demise when they are aborted.
Is that biological reality just not admitted to by the
person who make the Times Pick or is the Computer that
is supposed to be assisting programmed not to pick any
comments that asserts that simple biological fact ?
True Progressivism is not discriminating against any human -
even if they are in the womb.
5
I've come to the unhappy conclusion that a drastic rollback in the progressive reforms made in the past decades is not only inevitable, but very much needed.
When women and minorities and LGBTs are personally affected, perhaps then they will be sufficiently motivated to take on the mantle of citizenship and VOTE. We find ourselves in this situation because millions of Obama voters couldn't be bothered to get to the polls in 2016.
They are the stay at home blacks, the too-pure Bernie bros, the pie in the sky Jill Stein supporters, the Hillary haters. Forget the Trump supporters. They are locked in. The racists and bigots, the wealthy... they are clearly unconcerned by any of Trump's outrages. But the very people who are going to suffer the most pretty much brought this disaster upon themselves - and the rest of the country. These setbacks will last a generation. But on a local level you can still make a difference. Are you going to learn?
1
Most of the wealthy voted for Hillary. Think about it.
1
For those who say that abortion will remain legal in blue states but those in red states wishing to have one won't always be able to afford the travel - I guarantee that private companies and nonprofit organizations will spring up to make it possible for poor people to travel for red state to blue to have the procedure. Forget the government - the private sector does everything better anyway. It's on We the People to help our fellow citizens when they're in trouble, because the folks in Washington couldn't care less. We'll make it happen.
1
I oppose the nomination of Mr.Kavanaugh who was chosen for the Court by The Federalist Society on the basis of his conservative credentials.If the Court is going to be packed with conservative white men who are not willing to uphold the right of a woman to choose then States will have to enact laws to protect women’s choices. Women can’t vote on Sureme Court Justices but they can make their voices heard loudly and clearly on the State level to their own politicians who will listen to them.If they do not listen and heed women’s voices they will not be re-elected.Women will not allow their reproductive rights to be abridged.
3
Roe v Wade was not about the federal government abridging the right to abortion. It was about whether or not the states have the right to limit abortion and under what circumstances. Obviously if Roe v Wade were repealed it would have zero effect on states that did not wish to limit abortion.
With the Kavanaugh and Gorsuch Court, the main conflict will be whether decisions should be made according to orders/demands given by the American Oligarchy, or the Catholic Church. The Billionaires won't always like what the Catholic Church wants, but the Church will probably be fine with most desires of the Oligarchs. And oligarchs everywhere always have enough money to do work-arounds state religions anyway, so not to worry, they will be OK. And their wives, daughters and grand-daughters will have no trouble acquiring abortions when needed.
3
Women are resilient. Take away abortion rights and you might just see the revival of the Jane Collective. Abortions will happen regardless of legality.
3
"A house divided cannot stand". Whether the division is "half slave half free" or "half pro choice half pro life" doesn't matter. Just as free states gave shelter to slaves fleeing the South, so the Blue states today should give asylum to any woman relocating to them from a pro-life state, and refuse to extradite her if she has taken her children with her. Since most such states are revenue generators to the Federal government (in effect they subsidize the poorer pro-life states), the costs of such a policy can be paid for by withholding the revenues they transfer to the federal government. I know this is sounding like preparing for secession, but, since a house divided cannot stand, secession is looking increasingly inevitable, no matter who wins 2020. If we, the moderates and progressives take power in 2020, the other guys will rise up. If they win, we will have to, unless we are willing to live in a quasi fascist plutocratic ethnocracy.
1
As of 9:32 A.M., PST
I read all of the 412 Comments and I noticed that
neither the article nor any of the Times Picks
mention that a human being's life is ended when
an abortion takes place.
Yes, there was plenty of discussion of Women's Rights
and how a 'century of progressive reforms' will be
demised if Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed to be on
the Supreme Court,
but nothing of all the little girls and boys
who will will never grow up to be adults because they
were aborted.
Less than 10 % of Abortions are carried out for Medical/Psychological reasons.
Why should abortions of convenience on demand be legal ?
The Government should standardised an Adoption Policy for those who do not wish to raise a new baby, should provide leave from work for those who do and provide the medical and financial support for those who cannot afford to raise their baby. That would be True Progressivism
rather than killing our fellow humans whose only fault is
that they were conceived decades after we were.
The opinion pieces is faulty in that even if Judge Kavanaugh did vote against "Roe vs Wade", the court would most likely hand the "Question of Abortion" back to the States where the 10th Amendment would allow the States to decide.
Why the New York Times allows such distorted Opinion Pieces is beyond me if it says and seeks to be America's
Newspaper.
3
@John Brown
A clump of aborted tissue is no more a human being than a rotting acorn on a compost heap is a mighty oak.
Stop trying to control us and put your energy into helping existing human beings. How many unwanted children have YOU adopted?
8
Flood the market with abortion pills. At least then it becomes mostly a moot point.
8
@ilv
Exactly!
These oppressors will NOT prevail.
3
Every elected government official -- and I mean EVERY -- should have to sign a statement (a la Grover Nordquist) that he/she never HAS and never WILL get an abortion, has not encouraged, paid for, forced, or in any other way helped bring about an abortion for any wife/mistress/sister/girlfriend, or anyone else.
Under penalty of perjury and incarceration.
Let's see how many sign it, especially among those republicans and hypocritical evangelicals.
6
In the christian mythology the deity is omnipotent and omniscient. Since the vast majority of a woman's eggs are discarded over her lifetime as well as the vast majority of a man's sperm and that most pregnancies end in so called "spontaneous" abortion AND that some percentage of women die BECAUSE they are pregnant then it follows that the christian deity murders the most life by far.
Are we done with this primitive superstitious nonsense yet?
4
May I remind you that in an abortion, an unborn baby also dies by 1000 cuts. Your use of this graphic & violent metaphor in the headline shows that you have no understanding that a human person suffers and dies whenever an abortion is performed. It is this very lack of understanding that has led to liberals' shock when people who oppose abortion are willing to vote for any Republican candidate who claims s/he will stop abortions. People who are against abortion are so much against it that they will vote for any dishonest, immoral, criminal, treasonous clown for this reason. Even if you think abortion is morally acceptable, there's no need to deify it as some kind of women's right. There's certainly no need to use violent language.
1
What astonishes me are the number of state laws that are allowed under the 'undue burden' standard. How is it not an 'undue burden' on rural women when you force the closure of every clinic within 250+ miles of where they live? How is it not an 'undue burden' to force women to have vaginal ultrasounds performed before giving them a prescription for pregnancy-ending drugs?
It's small wonder that abortion pills can be purchased all over the internet these days. It's far easier and cheaper than dealing with the undue burdens imposed by backwards states.
4
I can see it now.
An Aboveground Railway - the interstate highways - bringing terrified women from Red States to Blue.
- Assuming the women can afford the bus fare on top of the medical fee (unless, as per usual, Blue State taxes pay for the cost of Red State backwardness).
- Assuming Red State sheriffs or marshals or some such legally appointed henchmen do not remove unaccompanied young women (unless they are relatives or were made pregnant by lawmakers) from the buses.
Assuming Evangelicals don’t boycott the bus companies that are aiding and abetting Reproductive Rights.
4
This concept of "original intent" or "strict construction" as a way to interpret the Constitution might as well as be called "abracadabra" because it was simply just a vehicle that was used by Scalia, and other Right leaning justices, on the Supreme Court to reach the conservative outcome that they wanted in a case. Scalia used to say that the Constitution is "Dead, dead, dead", as opposed to a more liberal view that it a "living, breathing document that changes over time". The Founding Fathers could not have predicted the science, technology and medical advances that would change society over 200+ years, such as automatic machine guns, the internet and abortion procedures, so I think the "originalist" view of Constitution law is ludicrous, and unrealistic. I would also note that Scalia would overturn precedent when it suited him, as in Citizens United (money =free speech) and Heller (expanded the Second Amendment), although Conservatives are supposed to respect precedent. Brett Kavanaugh will be a horrible Supreme Court Justice, he has a radical view or Presidential executive power, and thinks U.S. v. Nixon was wrongly decided, and that Presidents should be totally immune from legal process, not only criminal indictment, but even civil lawsuits. Trump clearly picked Kavanaugh to protect himself, should he be subpoenaed or impeached. Also, Kavanaugh committed perjury at his last confirmation hearing, when he lied, saying he did not give George W. Bush legal advice on torture.
4
"With this confirmation vote, then, much more than abortion rights hangs in the balance. So does the country’s ability ...to protect clean air and water; to combat climate change..."
In other words, corporate Republicans are willing to destroy humanity for the sake of an easy profit, and conservative Christian Republicans are willing to let them do so if it means additional babies will be born in the meantime.
4
If federal protection for abortions is eliminated, it will fall back to the states to legalize it, maybe even add it to their individual constitutions. If anyone imagines that American women are going to go back to the barbarous days of illegal abortion, the "conservatives" are going to be mightily surprised when they run for election.
6
No one, no court, no church can abolish abortions. With internet availability, almost everyone has access to ordering pills to start an abortion. Hospitals are required to treat emergencies. Fake id's will become popular for different reasons. No one, no court, no church can abolish abortions.
9
If Roe v Wade is overturned only poor women of all races will suffer. The upper classes always had access to safe abortions and will continue to do so if RvW is overtuned. This is a power, class and sex issue. If people really cared about the "babies" they would not let 1 in 5 US children go to bed hungry. Hypocrites all of them.
14
Much like prohibition, a black market back street provider network--perhaps run by some element of organized crime--will no doubt prosper with the elimination of legal but regulated access to abortion.
5
It's outrageous in this day and age that a bunch of men can repress women this way. We need more women on the SCOTUS, not another troglodyte who wants to punish women. It's 2018, not 1820. Get some young women in the courts.
11
There is nothing "progressive" about abortion, as the first feminists all knew, and the only "death by a thousand cuts" that happens is the unborn child who is sliced and diced in the name of an ersatz "right." Roe v. Wade never stood on solid judicial ground, and the judicial scaffolding rework that Casey represents is merely the wishes of Souter, O'Connor, and Kennedy butttressed by what Byron White called, in his original dissent from Roe, "raw judicial power" and nothing else.
2
@JOHN
Sliced and diced? Good grief.
You really think an abortion happens like a zucchini is cut? You think that makes sense, considering the abortion procedure occurs inside an internal organ? Your hyperbole is astounding. Nothing is sliced. Nothing is diced. Calm down.
8
When we have a criminal in a WH, we shouldn't be surprised to find lying under oath federalist in SCOTUS.
What can we expect from lowlife public officials, exactly what we get.
I can't even find anymore adjectives to express the sense of impending doom.
3
Every hypocritical Trumplican and fakeEvangelical woman should be forced to read this and pass a test certifying thorough understanding.
When THEY ask for women’s rights In the future, and are denied them, they shall have no recourse. No excuses. No “I didn’t understands”; no “but not MEs”.
Being a hypocrite means one has abrogated responsibility for an issue. No “take backs”. Don’t expect to send YOUR daughters out of state for an abortion because YOUR insurance (if you are lucky enough to have any under Trump) won’t cover it, and it will no longer be your “right”because you have denied it to all.
5
Dear Ms. Mayeri,
What I find both sad and ironic is the Left is doing the same thing concerning Gun Rights, that you complain about the Right doing to Abortion!
Dennis
'Death by 1,000' cuts?
Is this an intentionally gruesome headline or just a lack of sensitivity?
2
Gorsuch is a tainted justice. His nomination was stolen from Obama by McConnell. He should resign.
Kavanaugh, if confirmed, will be a tainted justice. He was nominated by an unindicted felon. He should withdraw.
With two illegitimate justices, the legitimacy of the Supreme Court itself would be open to question.
8
"And abortion rights are one of many inevitable casualties of this appointment. Senators who vote yes will bear responsibility for all of them. http://www.jobz.pk/pakistan-institute-of-medical-sciences-pims-vacancies/
1
Such an unfortunate headline... dies by 1,000 cuts. Rights don't die. People do.
4
Given that the Court is soon to be further dominated by male, white Catholics it might be worthwhile to pause and wonder if a religion whose leaders tolerated rape and pedophilia on an international scale is really the one that should lead the Supreme Court. The plutocrats will celebrate Kavanaugh as he will further enrich them and the poor white Trump voters will find themselves further disenfranchised in a country that is content to let them drink polluted water and work in coal mines that kill them. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are clearly ambitious men--they care not that their names will always carry and asterisk and that they are party to the corruption of political system. They have secured their places in the governing plutocracy and like the rest of the Trump family they could not care less about the rest of us. One day they will get their just desserts, one hopes sooner than later. it is also worth noting that Kavanaugh's most important opinions have always been in the form of dissents. His views have always been to the right of the majority and that bodes ill for our nation.
6
With Republican strangleholds on the 3 federal branches, Roe v Wade is doomed to be exactly as dead as this former constitutional democratic republic.
The silver lining: None will again suffer state Republicans wearing their little flag pins as they swear oaths on Bibles to protect and defend the Constitution "so help me God," then gang raping the constitutionally-protected rights of millions to abortion with their "interest in women's health," then transferring millions of tax dollars to the law firms of their pals to defend their rapes through the courts (portions certain to return to their reelection campaigns!) with the sole argument any 5th grader could recite; "Nobody can prove we're lying and not just exactly as stupid as we are unembarrassed to pretend (and imply we know you are)!"
They will not, at SCOTUS, feign struggling and failing to not smirk in the faces of justices utterly helpless to restore 1 ravaged right to unraped condition, 1 tax dollar to public coffers, massive financial damage inflicted on abortion providers, or impose any sanction upon them for their crimes.
1
Monty Python comes to mind...
"Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate."
Sorry but it is Friday and it has been a long week.
5
The Republican Party is the most destructive force in America.
6
A woman's right to choose, is irrelevant...that is to Trump, to the GOP congress and possibly to Kavanaugh. If their wives, women get pregnant, they'll always be able to pay for an abortion which will always be available for the right price.
The threat of doing away with Roe is another perfect example of distracting the country while Trump, his backers and the large business/cartels, continue to take control, steal money, disassemble our fights and destroy the middle and working classes. After all the philosophy of people like Rebekah Mercer is, your usefulness is measured by directly how wealthy you are.
We are in the middle of a bloodless coups d'é·tat.
If we don't turn this congress in the midterm, Roe will be the least of our problems.
An example, while we are abscessing over this outrage, the estimates of what the steel tarrif's will cost the working man are in and they are not pretty. Be prepared to pay a lot more for your cars and pickups.
I wonder what the Trump Syndicates commission will be from Ford and GM?
4
We don't need any more people. Sterilization should be free.
6
@Lori
So, how do you feel about your parents not being sterilized, or your mother not having an abortion?
"Abortion Rights" mean allowing mothers to kill their unborn children. And most Americans agree that an unborn child is a human being.
1
@Rolf: You're wrong about "most Americans."
“Poll: Nearly 70 Percent of Voters Don’t Want Roe v. Wade Overturned”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/poll-nearly-70-of-voters-do...
7
Maybe women should stop having sex with men and particularly Republican men. It probably would not take long for the pro-death anti-woman men to come around.
At least half of pregnancies are unwanted and unintended and men contributed to all of them. Women will always seek abortions and when abortion is illegal, women die. Unsafe illegal abortions are the leading cause of maternal death and the World Health Organization reports that over 70,000 women die every year from illegal unsafe abortions.
Pro-life is a misnomer. Those who oppose legal abortion are in favor of dead women, dead mothers, orphaned children. They are truly ghoulish pro-death.
7
The title of this article is so revolting I cannot bring myself to read it. How many cuts does it take to abort a fetus? Just too much to contemplate.
2
The dirty Republican Establishment secret: Roe v. Wade holds their party together. Republican legislators can be “pro-life”, never having to take an impactful vote. Without Roe, we would see a nationwide hand-to-hand combat shred the GOP. No Republican president will ever appoint a Supreme Court justice that would vote its overturn.
The dirtier secret: minorities have an abortion incidence of three times that of whites. *** White Republican mothers will always know how to help their distressed daughters. But the Republican establishment needs Roe so the clinics in Gary stay open, precluding a minority voter tsunami, and a “blue” Indiana, twenty years hence.
I said it was dirty.
***www.guttmacher.org/infographic/2017/abortion-rates-race-and-ethnicity
1
yes. when i hear susan collins brag that kavanaugh believes roe is settled law , i want to puke. i live mostly in the formerly great state of texas , where a woman’s health is not important. and education and all health standards are falling to the very bottom. the jesus freaks of the legislature, including women, have put onto place so many heinous laws that very few women in only a few, 3 or 4, cities can terminate even if severe to fatal complications in place. very very few doctors can legally perform the abortion procedure even when they, the doctor, believes it necessary. AND.., rates for non- vacinations are soaring. measles outbreak just this week in ultra-christian right-wing lilly white bastion, plano. this is EXACTLY what kavanaugh would allow, along with thomas, alito , truly scary gorsuch. they will continue to allow, encourage, backward states like texas to strengthen the boot of bigotry on our throats. god help us. this november election gets more important by the day. please, democrats, do not disintegrate into factions, democracy is at stake.
3
Only in leftist Bizarro World does killing a life mean “women’s reproductive health”.
I hope Kavanaugh is the vote that overturns the horrendous stain on the world known as Roe v Wade.
1
In spite of Republican efforts to cover up Kavanaugh's record and in spite of a well funded campaign to make Kavanaugh seem like a good guy, we know volumes about him. We know that whatever the Republicans are hiding would disqualify him. We know that he will lie during his confirmation hearings. We know he is so far out of the mainstream that he cannot see the banks of the river. We know that he will join Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch* and often Roberts in promoting the short term interests of the GOP at the expense of the country.
The task for all of us, and for the Democrats as our actors, is to find out what the disqualifer is that the Republicans are hiding, and use it to force him off the bench via resignation or impeachment. And then go after Gorsuch*.....
2
How Abortion Rights Will Die a Death by 1,000 ABORTIONS!
Women who have an unforeseen pregnancy might be able to use the stand your ground laws in some states, since it seems that they will be undergoing physical trauma not of their choosing in 8 to 9 months.
It seems the republicans value the "right to life" only until birth, then all bets are off.
3
The three main candidates were interviewed by Trump, in private. Kavanaugh was selected. Does anyone doubt that promises were made? This is the corruption of an already partisan court.
3
@Rich Fairbanks
Agreed. I believe to Trump overturning Roe is gravy, the meat of the matter is Kavanaugh's opinion that sitting presidents should not be inconvenienced by the prosecution of crimes. Trump chose Kavanaugh based upon what Kavanaugh can do for Trump. I would like to know if Trump demanded a loyalty oath from Kavanaugh. I'm even more interested in whether Kavanaugh gave it.
6
If promises were made to Trump, Kavanaugh would have to conceal them from Congress. That is a felony. Kavanaugh would be risking everything for this appointment and he would have to have faith that Trump would keep the secret. If he has that kind of faith, he's the dumbest Supreme Court nominee ever.
1
@michjas
I think Kavanaugh is quite capable of answering such a question using lawyerese to avoid felonious testimony.
Based on interviews from Senators who have met with him, Kavanaugh is perfecting the language he will use to skirt the question of whether or not Roe is settled law. He's assuring those like Susan Collins that Roe is settled, yet in his vehement dissent in the case of J.D., the pregnant teen held by immigration who wanted an abortion, Kavanaugh demonstrated he believes Roe is not settled law. He railed against what he called "abortion on demand". He used the phrase not once but thrice.
1
Casey allowed greater leeway to states that sought to restrict abortion rights. It had no effect on blue states, where abortion rights are secure. But it allowed restrictions in red states where the majority tend to oppose abortion. The red stares are the only battleground. Those in blue states are championing the rights of the red state minority. Red state abortion is shakey. But as long as we have Roe, pro-choice advocates will have the upper hand and the blue states will have nothing to fear.
1
Look, our decrepit constitution has determine that a tiny minority gets to dictate to the rest of us how we should live. As it happens most of what makes the US liveable is going to be destroyed until it looks like the 1890s again.
Anyone with any smarts would take the kids and get out. Other countries aren’t stupid. Maybe in 50 years the US might be worth living until but that’s not in my lifetime.
3
It would help if you knew something about the Constitution. Its whole purpose is to protect the minority against the tyranny of the majority, The rights of the few are always subject to majority prejudice and hatred. When the Justices protect the few against the many, they are doing what they were appointed to do.
1
If you've got money, you will be able to get a safe legal abortion. If you're poor you will have less options.
1
@Rob If you've got money you should do the right thing and fund organizations fighting to protect women's reproductive rights, like Planned Parenthood. If you've got money it is imperative that you do all you can to make sure abortion stays legal and safe.
4
why are we going backwards?? What is this 1950?? This shouldn't even be talked about!!! What about pollution and the environment?? What about the middle class and the poor??
Nobody wants to talk about things that matter and that will be gone in our lifetime unless action is taken !!!!
3
The description "Right to Life" is a lie. What it really amounts to is nothing other than "Forced Birth," Treating women like barnyard breeding stock.
To really bring human life into the world you need a birth that has been supported by adequate healthcare, nutrition and housing for the mother, then about twenty years of care, feeding, education, housing and love towards the child. Only then do you have a human life, rather than just a highly evolved primate.
Of course when it comes time to figure out how provide support to the mother and the twenty years of upbringing and support for infants born unwanted, unsupported, uncared-for, the "Forced Birth" crowd melt back into the woodwork. Not their problem! What pious hypocrites. "Right to Life" is simply easy ethics, not sincere morality.
10
Vote in November! Even if you didn't in November 2016.
1
@John Duffy
Yes!
And Democrats, verify now you haven't been dropped from the voter roll. This is especially important in Red States.
Vote!
5
It is shocking that a professor of law would actually pen such a speculative essay as this. Clearly the one driven by a political agenda is the author who has no basis for her assumptions other than pure prejudice and a desire to shape the supreme court as she would wish. The fact is America is still a democracy, and part of this democracy is the tradition of how Supreme Court judges are appointed. Sometimes the Court actually does represent the understanding of a majority of Americans, whether or not Ms. Mayeri or the NY Times likes it.
2
The very thought that a bunch of lying , thieving, self-serving politicians should have jurisdiction over a woman's life because of a bunch of religious fanatics ridiculous dogma just burns me up. Republicans are using this as an issue to fire up their religious base.
If you don't like abortions, fine, don't have one, but this is mainly a religions issue which has no place in government legislation. We have separation of Church and State, freedom of AND FROM religious dogma.
Anti abortion fanatics should mind their own sanctimonious business and leave women to make their own choices without fear of going to jail or face some other persecution for their choice.
4
If abortion is going back underground, I suppose that internet purveyors will start sending pills to do the job, and chat rooms will spring up, and "salons" will once again offer their services. Sigh. It's much less dangerous for real people, not straw women, to have legal access to abortion. If the Supreme Court goes against precedent in this case, I think we will all know precisely how corrupt the once august body has become, and how ineffective for the majority of Americans. It won't be the third branch of government anymore, just the executive's wagging tail.
32
Isn't this the same principle Democrats use to take away gun rights?
Voting for Democrats in November is imperative. Until there are enough Democrats in Congress to overturn a presidential veto, the Supreme Court will have an imbalance of power in this country and the rights of women and minorities will be weakened and imperiled.
This is the saddest time of my life. Reminds me of the fire hoses and German shepherd police dogs being sic'd on innocent black people in the South in the 50's and 60's. Today, it's the ultraconservative Republican party attacking us all.
4
“At the same time, Casey upheld states’ interest in protecting potential life ...”
Which part of a fetus is only potentially alive?
2
Will someone including this author PLEASE stop calling them "conservatives." They are radicals, reactionaries who wish this nation to become a theocracy. Wake up.
6
I am completely anti-insanity in the White House and most of the Trumpisms.
But Kavanaugh has affirmed to Democrats that "Roe vs Wade" is established case law and he will not change that.
So Ms. Mayeri, please check that fact before writing an article condemning the very possibly innocent Kavanaugh - granted on this point.
Let's stay sane on our side, if we're going to ask for sanity on theirs. No?
As others have pointed out, the end of Roe and Wade means the stark division of the country. California is now mulling the proposition to hand out abortion pills on college campuses. So imagine a future in which in Alabama flushing out an unwanted bunch of cells from your body is murder, while in San Francisco it is a routine medical procedure. Can the US survive as a unified country with such a stark cultural divide? I doubt it. Abortion has become a shorthand for a whole host of ideological and moral positions, from religion to feminism to attitudes to life and death. So the red states should prepare for the future of being a Third World country, with low economic growth, huge numbers of unwanted and mistreated children, and no science and technology to speak of, while the blue states will be the technological powerhouse of the world. But I guess for the theocrats this is a small price to pay for depriving women of the right to be human beings instead of breeding animals.
5
Republicans realize that no matter what happens to abortion rights that wealthy women will always be able to get safe abortions, legal or not.
2
Roe v Wade has been sliced over and over so much so that Abortion accessibility is as of now so precarious as to being non existent in very many places for so many young women and girls.
It would not be a bad thing to reargue it on the basis of the Equal protection.Something that RBG has in the not so distant past suggested.
9
We can learn from Lincoln here, get what you need not what you want.
He taught us that sometimes you have to put up with an evil in order to eliminate it.
He saved the union first and then ended slavery because without the former, he could not get the latter.
Same thing here, progressives did not follow his advice, instead of going slow on things like gay rights, abortion, transgender rights, they wanted everything, immediately whether the country was ready for it or not.
Do what he did, negotiate with your opponent, agree on no limit on first term abortions not abortion on demand, civil unions for gays, not gay marriage.
If you do that, you will more likely a guarantee on what you need, not what you want.
2
@Paul
Lincoln was into saving the union, not ending slavery. He freed the slaves (in areas controlled by the Confederacy) to weaken the South, and it worked. He could not conceive of former slaves living together with whites amicably in equality (even though there were some areas in the country where this was largely the case), and dreamed of somehow sending them back to Africa.
If you ask for half a loaf, you get a couple of slices or a stale and moldy half a loaf. Northern cities managed to remain segregated without explicit laws, and many areas still do.
2
@Paul Right-wing religious conservatives will NEVER be ready for equality and inclusion. It must be demanded.
3
Men Have the Same Rights as Women
A woman’s legal right to terminate pregnancy and a doctor’s choice to make a living destroying unborn babies has been decided by the courts in a vacuum. What right, if any, do men have to save their unborn, or at least to sue for damages for an abortion done without their consent?
The unborn are not legal persons but they are at least legal chattel with value to one or both parents. The fact that they grow only in the womb is not dispositive of paternal rights. Consider a man that agrees to plant his fruit tree in his neighbor’s backyard with the understanding that both will share the fruit equally.
If the neighbor decides to hire a tree cutter to chop down the tree, the man is clearly harmed. If the tree cutter knows of the agreement, the tree cutter may also be liable in damages. Ownership of the land does not negate all rights of sharecroppers.
Next consider a law school hypothetical where a state’s law subjects an abortionist to civil damages for abortions performed without consent and additionally requires the retention of a genetic sample for potential litigation.
Row held that Texas may not criminalize medical abortion but was silent as to the civil rights of the father.
Casey related to state regulations but did not address the private civil rights of loving fathers that have nothing to do with weighing undue burden standards and state interests.
Do not men have the same right to procreate as women?
1
@Eugene Patrick Devany Fathers have parental rights toward born children and these rights have been legally recognized. They have no right over a portion of a woman’s anatomy. My uterus belongs to me alone, and I alone can dispose of its contents. Your analogy is flawed because it does not take into account the fact that until the moment of birth the fetus is an invader in my body and I can expel it if I so choose under the provisions pertaining to self-defense. If a man can gestate a fetus on his own, he is welcome to do so. Incidentally, in cases where the ownership of frozen embryos was contested, the courts generally ruled that a person, whether male or female, cannot be made a parent against their will, and that embryos should be destroyed if the two sides cannot agree on their disposition.
7
@Eugene Patrick Devany
" What right, if any, do men have to save their unborn, or at least to sue for damages for an abortion done without their consent?"
None, because "their unborn" is not in their body, and they have no right to force a woman to use her body to gestate their fetuses. This is for the same reason that they cannot force women to have sex with them.
"Do not men have the same right to procreate as women?"
No, they actually do, and the right to abortion is consistent with men and women having equal rights to procreate. Men have every right to decide what fetuses they will gestate with their bodies. They do NOT have the right to force a woman to have a baby for them. Do you think that men should be able to rape women so that they can exercise their right to procreate? It's the same thing. A man does not have authority over how I use my body, what happens to my body, or what medical risks I take. He does not have veto power over my health.
The fact that you had to analogize women's bodies to PROPERTY to make your point should show you how wrong your argument is.
You heard it here first, folks: women's bodies are basically like property.
Your obsession with forcing a woman who DOESN'T want to have your baby to give birth for you is creepy. Want a baby? Find a woman who is willing to have one with you. Not one who isn't.
6
@Mor Your gut feelings about the law are common and understandable. You mention "frozen embryos" a procedure often used in surrogate parenting. Clearly, the "fetus is [not] an invader" in the surrogate mother. If the surrogate decided to have an abortion the person on the other end of the contract is damaged and entitled to civil remedy. A father who wants a child from sexual intercourse has at least the same rights as the contractual terms generally provide in surrogate parenting - and likely much more. Consensual sexual relations without contraception is an implied contract. Indeed, the father can be compelled to pay for necessary medical expenses for the child in utero - married or not.
The legal suggestion that fathers have no rights until a child is born is simply wrong. I agree that the extent of those rights have yet to be adjudicated. I also understand that the law is not what a particular litigant or judge wants it to be. Both the constitution and the legislatures play a big part. That is why we need judges willing to follow the law.
1
A remarkably distorted piece of writing from a law professor. Roe did not make abortion legal, it made it a constitutional right. Big difference. Do you really think that abortion will be illegal in Massachusetts or New York if Roe is overturned? In other words, the parameters of abortion will be left to the states. Overturning Roe does not mean that abortion will be illegal in the US. Professor Mayeri knows better.
Also, keep in mind that Roe has been the gift that keeps on giving since it was decided. A better fundraising tool for the left and the right has never existed. A wise justice may vote to keep the goldmine open. Overturning Roe will end the gravy train.
1
And every single person woman or man who failed to vote for HRC in 2016 is to blame. You failed to continue the fight we began and were successful in - for the healthcare rights of women. I'm angry with all of you - not so much for you, but for the generations of women yet to come. YOU BLEW IT!
4
When a judge refers to current legal practice as “settled law,” it indicates absolutely nothing about how they might rule on said issue if they had the opportunity.
I smell a politician.
4
We need to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment so that we can all stop looking over our shoulder all the time. We only need one more state and we can amend the US Constitution once and for all and end this eternal tango.
2
To better educate the public, it would be useful to always use the term "legal abortion" rather than simply "abortion". Only if you were an adult by the Supreme Court's 1973 decision can you possibly understand what occurs when abortion cannot be obtained legally and safely.
1
As the rulers tighten abortion restrictions, they bring into relief the chasm between law and ethics. In correct ethics, when a woman goes to a hospital or clinic, choosing abortion or other medical procedure, the medical center has an obligation to respect her autonomy. As abortion restrictions tighten, they face the dilemma of respecting the patient's autonomy or following the law, engaging in medical insubordination against women.
The conflict between law and ethics is not limited to respecting the rights of patients. During the Holocaust, those who acted correctly were few and far between, deserving great admiration.
Journalists have faced this dilemma when ordered by the rulers to reveal confidential sources, such as the case of Judith Miller. A more noteworthy example of this conflict, dramatized in "The Post," when the NYT was under a court order not to publish any further news stories based on the Pentagon Papers, with full knowledge of legal and financial risks, Graham, Bradlee and the Washington Post debated -- but wouldn't crack under the pressure -- and followed the standard of correct ethics, a bright beacon for future journalists.
With the Kavanaugh appointment, we will find ethically correct doctors few and far between. Doctors are in the business of medicine, and business people are not known for the
strength of their moral backbone.
3
Thanks yet again to the "progressives" who helped to defeat (the admittedly flawed) Hillary. You gave us Trump and the Republicans who go with him, and this is what we get. Shame on every one of you.
9
If Republicans have their way, eventually, abortion will be illegal under all circumstances. Keep in mind Republicans also want to relax rape laws and make female contraception harder to obtain.
As such, we stand a good chance of witnessing a time when any given female in the US who is able to give birth may find herself compelled by the US government to risk her life for that of her unborn if a problem occurs during her pregnancy, because it will be illegal for anyone to save her life if her pregnancy puts her at risk.
Meanwhile, abroad, Republicans will still pursue pre-emptive strikes on other countries in order to hijack those countries' markets of certain resources, without offering escape routes or shelter for pregnant women in those countries. See Iraq as a reference. I wonder why those unborn didn't and won't matter.
And speaking of unborn who don't matter: wealthy Republican women will go overseas for their abortions, and wealthy Republican men will pay for those abortions and for those of their mistresses, all while sternly lecturing everyone back home on the evils of abortion.
Could the raging hypocrisy be any thicker?
12
I'm absolutely convince that Brett Kavanaugh nomination will be the last thing that effectively wipe out the semblance of our democracy.
He cannot be trusted, he was already caught lying under oath back in 2006 to the Senate Judiciary Committee. and since that never responded to Senator Durbin letter dated 2007 to clarify his misleading statements. "Here’s what Senator Durbin tweeted today: “In 2007 I sent Brett Kavanaugh this letter asking to explain his inaccurate and misleading testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. I’m still waiting for an answer.” Of course, “inaccurate and misleading” is a fancy way of saying that he lied under oath – which is also known as perjury. Durbin included a copy of his detailed original 2007 letter to Durbin.
So where does this get us?"
Not to forget, if you lied under oath it should completely disqualify anyone for any position in the public office.
Also, considering his imperial views on presidential power, how a president cannot be burden with any investigation when he holds the office. It was a different tune during Ken Starr investigation of Clinton.
10
The word “conservative” is meaningless now. The Republican Party is not conservative. It is radical, corrupt, and destructive. They are not concerned with conserving the rule of law, the environment, NATO, normal process in the Senate, or dollars in the Treasury.
The Democratic Party is now the more conservative of the two major parties, in the original sense of the word.
(There is no truly left-wing party in America, Republican slurs notwithstanding.)
6
Unfortunately, I don’t think it will be that simple. It’s more likely, in my view, that we will gradually develop a 2 tier United States. One part will look more like a totalitarian theocracy and the other like a modern liberal state founded on Enlightment principles. For my whole life I have watched the GOP try to dismantle the Great Society, then the New Deal and this will be a severe blow to Appomattox.
6
For all the ballyhoo about ridding companies of sexual predators such as Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, Bill O'Reilly et al., what has changed in the common-sense desire for basic equality?
A woman can run for president, sit on the Supreme Court even, yet not have the right to determine what she wants for her body? The hypocrisy doesn't sting, It burns.
Rape, incest, predatory intercourse that result in pregnancy would be rendered moot if Roe v Wade or protections like it such as Casey are overturned or chipped away at by a conservative Supreme Court, a likelihood if Kavanaugh is confirmed.
It is beyond backward to me to have this country's highest laws permit anyone other than a woman herself to choose.
For all the talk about our country's strong women leaders in so many areas, men still want to have 100% exclusive control of what constitutes a woman's rights.
Frankly, it's pathetic and wrong.
7
The fact that Serena Mayeri disagrees with how she anticipates Kavanaugh to rule on abortion -- is that evidence that he would reject the rule of law?
SCOTUS appointments have been contentious for a long time, and criticisms of SCOTUS rulings go at least as far back as Jefferson, a slave-owning president, accusing SCOTUS judges of "twistification."
One criticism of Trump in the opinion section is that Trump will abolish the rule of law; hence, we can ask whether his SCOTUS appointments, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh provide evidence of Trump using these appointments to end the rule of law.
Mayeri has not presented any such evidence, only her opinion as a constitutional scholar about the sequel of SCOTUS rulings based on the Planned Parenthood v. Casey case, now the current SCOTUS holding and precedent (before Kavanaugh is seated.)
If Mayeri or anyone has such evidence, why haven't they presented it in the NYT?
Given its Howling Outrage at everything Trump, even when the President is merely exercising free speech rights, you might think it would consider publishing any such evidence with eager zeal.
If, on the other hand, Kavanaugh will follow the rule of law, what compelling reason, other than petty partisanship or contrariness, can they offer to reject his nomination?
4
Again, the press does a disservice in its use of language. Those whose ideology might be termed conservative do not necessarily support 'big business', corporate interests, etc. The term for those who put the governmental relationship primarily in line with business/commerce rather than the populace is labelled fascist.
See www.campbellonpoliticsphilosophy.net for a more detailed discussion.
Government exists at the intersection of commerce and populace and must choose which has primacy of relationship. If tilted toward commerce, it is fascist; if tilted toward populace it is socialist. Real simple ... and it always tilts one way or the other. Today we are seeing a very strong tilt towards fascism ...
1
The choice of words in this opinion piece -- cuts, death, gut -- without a trace of irony relative to the brutal violence of the abortion procedure!
And while we're at it, opponents to abortion are not opponents to all women having access to necessary and timely and affordable health care. We are opponents of destroying life, of any kind.
2
@Ken
"We are opponents of destroying life, of any kind."
Therefore you must also be anti- death penalty, stand-your-ground laws, and war.
You are also pro- common sense gun legislation, the establishment of a national data base of gun owners, and mandatory background checks.
All of the above issues are concerned with providing for the individual and public welfare of already birthed sentient humans.
5
@Ken So I assume you are a vegetarian? I am because I don’t approve of the brutal violence of industrial agriculture. On the other hand, I am a supporter of abortion rights because when an unwanted fetus is taking over my body, it is no different from any other disease. And I am justified in taking any measures, no matter how traumatic to your tender sensibilities, to cure myself.
5
@Ken-such tired arguments. Of course I'm opposed to the death penalty, and as well to the proliferation of guns. Equally to puppy mills and the abuse of farm animals.
Relying on the hypocrisies of some pro-lifers is a weak (and absurd) way of rationalizing the destruction of unborn children.
This article brings to light the the dangers to abortion rights. For too long the attention as been centered on Roe. But that is misdirection. All the while there was shouting about maintaining Roe, the anti-abortionist have chipped away piece by piece at accessibility. The restriction on where these can be done has diminished the sites. Allowing protesters to be close enough that they can throw blood on the people coming into a facility has an impact. Defining what must be included in the informed consent is designed to put barriers up that have nothing to do with patient safety. Understand, even if Roe was over turned abortions would happen. For the poor, in basements and back rooms. Those are where the number of maternal deaths will significantly rise and become the leading cause of maternal deaths as they were before Roe. For the wealthy, they will occur in hospitals and outpatient surgery centers. But they will be for a missed miscarriage, or abnormal bleeding; "Boy, it looks like her bleeding was from a miscarriage she was having." One thing that maintains Roe, is it was based on the right to privacy. If it is overturned, that will start the chipping away process and have implications far from abortion.
3
If you want to maintain the right of abortion you need to convince a majority of your fellow citizens that abortion is a medical procedure and not the murder of an unborn child. This, of course, requires that pro-choice advocates address an uncomfortable question: When does human life begin?
Any number of countries have put the question of abortion where it belongs - in the hands of the people or their elected representatives - rather than in the hands of an unelected elite. We should do the same here in the US.
6
@J. Waddell
Why is that the question? Why is there any question that includes the general public? Why does it have to be a black and white issue? Is a vasectomy child murder or a medical procedure? Are birth control or the morning after pill the public's business or the individual's? I'll bet you believe in the right to privacy when it's yours. Why are Republicans and anti-choice folks such hypocrites?!
3
Confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh is a foregone conclusion. The question is: can Congress be made to pass laws that make sense?
2
The right of women's dominion over their own bodies is not going to go away, anymore than the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness will.
It will be just a matter of how much the male hierarchy will get their courts and legislators to enact temporary hindrances and infringements upon those rights.
Women are going to enact their reproductive freedoms regardless if there are doctors willing to help or not. This has been a fact before Roe or Casey, and will go on until the end of time, regardless if Kavanaugh is on the bench.
Having said all that, there will come a tipping point (perhaps at only a 100 cuts instead of a thousand), where the populace will no longer remain docile and compliant. The state (radically right that it is) will have overreached and will have made the burden to exercise any human right too high and heavy a burden.
I believe we are already past that tipping point.
47
@Barry DeWalt
Not to my body, it doesn't.
3
Abortion is an extremely personal, a truly emotionally charged decision that affects a woman's heart, mind, and spirit. Woman are faced with making this decision for a host of reasons.
I can't believe the subject of abortion along with the availability of the various needs regarding a woman's' reproductive health is being threatened again, now by Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court.
This anti-choice dispute is fought on the battleground of religious belief, clouded by ethical reflection. No religious point of view nor ethical reflection will ever change the basic fact that tragedy is a reality of our lives and how we handle it is personal.
Djt does not give a rip about the demise of a woman's right of choice. This is a win for he racks up points with his evangelist following.
Vote and take back the majority of the house and senate. Take back our freedom of choice.
7
As the author writes, the larger fight is not one of conscience versus individual reproductive rights. It is a fight by the Right to enforce patriarchal control and reduce individual liberties in favour of libertarian ideals against the wellbeing of the majority of the population. It pits selfishness and self-interest above community and cooperation. Each issue of Right versus Left play out in a similar manner where the discussion is framed in terms of an obfuscating principle debated endlessly, obscuring the true nature of the Rights' intensions.
The vast majority of the population respect others' rights and understand we live in communities where people must work together and support one another. By falling for the endless baiting about conscience versus reproductive rights and other arguments about individual responsibility versus social programmes, for instance, we fail to perceive the congruity in the restrictive legislation being forced on us across a range of social and economic issues by oligarchs. This is a dishonest and subversive approach to patiently wrest democracy from the jaws of the populace and seed true power to those with wealth.
The current Administration's egregious attacks on society, supported by Republican legislators, is a godsend in terms of raising awareness about what is occurring. Democracy is being undermined both from within and abroad and we must clearly identify that danger before we can address the true threat to liberty and wellbeing.
66
@Edinburgh, as the author writes, they are not libertarians. They are only libertarians for corporations and powerful people.
47
Libertarianism is only for the corporations and the wealthy. Anyone claiming otherwise is a fool or in one of the aforementioned groups
10
While I agree, I also see a larger issue.
The distinction between strict scrutiny to protect Constitutional rights and undue burden on Constitutional rights is nowhere found in the Constitution.
It is an artifact of judges who sought to avoid fully enforcing some Constitutional rights for some people. It is a way of say, "Yes, it is a right, but no, we are not going to enforce it like we do other rights."
It was a way around Constitutional rights. Yeah, you've got 'em, but no, you can't really enforce them.
I don't see any prospect of any near term Court actually facing this issue. Still, we need to acknowledge this as a way around our rights, as a mechanism used to deny rights.
Do we need it? No. We could do openly what is really underneath it. We could admit that rights conflict, and must be balanced off against each other. We could weight one's rights against another's rights.
We don't want to do that. We'd rather always be enforcing rights, never a loser. But then, we have losers anyway, we just pretend.
The pretense does what this story illustrates.
2
I agree that the Kavanuagh confirmation will be a disaster. But as a 65 year old woman who fought for abortion rights in my youth I must say that one of my primary frustrations is with the ensuing generations of women who assumed these rights were a given. And who often viewed my generation as hard nosed feminist bra burners. They just "got on with their lives". Well, here we are again. I beg the younger generations to activate your voices and vote and insist on RESPECT for our rights. Good luck. I will support you any way I can but it's your turn now.
146
@Karen Mauch
The real problem is that abortion is not a real right. It wasn't in the Constitution; the Supreme Court just pretended it was. But if the people vote to make it legal, that's all that's needed.
@Karen Mauch
I agree, younger generations of women don’t appreciate or even understand what generations of women before them endured, first for the right to vote and then for abortion rights.
To Charlesbalpha,
Paraphrasing Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
Denying women the right to abortion denies us full autonomy and full equality with men. It denies us equal protection under the law.
8
@Karen Mauch
Agree !!!!!! I did my part to get these rights for younger women, now it is their turn to see what it is like to fight to keep them.
2
I really hope you are right. Just one more reason that I am ecstatic about Mr. Trump. Best president since Lincoln.
2
@JP
How many people have you adopted?
4
It is time for people to realize that restricting or abolishing legal abortion does not stop abortion - it simply drives it underground. Desperate women determined to end an unwanted pregnancy will find a way, be it through a backstreet "clinic" or self inflicted injury.
Sadly, some will die from infection, others will be physically scarred and many rendered infertile. The mental trauma of a crude backstreet abortion without anesthesia will superimpose profound emotional distress on an already difficult situation. Is that really what we want?
179
@D. Ben Moshe
And people of means will always be able to go wherever necessary to get one.
30
@D. Ben Moshe:
You ask, "Is that really what we want?" It's what millions of conservative zealots want. They don't care that women will die as a result of botched abortions. On the contrary; they look at it as justice.
The animus against abortion is, I believe, for the vast majority of these people, about punishing women. Punishing women for sex. As far as they're concerned, one less woman "sinning" against their God is fine by them.
101
@D. Ben Moshe
It is not what most sane people want but that is what those anti-choice activists want. They think that doing away with choice will continue to give them opportunities to change society and make everyone religiously "good". Religion unfortunately falsely skews their minds. Before a woman's right to chose became legal, all these terrible things mentioned in Moshe's comment happened. And now they could happen again. How insane is that?
17
As far as I can see this change in status would not effect rich people at all. They will be free to travel to states and even countries who have evolved past theocratic rule (Always wanted to visit Ireland). So this is really just another way that the 99% will be inconvenienced for being poor. Abortion needs to come out of the closet like gay people did. It has to be shown to be common among politicians, businesswomen and religious people. Even if someone didn't go through with the procedure, they should be honest about whether it was comforting to know it was an option. Only then will it become apparent to lawmakers that they are dealing with an issue that will jeopardize their jobs. Show them that this death by 1,000 cuts will be fought with an equal number of votes.
195
@Rick Gage, "affect" (again). Of course the content is correct. We all knew this, I hope.
5
@Rick Gage - Of course. the rich pay with only money, of which they have lots. The poor can pay for the rest of their lives, or by breaking the law. As usual, no justice for the poor.
13
@Thomas Zaslavsky Thank you Tom. You love the English language as much as I do, so I appreciate you keeping me honest. I just question if your methods will be affective.
5
It's about whether a woman controls her body or the government does. Should the government be able to force women to continue pregnancies? Do a thought experiment. Should the government be able to force you to donate an organ to save a life?
9
If the country can be turned into a theocracy thanks to a single judicial appointment, the idea we are a democracy appears delusional. Our constitution has been mangled beyond recognition by special interests and their politicians. None of this could have happened if we'd had a public school system that required competency in critical thinking skills. That component of the curriculum was excised by republicans as democrats passively looked on. When citizens can't think for themselves they turn to authority figures. As Trump supporters lose medical coverage, retirement benefits, safe air and water, they double down on their leader. They are the person(s) Trump claimed he could shoot and kill on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. We, the great majority of the population, are collateral damage.
3
While the rest of the world is moving into the future the US is embracing centuries past. What’s next on the Republican docket? Revoking our right to vote? Denying us birth control? Why do Republican men need to control women? Why do Republican women go along with it?
It is absurd in this day and age that men, Republican and DINO, are making decisions concerning women’s health, including reproductive health, and yes, that includes the right to abortion.
American women are stuck with a Republican in every uterus. It’s time for an extraction.
8
"Senators who vote yes will bear responsibility for all of them."
Yes they will. And that will not deter them in the least.
2
Where in the Constitution does it state anything about bodily functions - no where! Women are equal to men and the government should not tell women what do with their bodies. The fight over abortion is the GOP way of making women unequal to men. The Catholic Church with its track record of covering up sexual assault should leave this debate. Trump and the so called Christian Right are hypocrites they have no moral standing. These groups want to provide superior Constitution rights fetuses over living women citizens.
The senate should ask Bett Kavanaugh what article of the Constitution has an exclusion to treat women differently than men! This debate should not be about abortion, it should about basic human rights of equal protection under the law.
5
Got it. Kavanaugh isn't the end of the world, just the end of a century of progress. Well, that's a relief. We wouldn't want to inject any hyperbole into the discussion.
4
Foolish people who think enacting laws will stop abortions are deluded. All the laws will do is make it more difficult for desperate women to get one. But women will find a way, as they always have, though many of these ways will be unsafe and more will die in the process than when it was legal. So much for the pro-lifers. We WILL find ways to get mifepristone pills.
4
Republicans have successfully used Roe vs Wade as a distraction during countless election cycles.
Maybe responding that it was a Landmark decision to avoid falling into a fruitless arguement would be more beneficial.
Just state that fact explain it is more important to move on and focus on the here and now.
Income inequality, the standard of living falling, the need to raise the minimum wage, lack of healthcare, cost of prescription drugs, the astronomical cost of childcare for working people, violence in schools. The stress people are under caring for aging parents, helping their children entering a stagnant workforce and raising grandchildren is ruining the quality of life for the majority of citizens. The recent tax overhaul did not help the average citizen.
That approach would force the Republicans to address actual problems their constituents face. Put Roe vs Wade in perspective, on a scale what is the priority, your family or a Supreme Court decision?
2
I support the nomination of Bret Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and look forward to his magnanimous conformation. And I sincerely hope that President Donald J. Trump will have the splendid opportunity before he leaves office in 2025 to appoint Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. America needs a Supreme Court that does not legislate from the bench, a Supreme Court that does not read between the lines of the Constitution but rather interprets the Constitution, which I and most other Americans consider a sacred document, as the Framers intended it to be interpreted, the Right way, not the wrong (Left) way. Thank you.
2
Ireland recently decided to legalize abortion. Italy legalized abortion years ago.
"Abortion in Italy became legal in May 1978, when Italian women were allowed to terminate a pregnancy on request during the first 90 days. A proposal to repeal the law was considered in a 1981 national referendum, but was rejected by nearly 68% of voters; another referendum aimed at eliminating the restrictions was rejected by 88.4%."
Note that in both cases, it was the PEOPLE of Italy and Ireland who made the decision. With America, the Supreme Court has taken the issue out of the hands of the people.
And THIS is the reason why we still have so many conflicts over abortion.
Overturning Roe v Wade will not make abortion illegal. It will return it to the states and most states will continue to make it legal, but with restrictions, similar to what Italy has and what Ireland is contemplating.
Abortion on demand for six months is inhuman and not necessary. The sooner that pro-choice people see this, and recover some of their humanity, the better. But as long as we pretend that a 22 week old fetus, with beating heart and functioning organs is a "part of the woman's body", we will treat its life as having no value.
3
Ludwig! That’s a man’s name! I say that when you get pregnant, you may have a say so in this debate. Until that time....a woman’s life is her’s to live..you stay out of the abortion debate.
2
Ms. Mayeri is correct. Abortion rights are not the only constitutional rights under attack. Voting Rights, Non-discrimination Rights, Equal Rights, Civil Rights are threatened by small-minded, anti-democratic GOP-led State legislatures. Anectodally, many elected State officials make righteous statements defending their attacks on non-whites, women, unmarried adults with children, the LGBT community, and non-Christian religions as protecting the Constitution. Remembering we now are living in opposite world, where up is down, the malicious and often punitive attacks discard rights, freedoms, and justice for all. A country is not a democracy if one race of people, one political party, and/or one religion get all the rights and freedoms they deem acceptable within small comfort zones.
It is no one’s business what individual women decide to do reproductively. Restricting or eliminating choice, and other rights, is government intrusion to the extent of making women and others invisible, second-class humans.
10
I am an adopted child. I was born in 1950 and adopted in 1950 when abortion was illegal. For years I wrestled with abortion pro and con.
Then one day I realized that men have control over their bodies and women should have the same rights. There are costs associated with abortion physical and mental as well as religious. Those cost factors are for the individuals to assess if there are partners then it can be a mutual decision.
While I was fortunate to have been adopted at 2 months old there are many children never adopted. I was also fortunate to have had loving parents who adopted me.
It's a horror that women be forced to give birth to unwanted children and it's a horror what unwanted children endure after birth if they are not fortunate as I was. It's insane to force women to carry out an unwanted pregnancy and then provide no help for that child after birth.
The decision to allow a pregnancy to continue is for the woman and possibly involve her partner. Not for a government to mandate.
11
The Democrats under Chuck Schumer just voted to fast-track ALL of Trump judicial appointments before leaving town for the holiday. It would have taken only ONE Senator to stop this. Not one Democrat stood up and objected to hold up these nominees. The result? Mitch McConnell now has an open lane to pass all of Trump's appointments to a lifetime on the bench. One of the nominees was judged to be "Not Qualified" by the ABA. Over 60 of Trumps nominees have been confirmed, a record set by any president. And this is your Democratic "resistance" Chuck? This was baffling to me until I realized that the Democrats are bought and paid for by the same corporate donors as the Republicans. It's like two brands of some corporate conglomerate competing, with the company making money either way. Here, either way the donors get what they want having hedged their bets on both parties. And Democrats wonder why people vote Third Party or not even vote at all. I think we all know, deep down, that Kavanaugh will be sitting on the Supreme Court by this time next year, and it will give Democrats yet another reason to feign moral outrage and use it as an excuse to deflect attention away from their internal corruption and total lack of vision and leadership. But hey, as long as the donor money keeps rolling in, they'll take it.
8
As Obama said, "Elections have consequences" and the election of 2016 promised that. The division of the Democratic party by Sanders and Stein made Hillary Clinton seem to be some kind of evil tool of the system while Donald Trump's picked up some steam. I am convinced that Bernie's failure to actively support her and Stein's meme of "The lesser of two evils is still evil" undermined critical thought regarding the Supreme Court, by far the most important, if somewhat obscured, issue of that election. Thank Jill and Bernie for the rightist Supreme Court.
7
I really do not think Kavanaugh will overturn Roe/Casey, at least not unless the right gets more S. Ct. justices. It might happen bit by bit, as suggested, or all at once. But, I think as science progresses and Americans become more accustomed to seeing into the womb and cannot avoid recognizing that the fetus is a baby, views may change too. Those I realize it is anathema to most people reading/writing here, people might want fetuses to have more rights. It is ironic that the writers of this headline, concerned that abortion rights will "die," seem to be unaware that more abortion "rights" means more actual human dying.
Women's health is important too. So is the treatment and opportunities of the baby after birth and things like dignity and freedom, etc. All of it is important.
If you listen to those who worked with him, Kavanaugh seems like someone who will take precedent and the views of others into consideration. Of course, like all justices, he will have biases and have to pretend they will not affect him. I realize that many people who would otherwise vote for him in past days are caught up in the frenzy of ideology, by Garland's treatment, by "lock her up," by Trump's personality, etc. and will vote accordingly.
McCain's plea for more across-the-aisle consideration will be buried with him today. The outpouring of grief for him by those who rejected his ideas in life - even his friends - is momentary and possible only because he can no longer vex them.
Abortion rights is just the first step. People forget that birth control was once illegal; prior to a 1965 Supreme Court ruling (Griswold v. Connecticut), it was illegal in many states to distribute pills, or even distribute information about birth control. Until 1972 (Eisenstadt v. Baird), it was illegal for unmarried couples to use birth control.
Several states have already drafted new legislation in this area.
17
Some people believe that abortions are morally unjustifiable and that's okay. The Supreme Court doesn't have the authority or distinction to deprive them the right to live in society that reflects that belief. Instead, social issues like this one should be decided by our votes. Returning abortion rights to the states where they have always belonged being the fair solution. Every small portion of the country deciding for itself what actions should be illegal.
1
Your point makes sense, but we also balance majority rule with minority rights. That’s where (especially) federal law and federal courts come in.
Maybe each state should be able to decide on restrictions, but women should also have some fundamental rights in every state. We can pretend that each state will choose what is right for its residents, but there are counter-pressures. Not only corruption, which is harder to contest now that local media is in decline, but strategic problems like rule by the biggest voting minority, religious rule, and the race to the bottom (lowering local standards to attract investment) result in a falling quality of life, especially for minorities.
Reforms to give minorities some influence (Australian ballot voting, independent redistricting, proportional voting, etc.) are difficult without the legislative power that minorities lack, and that means minorities (including women) lose protections over time. This article discusses how that loss can be categorical (reverse Roe) or incremental (reinterpret Cassey).
The problem with abortion is even pro-choice people often see it as a kind of tragedy, but pro-life people may not see forcing a girl to bring an unplanned pregnancy to term as another kind of tragedy. Some faiths even fail to find empathy for girls in cases of rape or incest. So, some women can travel, but locals can take away poor girls’ rights on faith, denying them basic autonomy, despite the First Amendment, others, & caselaw.
6
@Matai
No one has ever proposed making law to force those morally opposed to abortion to have one. Yet religious zealots want to impose their beliefs on everyone especially women. Let’s call it what it is — Christian Sharia Law.
Protecting abortion rights is about protecting the rights of women to make decisions related to their bodies and health. It is really that simple.
Laws weakening or banning abortion violate the establishment clause.
What other “social issues” do you wish to allow states to decide?
This is a country of many religions and no religion. Why should SOME religious views make policy for ALL Americans? The very idea is most decidedly un-American.
3
@Matai. Sure. As long as I get to vote on whether the state to commandeer your body for whatever purpose for nine months just so society will reflect my views. How about a referendum on say, whether Christians must perform free child care for some portion of the year. That’d be ok to single out a class to compel control over their bodies, right?
2
Of course, there is no other way than for women to control their own body! Fellow men, imagine for one moment that carrying out a pregnancy happened inside you. Would you allow for anyone, let alone women, to decide if you do or you don‘t?
At the same time, for many reasons, terminations are best done as soon as possible once the decision has been made. Surgical abortions are messy. Later stage abortions carry exponentially higher risks for the mother and future pregnancies. And, without being revisionist, one needs to recognize that medical progress has contributed to moral dilemma by continuously lowering the survivable gestational age, currently around 21 weeks.
Anybody wants to really help the issue, that is let the women control their bodies and avoiding as many late procedural abortions as possible, there is one excellent way to work towards both camps: Early education, best starting in elementary and intensifying in middle and high school, regarding sexuality and safe sex practices. Easy access to the day after pill. Unrestricted access for pregnancy testing of all ages. Walk-in entry to provider network with availability of RU486. And, not to forget: Educate and force the hands of men in power who by ignorance, patronage or both devastate the lives of so many.
By universal adoption most unwanted pregnancies could be stopped with a pill until 10th gestational weeks (1 inch size of embryonal cells in the uterus). Surgical abortions would become rare as a result.
11
@Martin S.
Surgical abortions are already rare.
Otherwise an excellent comment.
2
@Martin S. What you appear to suggest (no abortions after 10 weeks?) would not allow for terminations due to birth defects, which cannot be identified until after 20 weeks, nor for endangerment to a woman's health or even her life. Recall the Irish dentist who died due to a septic miscarriage in her second trimester?
1
@Cal. I am sorry if my text can be understood this way. I meant to say that by improving education, birth control, access to testing, day after pill and RU485, the majority of unwanted pregnancies could be avoided or terminated non-invasively at a very early stage.
There always will be situations where late stage terminations are necessary for a variety of medical and non-medical reasons. The preventive measures described should help to keep the number of late stage abortions low without infringing on women's rights.
The trajectory of abortion rights law from Roe to Casey to the present seems inevitable if only because, by 1973, at the time of the Roe decision, only four states allowed unrestricted abortions in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. Leaving aside the constitutional reasoning this was a dramatic political decision where the court got way out in front of public opinion. The last 45 years of never-ceasing arguments and pitched battles around this rather flimsily constructed judicial edifice can be seen as a way of reconciling general opinion (particularly state by state) with these newly acknowledged rights. Will it now go back to the states? I tend to doubt it. Likely there will be more restrictions in some states but Roe as modified by Casey will probably mostly survive even with Kavanaugh on the Court.
Don't understand why the focus on Kavenaugh. All of this could be equally said of any nominee of a Republican president these days.
And none of these feared Scotus rulings would suborn states that protect themselves. For example, a GOP ruling on the so-called 'personhood' of a fetus from the moment of conception. (And we wonder why the national GOP has not pushed very hard for this.)
The real problem is that too many Democrats in too many states simply knuckled under to the GOP gerrymanderers, letting them control the statehouses.
9
"And abortion rights are one of many inevitable casualties of this appointment. Senators who vote yes will bear responsibility for all of them."
Professor Mayeri doesn't exaggerate the consequences of a Kavanaugh appointment, not least to the environment.
But it is the voters who will ultimately bear responsibility for Kavanaugh's appointment. Republicans are just doing what Republicans do, and knowing that the people of this country still voted them into power.
Elections have consequences, something that too many Americans (though not many conservatives) really still don't seem to get.
13
Kavanaugh has stated repeatedly that Roe v Wade is established law. Nothing in his numerous court rulings would suggest that he would overturn a Supreme Court precedent. If Mayeri is so concerned about the single focus of her fear regarding Roe v Wade, then it is incumbent upon her to work at the state level to ensure access. This is where the true battleground is taking place. When the Courts, which have shifted more towards States Rights, allow states to regulate or impose restrictions, then it is a result of what the citizens of that state prefer. Mayeri fails to understand that the diversity of thought regarding sanctity of life and a women's right to choose is the crux of the matter and the imposition of Progressive Ideals upon those who refute her ideology is where her loss will entail.
3
@Mike No progressive is trying to force their beliefs on anyone. To the contrary, progressives believe that having an abortion or not should be an individual choice open to all women. Also, the majority of citizens of the US support abortion rights. No one who is against abortion will be forced to have one. It is the rights of women, all women, including those who do not choose to have a child, who are not in a position to afford and be able to care for a child, that pro-choice people (not only progressives) are supporting.
4
@Mike
Recently Kavanaugh dissented on a ruling concerning a pregnant teen being held by ICE. She wanted an abortion. Kavanaugh wanted to block it.
An excerpt from my comment on ‘A Kavanaugh Signal on Abortion?’ by Linda Greenhouse, July 18, 2018.
“That Kavanaugh wrote “abortion on demand” not once but three times tells us exactly how he will vote if Roe is challenged before the court. He will impose his personal beliefs on women. He has claimed he believes in upholding settled law, however, based on his dissent in the case of J.D. he did not rule that way. This means to him Roe v Wade is not settled law. He will vote to overturn,”
No one religious belief system should impact the lives of all American women. Women’s healthcare rights should not be dependent upon nor determined by which state of our union she lives in. This seems to be a concept Republican men have difficulty grasping.
The male Republican need to deny women the right to full autonomy by restricting and / or banning abortion is about exerting power over us. It’s time for all of you to join the 21st century. We Women are your equals, we are not your chattel.
2
@Mike
Only red states have their rights respected. Blue states almost invariably are chained by the right wing courts.
1
The devotion of Republicans to fetuses is matched only by their indifference to children and mothers. The USA is one of the most dangerous places in the world for a woman to give birth; the death rates are unacceptably high, partly because so many women can't afford the costs involved. If any Republican came up with a proposal for a "maternal Medicare" system to cover pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare expenses, I might have more respect for their obsession with endangered fetuses, but until then, as far as I'm concerned, they're just power-hungry religious fanatics who hate to pay taxes.
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@carrobin
You are right to draw attention to the comprehensive nature of our human rights duties towards distressed mothers and their children before as well as after birth.
Protecting both human lives before and after birth is not an either/or option.
We must do both.
2
@carrobin
In the USA, 26 of 100,000 women die of childbirth complications. (In civilized nations, that rate is 4 or 5 in 100,000). Legal abortion is much safer than childbirth, with a mortality rate of less than 1 in 100,000.
2
Since Kavanaugh was nominated opinion pieces like this one have been plentiful. And I believe them. What I don’t quite understand is why there is nothing that the pro-choice (“abortion rights”?) majority of the country can do to stop his appointment. Yes, I get it that the GOP is playing to an anti-abortion base and the GOP is in control of the Presidency, The Congress, and let’s face it, the Court already. But watching 100 years of progress set back by a minority of Americans and not doing SOMETHING to stop this seems impossibly wrong. I’m registering voters (though ina blue city in a blue state) and may work phone banks; I’m not wealthy but have sent small donations to candidates; I use social media for political and issue-oriented discussions. But that’s clearly not enough to save our democracy. And I don’t know what is.
16
@Jazzmandel. That minority gates majority control no matter how many blue votes you tack up in blue districts. The US constitution is rigged, pure and simple
1
"Senators who vote yes will bear responsibility for all of them." It would be helpful if shame or guilt or empathy had an impact on most GOP senators' vote. Voting to protect a woman's right to choose or protecting air and water quality (no more coal dirt in streams or polluting the air) or maintaining the endangered species act (no shooting grizzlies) or seeking to protect our voting machines or seeking ways to reduce gun deaths or providing help with student debt or reducing economic inequality or providing health care for all Americans have less weight with GOP senators than the next major donor contribution. Money talks; not people; not the nation.
11
It's funny. When abortion rights are being discussed in mixed company, men go silent. I try to draw them out. Why? Two reasons. First, for every woman who is pregnant there is a man involved as well. What does he want? Does he want the baby? Is he willing to raise it if the mother cannot or will not? Second, every single legal decision regarding abortion, including Roe v Wade was decided by men. If men are the predominant force in deciding these decisions, let's hear them. Let's ask hard questions about their beliefs and as women, let's vote women into positions of equal power, so that men AND women can decide this issue that affects both sexes equally.
47
@TNM it's very simple: Human life is sacrosanct; none of us have ultimate control of our bodies, e.g., narcotics laws, and certainly not abortion. The vast majority of states outright criminalize abortion after a certain number of weeks, a pure acknowledgement of the human life it destroys.
All constitutional scholars agree roe is bad law. This imaginary constitutional "right" is the work product of activist judges who create rights out of thin air. The abortion question should have always been a state issue.
1
@TNM. Except it doesn’t affect both sexes equally. I’m a man and vehemently pro-choice.
4
@TNM
This issue does not affect both sexes equality. Men cannot be physically pregnant therefore men do not take the inherent risks associated with pregnancy.
Only one sex is taking all the risk, female.
Limitations on a woman’s right to choose are so burdensome that Roe is, in effect, being overturned state by state.
Forced pregnancies, unwanted children, interference in economic choice and the optional insurance coverage of birth control are the greatest set backs to both women’s rights and economic advancement in our lifetime - all imposed by the US government.
This will take generations to undo.
36
@FJM I fully agree that children are a huge burden, and unwanted children particularly so. It's interesting that you see this as exclusively about "women's rights". What rights, if any, do you think the fathers should have?
@Tom Tecsi
So the man who had a casual affair with a woman who considered the affair casual should dictate that woman have 9 months of pregnancy? And possibly have a responsibility to raise a child?
I think not in the case of a couple there needs to be an agreement. But the ultimate decision is and should be the women's.
This is a medical procedure and the woman should have the right to decide what is best for her. Again if the woman is in a couple relationship then it can be a mutual decision but ultimately it is her decision.
1
"Tens of millions" of women are not looking to get an abortion but ALL women want access to care and information on keeping their bodies healthy & making choices as they pertain to them. They don't want their reproductive rights restricted because they are "women" when there are no restrictions for "men".
53
@ah There are no restrictions for men? So, if the father wants the baby, it will be carried to term? Alternatively, if the man doesn’t want to have the child, he has no restriction in preventing this?
Interested to hear your thoughts.
4
@Tom Tecsi
This is too complex and individualized to be discussed in one-way monologue. There are reasons why men and women do not freely discuss reproductive rights (whatever that "means"). You use the impersonal "it" to refer to a baby, when you clearly would not call your child "it". Such is the way we distance from pets. When confronted on this behavior, often the human realizes and the barrier between us and them can become removed.
@Tom Tecsi. There is clearly an asymmetry because it isn’t men’s bodies being commandeered. Of course there is something to be said for the notion that parenthood upon birth should be at the option of the parents. If a woman can choose not to be a mother the father should have the same right. Doesn’t work that way of course. But ignore a man wants a child on his own he can always hire a surrogate.
2
Does Kavanaugh respect precedent, the principle of stare decisis? He seems to and says he does, at least more than activist judges who tend to be liberal. As a practical matter, outlawing abortion lacks any means of practical enforcement. These days, medications are available that will induce abortions. These medications, even if deemed illegal, will be generally used just as many other drugs such as meth, fentanyl, etc. It will be just like Prohibition where people found ways to get booze. If something is illegal, criminals will supply it.
6
@Mike Conservative justices are also activist judges. The Janus decision in June shows how activist conservative judges are.
And as for abortions being available despite their being illegal, that will be true. But at what cost -- physically, emotionally, and economically? Women will have to engage with criminals, unsure of what will happen. Will this criminal help me get what I need? Will these medicines be legit or not? And not all abortions will be from medicines. There will still be back alley abortions. And remember, the poor rich will always be able to get safe abortions, whether they are legal or not. It is poor women who will suffer.
My mother was staunchly anti-abortion, but my father was quietly pro-choice because as a young cop in the 1950s, he answered too many calls and saw too many women who had received back alley abortions. He could not sanction that being allowed to happen to anyone.
31
@Mike
Nobody is talking about "outlawing abortion" here. The focus is whether to overturn Roe/Casey or not. If they are overturned, abortion law will be handled through the democratic process, as it is in nearly every nation in Europe.
@Mike
Women don't want illicit abortifactions from unreputable sources. That's the pharmacological equivalent of a back alley abortion. Please, think about your wife, girlfriend, daughter, mother meeting a drug dealer to cop a fake prescription drug that could harm her, do nothing and cause delays that would add to her desperation.
Folks, you are all so fighting the last war...
Building some sort of Maginot Line out of narrative, instead of concrete...
Technology has made it so relatively simple to detect – and terminate – pregnancy early-on, that’s going to strategically recede, as an issue...
What’s far more ghoulish and threatening than the logistical impediments being placed in the way of in-state abortion is the assertive criminalization of abortion if – perversely – some malady is detected...
What if a woman in Ohio – which appears to have a surfeit of third-rate governance and first-rate health care – has a pregnancy that tests positive for Down Syndrome...
Yes – she can travel to pagan NYS to have the pregnancy terminated...But now, there’s a health-care record in – or potentially subject to subpoena by – Ohio of a test and an outcome...
(just watch and wait for the first fetal custody battle)
It’s a small step from banning abortion for DS to – whatever side of the discussion on DS that you may be on – banning abortion, once a whole laundry-list of “viable” anomalies are detected...
It’ll be at that point that the whole label “pro-life” becomes a visibly abject mockery of itself – but, by then, it’ll be law...
Suggest you all focus less on a decent jurist who – in so wanting to become a pledge – signed an over-the-top memo regarding impeachment
And more on a faux-decent governor who – in so wanting to become president – signed an over-the-top statute regarding abortion...
6
“Reproductive choice”
“Family integrity”
You mean infantacide?
There are far less repulsive ways for a woman to take control of her individual destiny, than by permanently enjoining her unborn child’s right to integrate into society
7
@JC
I agree with you, therefore I guided my pregnant 16 yar old daughter away from abortion. But I do not support overturning Roe v. Wade, either wholesale or tiny bit by tiny bit, so that people who do not agree with my beliefs can have the right to their beliefs. I most assuredly do not support your right to force your beliefs onto others. Next you are coming after me with your beliefs that homosexuality is wrong and therefore should be criminalized and most certainly same sex marriage rights taken away, reducing me to a 2nd class citizen.
The way things stand now, you do not have to have an abortion and that is as it should be. Last time I checked my God did not leave you in charge. He also didn't leave me in charge, either.
7
@JC Consider that with our current health care system, the birth of an infant with severe anomalies could destroy a family emotionally and financially. Multi millionaire Sen. Rick Santorum indicated his family has very significant ongoing costs to care for his daughter (born with a trisomy disorder) 24/7.
2
@JC Are you volunteering to carry every unwanted pregnancy to term yourself? If not, then I suspect your opinion on the subject is entirely irrelevant.
A woman has the right to decide who, if anyone gets to use her organs for their own sustenance. The same way that, if you are not an organ donor, your organs cannot be taken no matter how many lives will be saved by doing so, even if you are dead.
Your claim that women do not have the right to choose how their organs are used by others, is essentially a statement that women should have fewer rights than corpses in America.
3
I'd like to know how many members of Congress have paid for their mistress's abortions.
62
@Martha Shelley I'm very curious about how many Trump has paid for personally. It would be very interesting if Mueller has some evidence.
11
@carrobin I think the answer to your question is in David Pecker's safe in the National Enquirer offices. Soon to be revealed... stay tuned.
1
Any literate judge with an ounce of integrity will vote to reverse Roe because it is a ridiculous decision. Just because we have 46 yeras of precedent that murdering helpless babies in the womb is ok because of a ridiculous invented right to privacy does not make it so. Even Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a principled liberal with a brain, has criticized Roe as bad constitutional law. Give it to the states. Let the politicians run on the pro abortion platform . Let the people vote. Its called democracy and that is what democrats are afraid of.
9
If you're going to refer to Justice Ginsburg's opinion, be honest. She is firmly pro choice. People who research claims made by anti choice people often find they are misleading or totally false. If you were right, you'd have no need to lie.
2
@Steve
Aside from your draconian ideas concerning women’s health care rights you are deliberately misleading about RBG. She has stated Roe wasn’t the best case to decide abortion rights. In her opinion there was a better case that would have made it more difficult to overturn abortion rights.
From Time magazine,
“Ginsburg said that she believed it would have been easier for the public to understand why the Constitution protected abortion rights if it the matter had been framed as one of equal protection rather than privacy. And in fact, there was a specific case she had in mind as one that should have driven the national conversation, instead of letting Roe carry that weight.
She told the Senators that she “first thought long and hard” about abortion rights when, as a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), she took on Struck v. Secretary of Defense, a case that was on the Supreme Court’s calendar during the same term that Roe was decided. Susan Struck was an Air Force Captain who got pregnant while serving in Vietnam and sued the Air Force after it said she would have to either get an abortion at the base hospital or leave if she wanted to have the child.”
time.com/5354490/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade/
1
@Steve A woman has the right to decide who, if anyone gets to use her organs for their own sustenance. The same way that, if you are not an organ donor, your organs cannot be taken no matter how many lives will be saved by doing so, even if you are dead. Your claim that women do not have the right to choose how their organs are used by others, is essentially a statement that women should have fewer rights than corpses in America.
You know who else believes that women should have fewer rights than corpses? ISIS.
1
So you go to a blue state.
1
@Joyce Konrad
What will you do if you can not afford to travel to a blue state?
1
Until they make it a crime to cross state lines to get an abortion. Just like the “War on Drugs” many opportunities are available to criminalize this behavior.
If they really wanted to help free long term birth control would be available for women.
1
@Joyce Konrad Not if they rule on some bogus personhood ground and make abortion and contraception unconstitutional
That’d provoke the Supreme Court being burned to the ground, and they’d richly deserve it
Tell your Senator that you oppose Kavanaugh at https://www.reproductiverights.org.
13
In a hundred years, Abortion will be seen as worse than the Inquisition. A society that legalized the killing of unborn babies. Martin Luther King is weeping.
9
@Pilot In a hundred years, overpopulation and climate change will probably be causing wars, famine, and epidemics. Abortion could be the only solution for many.
24
Martin Luther King, Jr (which is his correct name) is not weeping - he was killed by an assassins bullet in 1968 and -if alive- would not take lightly people who purport to speak for his legacy to justify a political and oppressive position.
4
Pilot,
Why wait one hundred years?
We have a country and its Pres. and supporters, who are happy tearing breastfeeding babies away from their mothers.
Happy to cage them and or torture them, just to set an example.
Happy to poison them with lead, mercury, asbestos, tetrachloroethylene, tetrachloroethene, perchloroethylene, bisphenol A, dioxin, Teflon, rocket-fuel, coal ash, gas 'n oil, fracking waste etc., etc.
Happy to deny them healthcare, vision, dental, mental care etc.
Happy to deny them nutrition, education or a future.
Happy to kill innocent children indiscriminately around the world.
But sure...Martin Luther King will weep in one hundred years.
By the by...In 1960, King served on a committee for a Planned Parenthood study on contraception, explaining, “I have always been deeply interested in and sympathetic with the total work of the Planned Parenthood Federation.” He repeatedly wrote about why family planning programs are important, and why they need to be funded by the government. In 1966, King received a Margaret Sanger award from Planned Parenthood “in recognition of excellence and leadership in furthering reproductive health and reproductive rights.”
Would you like some links to the Inquisition? That is some messed up religious hypocrisy there.
4
Those who defend the wrenching of a helpless baby from its mother's womb for the crime of being unwanted ought to be ashamed of themselves. Our sacred constitution could never sanction such a heinous and heartless act. If you want to kill your unborn baby, let the legislature pass a law allowing you to do it. James Madison is turning over in his grave at the thought of people citing to our constitution as support of such a heartless and despicable act.
7
@Steve Our constitution is not sacred. It was the founders' best attempt to create a new union. Compromises were made, not out of moral conviction, but out of political expediency. How else would one call slaves 3/5 of a person?
So let's focus on what we want to be as a society, and strive for that, whatever that might be.
11
@Steve
Perhaps, if the writes of the Constitution were here today they wonder why we are using that an out dated document.
2
@Steve There were no abortion bans in this country at the time the Constitution was written. The first bans appeared in the 19th century.
4
I don't care how abortion rights die. I just want them dead...and all the future human beings they would have killed, alive.
7
But the Republican Party only cares about life until the kids are born. Then they don’t care about their health, safety or even their continued existence after birth.
4
@Cynthia Starks You forgot to forbid miscarriages. That's how most pregnancies end. If you're worried about living people being killed, are you dedicating yourself to ending war, famine, disease? If not, please turn your attentions to these real crises. They won't allow you the pleasure of forcing other women to carry unwanted pregnancies, but that's not what you really want, is it?
2
@Cynthia Starks
How many are you prepared to adopt? How about food stamps and welfare benefits to support these children?
2
Here’s an idea -
Tie every restriction to abortion rights to the right to purchase Viagara. That would mean that if there’s only one place in all of the state of Mississippi to end a pregnancy, then there can be only one place in all of the state of Mississippi to obtain Viagara –over the counter or internet purchases would be illegal. If a woman has to return three times to a clinic hundreds of miles away to ‘prove’ she wants and needs an abortion, and is required to watch a state-made video on “Keeping your baby”, a man must return to his clinic three times to obtain an ED pill and sit through the state-made video of “The Joys of Being Flaccid”.
I know, I know -- forgive this very facetious suggestion for a most serious issue, but it does point out the heart of the matter that these Good ol’ Boys on the Supreme Court and in state legislatures who believe that it’s their Jesus-given right to control women’s bodies would fight to the death to protect their withering manhood.
They would (rightly) say that their access to Viagara is ‘Nobody else’s business’ -- Well, YEAH!! That’s just the point, you idiots.
77
@Dan Fannon I liked the Viagra tie-in. Clever.
But I would like to address the label "control women's bodies". Is this really an apt description? If I controlled a woman's body, I should be able to force her to abort (e.g. China). And I should be control, say whether she has a facelift.
I would suggest that we strip away the legal euphemisms and simply say that a woman should be able to decide whether she wants to keep her child. And address whether this should extend into the troublesome teenage years.
Time to stop focusing on the latest Trump outrage du jour and start speaking up loudly and making our voices heard that abortion rights will not be curtailed anymore. Enough with the death by a thousand cuts with this essential law. Second Amendment gun fanatics rail against this very same thing and consistently work to hold Congress at bay to pass any meaningful and much needed gun control laws while thousands of people die every year from gun deaths. But when it comes to a woman's right to choose how to handle her medical issues and make decisions about birth control, well then, the GOP is all fine with that and have imposed a lot of undue burdens on women to obtain safe and effective abortions. Why is it okay for "big government" to decide how a woman controls her reproductive health while the same "big government" has "no right" to impose any restrictions on sensible gun laws? Enough is enough. Let's take to the streets next week and make our voices heard while the Kavanaugh hearings are going on.
20
@Sheila: there is a Constitutional right to own firearms.
There is no Constitutional right to kill your unborn child.
@Concerned Citizen: Maybe it's not a Constitutional right but it is a law and one that needs to be protected. You have your right to your opinion but I have the right to determine what happens to my body and whether to have a child or not.
3
Rich white men are a curse on this nation. They care more about a bunch of cells than about a woman's life.
39
@sooze Most anti-choice people don't care at all about any fetus or baby. Their slogan is pure PR. Look at how they vote on any issue related to children's needs, access to medical care, education, etc. Their sole intent is to deny women equality via pretending a right to control our bodies, and force their own religious views on us.
2
@sooze
And, as Gloria Steinem said, "If men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."
1
@sooze truth be told they only care about power. You think Trump has never paid for an abortion? He had unprotected sex with Stormy Daniels. Abortion is just a dog whistle, they only want power.
It would be helpful if abortion commentators understood what is really at stake in the abortion debate. Abortion has never been illegal nationwide and an edict outlawing abortion has never been proposed. Right to life advocates have sought to overturn Roe, which is to say that they wish to abolish the universal right to abortion. Reversing a right to abortion leaves the decision in the hands of the states. Pro choice states would be free to allow abortions. Pro life states would be free to ban abortions. The worst case scenario would be full abortion rights in blue states and a full ban in red states. Worse comes to worse is that the majority of the population of every state gets what it wants.
8
@michjas "With liberty and justice for all" does not mean that women should have to travel hundreds of miles for an abortion. CHOICE means choice. If you choose to not have an abortion, don't have one. It's none of my business. Nor is my decision any business of yours.
4
@michjas And what about the women in red states who want to have abortions? Many will not have the means to travel to a blue state to obtain one. How about, we leave this decision to women?
2
@michjas. You haven’t been paying attention. Yes nationwide bans have been proposed. And the court can do it by finding “personhood” in sperm. Voila. No abortion no contraception.
If ever a time to get out and vote was critical this is it! trump is almost at the end of his rope and with him gone doesn't mean its over.If Kavanaugh gets in the future of my grandchildrens' rights to their bodies will be controlled by religious people who just can't mind their own business. Think about all those children who were raped and because of the statue of limitation and the secrecy the church stands behind, may never get these creatures behind bars! If Penn. had 300 priests who were child molesters think about the other 49 states. Always the religious poor and less educated get to suffer, I'm sure Kavanaughs daughter wouldn't have to endure the same fate. I am sick of this president and what has been done to keep these poor people( yes most of those who have voted for trump) in the dark as trump will now do by Kavanaughs nomination. RESIST
17
Laws follow public opinion, anyone who thinks nine old men in dresses is anything more than theater is in for a surprise. If you think otherwise explain the founder’s position on gay marriage.
Citizens United will be overthrown, in court or by force, history is clear on that. The best the troglodytes that are the religious right can hope to do is slow change. We are becoming less religious by a percent or two a year, the trend line is inescapable. And when the pendulum swings I hope it mows those clowns down on its way back. Religion is idiocy, pure and simple. I’m tired of pretending it isn’t.
24
@Garrett Clay
So you're going to insult all religious believers simply because some politicians call themselves "the religious right"? Not a good way to win votes in an election.
@Garrett Clay I hate Citizens United. But I don’t understand how you expect it to be overturned. It won’t be in the SC for decades. If you mean by voting, I hope so. But I am not convinced.
Your tie-in of religion to Citizens United is spurious. Can you explain?
@Garrett Clay Garrett, are you confusing the Supreme Court with the Catholic Church? There are three WOMEN on the US Supreme Court, right now! Justice O'Connor, the first woman on the Court, is retired but served from 1981-2006. "Nine old men in dresses" - have you been in a coma since '80?
But you are right about religion.
If the courts can require women to donate their blood and uterus to keep fetuses viable, then surely, should the need arise, every man must be required to donate whatever blood and organs deemed necessary to keep his already born offspring alive. It is the logical next step. Men, pay attention: your bodily autonomy is the next on the line.
15
@Carrie To this day men can be drafted, then sent to fight and die on your behalf. Plenty of men have lost more than their autonomy. You'll be fine.
@Matai
Please. When was the last time a man in this country was drafted. You know very well that instituting a draft would be political suicide.
You're really going to dismiss a real-life concern for women by saying "you'll be fine," and comparing it to a purely theoretical concern for men?
4
It will be state-by-state. In modern states like California he won't have any impact, but it will be back to coathangers in Alabama.
17
Expect to see even more stark contrasts between conservative and liberal areas of the US. The Red States will become more like Third World countries. Draconian anti-abortion laws will result in more poor, single mothers, more unwed, undereducated teenagers, and more of the social pathologies right-wingers like Charles Murray lament. Democratic-led states will remain largely unscathed. The Republicans will damage themselves, their constituents and their own families. For some reason (stupidity?) they don't care.
18
@Carson Drew
Great point. There will be an economic impact too. Will free-state residents want to visit or vacation in theocratic backwaters? Will national organizations want to have conventions there? Will corporations located in those states be able to recruit? - can’t imagine young women coming out of business schools or parents with young daughters being willing to live there.
1
True. Everyone who "thinks" knows this, except the bird-brain Senator from Maine Susan Collins. This is the face of the "moderate wing" of the Republican Party. Unfortunately it's only a face, there's nothing behind it.
18
I’m never surprised by left leaning law school professors (even though it’s been 20+ years), but the blatant omission that any “justice appointed by a Democrat” has voted contrary to their parties politics speaks volumes.
3
Everything I see/hear opines that overruling Roe/Casey will send the “abortion issue” “back to the States.” But what will stop Congress from enacting nationwide restrictions (e.g. 20 week ban)—or even, failing that, an HHS-driven regulatory straitjacket of the kind that Texas attempted unsuccessfully in Whole Women’s Health?
And, yes, as for everything else, anything since Lochner will be up for grabs.
6
@Joeff: What will keep Congress from enacting such nationwide restrictions:
1. The majority of Americans don't want them.
2. The majority of Senators won't allow them.
2
@Joeff
Why would Congress do that? They would alienate too many voters and lose their seats in Congress. Doesn't anybody know how democracy works anymore?
@Carson Drew. Yes on 1, but not2
First, what's especially shameful, is that this impacts the poor significantly more than those with money. Because the wealthy can just fly off and arrange for matters to be taken care of.
Second, Susan Collins is the ultimate political animal. Pretending that Kavanaugh will respect existing decisions is absurd. Collins is just trying to stay in office.
Third, I'm certain that politicians focus on abortion because they lack ideas on how to improve our society. Discussing abortion allows them to skirt generating real ideas on how to solve the challenges that they've been elected to address.
Fourth, the 40+% of Americans who didn't vote in 2016, need to be galvanized to participate in the next election. We must support Michelle Obama's initiative, whenweallvote.org. This initiative is terribly important.
17
The man said it was settled law. Let it go at that. AND! I do not like the title of the story. A lot of abortions are done through dismemberment. Something rarely mentioned, if at all when saying that the unborn cannot speak for themselves is that a grown person, suffering a painful and terminal illness and with a clear mind cannot get assisted suicide. Personally I am opposed both but established law is established.
1
@old sarge
To me "settled law" means that once the Supreme Court makes a bad decision ( e.g Citizens Union) then we are stuck with it forever. Popular opinion can change and, in a democracy, laws should change with it.
3
Although my opinion goes against popular opinion among my friends and my peers in college, I do not believe in abortion. I believe that if you are a true feminist you will be willing to listen to the ideas and thoughts of a woman (me) who truly wants the best for everyone. I believe that our society and government needs to immediately work on truly empowering women by fixing the reasons why they might feel the need to choose to abort the human growing inside of them. The right to free childcare, paid mater/paternity leave, equal treatment for pregnant women in work, and the list goes on... Ending a pregnancy is not natural. I find it interesting that my vegan friends think that we should not have the right to kill animals but we shouldhave the right to kill embryos. Even if you believe that what is inside of a pregnant woman is just a cluster of cells, that cluster of cells (which has a heart beat around week 3 after conception) has the potential to become a beautiful human, why do we get to decided if they should live or not? Please watch this video from a woman who worked at Planned Parenthood. https://youtu.be/BdmDCP6KeK8
7
@Natalie All right, don't have an abortion. No one's forcing you to. But how do decide that for every other woman in the country? And I notice that your list of burdens that women alone face--and which I agree, should be relieved through legislation--makes no mention of rape, youthful ignorance, or personal circumstances that neither you nor anyone else can know or have any say over. Yet that's what the right believes. For crying out loud, Ireland just legalized abortion. Doesn't that make you think?
5
The number of people against abortion but for the things you said is almost non existent. Also, do you believe in free birth control and effective sex education in schools to stop unwanted pregnancies before they happen? If so, again, you’re in a tiny minority of anti abortion people.
3
Natalie,
Of course it's natural.
Close to half of all conceptions don't make it to birth.
In the animal world, filial infanticide happens all the time.
https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/animals/filial-cannibalism-why-do-anim...
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140328-sloth-bear-zoo-i...
https://www.livescience.com/2053-animals-eat-offspring.html
Yes, lets work on correcting our nations treatment and care of its citizens. Then the women will have better options when they exercise their choice.
THIER CHOICE.
4
I wonder if the Senate will actually sue the National Archives to get more of Kavanaugh's records: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/402185-dems-threaten-to-sue-for-kavan... ? That decision will likely take place shortly after Labor Day.
As I understand it, even if the NA agrees to turn over a limited range of requested documents, it would take until late October, and would not be available for an hearings pushed for September.
Abortion rights will not be the only ones affected by Kavanaugh's presence: https://www.vox.com/2018/7/11/17555974/brett-kavanaugh-anthony-kennedy-s... . Other concerns include less favorable treatment in cases involving capital punishment and solitary confinement, favorable treatment of religious challenges to anti-discrimination laws, and prohibition of federal cases involving race-based affirmative action.
6
Who said only Democrats have a right to the Supreme court?did not get that memo. I support abortion rights but not late term. No one will ever convince me late term babies don't feel pain. Look at all those far out judges that support illegal aliens in their illegal attempt to get asylum in the US based on crime back home. We don't have crime here in the US? and their escaping crime to come here.-they should fix their home country. How about Congress passing laws to correct any open unclear laws?.
1
@Larry
"-they should fix their home country. " Oh, like we Americans are doing so well. We can't even get rid of the stupid Electoral College that handed the Presidency to a loser.
1
The devolution of legislative activity to the states is hand in glove with the goals of the Koch conspiracy, the Federalist Society, and ALEC. They realize that they can't win at the national or federal level because their dogma that their right to avoid paying tax trumps your rights as a citizen and that Senators should be appointed, not elected, is anathema to the vast majority of citizens. As a result, they have focused their efforts on winning GOP governors and state legislatures that will implement laws written by ALEC that furhter their agenda while undermining democracy for the majority. All because those with too much money and power want even more.
13
Professor Mayeri makes a most cogent case for rejecting Brett Kavanaugh's nomination. Senator Collins will retain not a shred of credulity if she votes to confirm him.
And yet this article does not focus on other reasons such as his position from 2003 to 2006 as Staff Secretary to President Bush. There he was the person last in line to decide how all issues going to the President would be presented, such as positions on torture as one example. And it does not take into account his expansive views of presidential power.
His ascendency will presage even more power in the hands of the president than those so inappropriately used by the present President. And those powers will be able to reduce the built-in Constitutional checks given Congress. Consider not just now when the controlling party bows to the present President’s every wish, but especially denuding Congressional effectiveness when the system should be honoring the checks of a Congress of the opposite party.
It is hard to see any thinking American other than those with a very conservative direction who would approve his philosophies.
8
The burden of restrictions on abortion will not fall on the wealthy. They will always find a way to get an abortion if they want one. The women who are impacted by these restrictions are those who cannot travel to a location where abortion is accessible. The Supreme Court's restrictions on access are a penalty on those of lesser economic means - but then many of their decisions penalize the poor, so this isn't anything new is it.
20
@dairyfarmersdaughterThe Supreme Court doesn't place restrictions on abortions at all. The states do. As they have a right to do. All the Supreme Court can do is not stick its nose where it doesn't belong.
Actually, since Roe is as good as dead, the thing that activists REALLY need to fight against is any kind of “personhood” supreme court decision: that is, a ruling that defines a fetus as a person, a citizen with full rights under the Constitution. A ruling that a fetus is a legal person really will be Game Over for abortions in all 50 states; even in New York. You won’t be able to use an IUD, either, since it will be classified as an abortifacient. The Pill may be proscribed, too, for the same reason. Don’t think the far-right Republicans and evangelicals won’t try it; as we have seen, they will pretty much stop at nothing to make sure that fetuses have rights and women don’t.
And, as happened before Roe, wealthy Republican and evangelical women will travel to Sweden or Japan when they are temporarily inconvenienced by a pregnancy they don’t want.
24
"With this confirmation vote, then, much more than abortion rights hangs in the balance. So does the country’s ability to fight voter suppression, political corruption and racial intimidation; to protect clean air and water; to ensure safety for workers and consumers; to combat climate change; to enact sensible gun laws; to voluntarily integrate public schools; to provide necessary health care and preserve a basic social safety net; to protect civil rights and liberties; and to safeguard the integrity of all families." This says it all, I just wish that enough Americans could see it, really understand what's at stake, and that they would be energized and vote. Pray for sanity.
32
Roe v. Wade and Casey are not carved in stone. Medical advances make late term abortions very problematic.
4
@David shulman
Actually, medical advances have made late term abortions far safer and less problematic.
Abortion laws were originally to protect women because when they were originally enacted, abortions were more dangerous than carrying to term. Today abortions are far safer than carrying to term and pregnancy and giving birth are the more dangerous options.
Yes, late term abortions are more dangerous than early abortions but abortions are still safer than giving birth, especially in this country that has relatively high maternity mortality for an advanced society.
7
Tens of millions of women cannot get an abortion because they are too poor, too far from a clinic, you young, too far into pregnancy to meet state restrictions. Abortion rights are already comatose from a thousand cuts by State legislatures, courts, and federal executive decisions. Planned Parenthood and mainstream feminist organizations have relied on the courts and Democratic Party to defend abortion—as a strategy, a proven loser. Kavanaugh’s a done deal. Organize women in your community, not only for abortion rights but against domestic violence. Fight for families and communities, for childcare and schools, minimum wage and health care, drug treatment for kids, counseling kids on emotional relationship and sexual decision-making—what Christian women of all races and rural white women want. The feminist movement has been dominated by professional women, fighting the glass ceiling, lean-in, right to choose, individual rights, which most women don’t care about. While opposing right-wing patriarchy and women’s negative self-image, fight for the right to abortion as a human and women’s right, benefiting family and community.
5
It's a bit too late for evangelicals to restrict access to abortion. As long as one state deregulates Plan B and birth control, itll be available anywhere the postman delivers and for free. I'm not going to ask daddy feds for permission. Are you?
14
What we as a nation need is laws like they have in Germany to deal with Nazism and bigotry.
We need to confront a well organized and funded group of people whom are systematically subverting our society by miss using the right to free speech and free press.
9
Comments don't accept graphics, and Rick Gage - Mt Dora - has it just right about being War Against Poor Women only, so to add here only the image of a wire coat-hanger twisted into the shape of a Christian cross would seem apt.
9
They are not going to outlaw abortion in all states (15 to 20 states would be, my guess). Some states might even criminalize abortion as in: If you go out of state to get an abortion when (and if) you return you will be charged with unlawful termination of pregnancy or some such offense. However, there will be righteous states such as California where abortion will remain legal.
The mother of my American daughter is freaking out about this all the time, lamenting how our daughter is being "oppressed" by the patriarchy and rape culture and what not. However, she knows nothing about real oppression, and anyhow I always tell my daughter not to go to Southern states, because they are poor and uber-religious. I do not think that Southerners are bigoted or evil-minded, they are just super-religious, like the folks in Chechnya, Russia who do very weird things. I mean, this is how they were raised after all. Howbeit, I do want to note that the Southerners have become a lot more extreme in their beliefs lately, so I am not sure what one can do about this.
5
@Stas
" I always tell my daughter not to go to Southern states, because they are poor and uber-religious."
Oh, really, I suppose that's why fundamentalist Roy Moore won re-election in Alabama. Oh wait, he didn't.
Bigotry means stereotyping whole groups. Like "they are poor and uber-religious".
C'mon folks let's be real. Roe Vs. Wade will never be overturned. Although the extreme leftists in the country use overturning Roe Vs. Wade as a battle cry, today's right is much more moderate than it is extreme right. There is always the imaged and that which is real.
2
Here's an idea: Why doesn't one of these billionaire liberals like Tom Steyer or George Soros build a factory in Denmark that produces massive amounts of contraceptive devices, medications and morning-after pills.
Flood the market. Flood the world with them. Make them free.
People would donate to keep it going. We're tired of the Catholic Church and Evangelicals keeping the upper hand. Time to swamp them.
39
@Gustav People should focus more on 1) priestly abuse of actual children and 2) provision of effective contraception and sex ed to PREVENT as many unwanted pregnancies as possible.
Let's look at the bigger picture here. 45 years after Roe v Wade, in roughly half the states where there is a legislative majority to restrict or eliminate abortion. Politically, in that 45 year period, huge gains have been made on every liberal social issue that you could think of. We have to ask ourselves what is the problem with abortion?
.
1. Roe v Wade is part of the problem. It is a symbol of Supreme Court overreach, and of bi-coastal liberals forcing their views on the rest of the country. For many conservatives, defeating Roe means far more than simply making abortions impossible where it is currently difficult. Defeating Roe means defeating the left in general.
.
2. Abortion raises legitimate issues of conscience, unlike gay marriage where the battle was against those who are uncomfortable with gay people. Abortion will never be consequence free. The anti-abortion forces may be wrong on balance, but their position is legitimate. A majority of Americans favor legal abortions, but a majority favor restrictions.
.
3. The pro-choice movement was making steady progress in making abortion legal in 1973 through state legislatures. That movement died with the Supreme Court judgement. Would a further 45 years of campaigning have resulted in more progress than we have now? In most states, yes. It's probably too late to win hearts and minds now, but there is a lesson to be learned here.
8
Conservatives get abortions too.
5
@Tom: the "problem" is that the real reason certain conservatives and evangelicals want to outlaw abortion is they want to impose their "morality" on how a woman makes decisions about her body, period. Abortion needs to be readily available, paid for by insurance, and plenty of access to clinics everywhere because it's a WOMAN'S CHOICE to decide how she handles her health and what she does with her body.
10
@Tom if a majority favour legal abortions, how can a majority favour restrictions? Are you saying there are significant number of people who are ambivalent on the matter?
1
With the Kavanaugh confirmation, Americans are almost certainly going to lose the right to abortion services in this country.
And you know what? That's exactly what has to happen in order for the majority of women (and men) to finally make this their primary voting issue.
But first, the women AND MEN in this country have to experience what life is like when they and their sisters, wives, mothers and daughters lose their right to reproductive freedom. They have to be jolted (hard) by the loss of a right now enjoyed by every single other advanced society in the world. They have to be forced to remember their silence on this issue in prior elections, and be forced to face the consequences of that silence.
So go ahead, Kavanaugh - overturn Roe vs. Wade. That's unfortunate, but it's exactly what has to happen in order to motivate Americans to finally fight for abortion access at the state level. Out of the gravest of injustices grow the most sacred of rights. After Roe gets overturned, the progressive, forward-leaning states in this country will definitely pass abortion access laws. Meanwhile, the backward, regressive states will continue to deny abortion access to women and families. At least then Americans can choose where, and under what kind of health care system, they wish to live.
15
*+*+"The most sacred of rights"??? Killing pre-born infants??? So many pro-choice people are unable to grasp the issue facing pro-life people. It is a civil rights question. The weakest of all human persons did not volunteer to live inside its mother's womb. But there it is.
I can understand the tragedy of rape or some kind of danger to the life of the woman. And abortion would be understandable, part of the tragedy. But is there any reason for abortion that is so morally flimsy that It repels most of us? Like, in China, aborting a child because it is a girl.
2
@William Taylor Have you ever considered that it's not your role to judge why a woman wants or needs an abortion? Only she and her doctor know. Please get that it's just not your business.
@William Taylor
"pre-born infant"?
There is no such thing as a preborn infant. Am I a pre-dead corpse? You are detached from reality if you look at a 7 week embryo and see an infant.
The ONLY answer to stop this madness of interference in a Woman's Right to Choose What She Does with HER own body and life is to pass the Equal Rights Amendment to OUR U.S. Constitution that says,
"NO LAW shall be passed by any government or governmental agency in The United States of America and/or it's territories that discriminates based on gender."
NO LAW.
That will end it and NOW is the time.
53
@njglea
I appreciate your honesty as it has long been claimed that passage of the Equal Rights Amendment would lead to the unlimited PUBLIC license of PRIVATE lethal force, i.e. abortion. However, the ERA is a dead letter...it had it's time and was not passed.
1
@njglea
How are YOU going to pass the Equal Rights Amendment? Wave your magic wand?
I remember the 1970s. The Equal Rights Amendment was whizzing through one state after another and seemed unstoppable. Then the abortion lobby jumped on its coat-tails and it stopped dead. Some states even tried to reverse their in-favor votes when they heard that the ERA was going to be used to protect abortion-on-demand. And nobody has tried to revive it since.
1
@njglea So well said! YES!!!!
Ladies, hold on to your IUDs. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
5
Your title made me smile. Thank you.
3
Until it happens to your daughter
4
Mr. Kavanagh lied to Ms. Collins.
Mr. Collins knew he was lying.
But with this charade she can continue to pretend to be a moderate, an independent, and a supporter of women’s rights - while still voting as Mr. McConnell tells her.
81
This issue is loaded, but let us begin at the beginning. That is that no one on this drying earth of ours has the right to either decide for and dictate to another woman - or man - and then subsequently judge one's decision. To do just that is theft of one's individuality and soul. I am sick to death hearing about the unborn and its rights. A woman's choice is hers alone, and it is both moral and ethical to place her, the living, before the not as yet human being which is still dependent on an umbilical cord.
Re Kavanaugh, there is no doubt that he along with his fellow conservatives will maneuver a way to at least weaken a woman's democratic right to choose. They will twist and exploit freedom of religion to the fanatical Christian's benefit and to the detriment of all other "freedoms" except gun ownership. I see no way out of this present unjust paradigm. Collin's will cave, she always does. And let us not fool ourselves that we can rely on Manchin et al who are up for reelection in Red states.
28
States imposing regulations that apply only to abortion clinics, are sometimes called TRAP laws. TRAP is the appropriate acronym “targeted regulation of abortion providerst” which are standards that may be arbitrary or difficult to implement and are aimed at ONE objective: closing abortion clinics.
These laws call for imposing standards such as requiring the abortion provider to have admitting privileges at the nearest hospital. Completely unnecessary as ANYONE can send a patient to an emergency room. These privileges are very difficult to obtain as many providers live 5-6 counties over.
Mississippi is down to one women’s clinic.
Another common TRAP law (all written by ALEC, of course) states that the clinic must be as well equipped as an outpatient surgical clinic that does moderate to major surgery...and having anesthesiologists in the clinic.
Abortions are typically done in the first 12 weeks and are usually without any complication. They are done in private MD's offices. (If you’re wealthy you just have your own OB-GYN do the procedure in her exam room.)
One TRAP law requires hallways to be so wide that a gurney has to be able to pass ANOTHER gurney in the hallway. Not necessary as the women can walk to the procedure room.
Everyone talks about what a GREAT POTUS Gov Kasich of Ohio would be! He has closed HALF of these clinics with laws he has written himself. He is ruthless in his bills and many get legally overturned.
Donate to Planned Parenthood today!
71
@Nuschler
When Kasich sits on a stage with Trump Kasich looks great. If he had sat on a stage with Clinton he would have been exposed for what he really is.
I respect Kasich for not having kowtowed to Trump like his fellow Republican travelers. Graham and Paul have unbelievably debased themsleves.
Kasich would have been far better than Trump. Lordy, Santorum, my despicable ex senator would have been far better than Trump. But that is such a low bar that any of the clowns running in 2016 would have passed it.
They all would have been a million times worse than Hillary Clinton, and that includes Kasich. (It is just that many of them would have been a billion or trillion times worse than Hillary so Kasich looks good in comparison.)
Could happen. If it did, I’d regard it as bad, and I would be writing to discourage it here as I have for over eleven years.
But political choices rarely address ANYONE’S objectives entirely. Such choices come with up-sides and down-downsides: Trump himself came with reservations, just as it did with potential. By Trump’s court-related efforts, including that of Kavanaugh’s appointment, federal court judges will become more resolved to play a legitimate role as umpires, rather than as unelected legislators who serve for life during “good behavior” – exploited by the ideological to secure political ends they cannot achieve at the ballot-box. And that I consider more important than what is fast becoming a moot issue.
“Abortion” is rapidly becoming self-administered by pills, to which women will resort regardless of what Kavanaugh or anyone else says. Indeed, the increasing popularity and ease of such means may damage Roe, because they can be used after the second trimester, when even by Roe the state has legitimate authority to regulate the permissibility of an abortion. However, once escaped, technology has a way of refusing to be put back in a box and forbidden.
Causing our courts to tend to their proper knitting, forcing those who would transform us socially to attract working elected majorities supporting such transformation, is worth more than a mass, particularly since one possible negative consequence presents a difference that increasingly makes no difference.
2
@Richard Luettgen
women who want to end a pregnancy will go back to the alley way or self administered use of hangers if need be. This administration has made it clear that is doesn’t care or recognize women in any way. And yet, women voted for this monster. So I’ll just be glad that I can afford to procure a safe abortion in another country at any price.
8
@Richard Luettgen
Well reasoned and sincere, Sir. Only one quibble : the
“ abortion pills “ will eventually render Roe v. Wade superfluous, except in third trimester procedures done to save the Woman’s life. And THOSE average about FIVE percent of abortions done nationwide, yearly. And good luck trying to stop the flow of the pills, GOP. The war on drugs, part II. Black market, here we come.
11
I had a surgical abortion in the second trimester. But I agree most abortions are done by a pill and in the first trimester. Most states outlaw abortion after 24 weeks and I believe the percent of overall abortions after this time is <0.01%, not 5%.
4
I marched for the right to choose in the 60s. I was elated when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. In 1976 I had a legal abortion, in a hospital, done by my doctor, paid for by my insurance company. This issue no longer concerns me personally. But I feel terrible for this and future generations of women who will be forced again into the back alleys and the kitchen tables where illegal abortions will take place, as they did before 1973. When a woman needs an abortion, she will find one. It just depends on which kind it will be.
69
@AMM
Perfectly stated.
@Honeybee. By the time severe birth defects are identified (20 weeks or thereafter) it is too late for pills. This would be many women's greatest fear, should the laws be changed.
3
@Draw Man Not at all. Those drugs are available to women who know they exist and have the money and access to the prescription or the clinic where they can get the pills. How many poor women in, say, Mississippi fit that description?
I heard this twenty five years ago, and indeed a woman's right to choose has been sliced away a cut at a time, at least a thousand times through many states enacting laws and rules making it all but impossible.
14
I am a believer in choice but I don't here any news about women and men in states passing objectionable restrictions standing up for their rights and protesting although there seems to be a lack of news on anything that doesn't involve trump. What's going on out there? Should we in NY really be concerned about despicable restrictions in Texas or Mississippi? A million women marched on Washington I would assume some of them came from the states in question. Where are they now?
7
Two words: trigger laws.
If Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Court wasn’t so objectionable to the majority of America’s population, then there would be no need to run television advertisements in his favor. Yet they run constantly.
It’s a convenient coincidence. And it’s not an accident.
10
@ubique
All the ads I see are television ads opposing Kavanaugh. If Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Court wasn’t so supported by the majority of America’s population, then there would be no need to run television advertisements opposing him.
6
@Paul. The only TV ads I see running in the New York metro area are pro-Kavanaugh ads.
7
@Paul
The more pressing question is probably why a Supreme Court nominee needs to be pimped out by Super PACs to begin with.
4
The enumerated right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment has being infringed on by Federal, state, and local governments for decades and, for the most part, the Supreme Court has allowed it.
It's reasonable, therefore, that an the enumerated right to have an abortion could be infringed on legally in similar ways.
4
@Bob Richards While even First Amendment rights can be subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, the Second Amendment is unique in expressly reserving the government’s right to regulate.
7
So a person desiring an abortion might have to go to some progressive state that surely will keep it legal. Even then a case will need to come to the supreme court to change anything, just don't bring such a case. How about those that want to support abortion have a charity to match up individuals with the states where abortion is legal. Seems simple to me.
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@vulcanalex
Would you be in favor of any male medical procedures being handled in that manner?
Based on charity. Keeping women dependent.
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@JORMO: I am -- let's do the same for vasectomies!
2
@JORMO
What "medical procedures" ? The Hypocratic Oath prohibits doctors to cause abortions. Of course, the doctors rewrote it in the 1970s when they realized that there was lots of money in abortion.
Abortion rights, like gun rights, and environmental rights have been the mainstay of the Right's argument for states' rights. Conservatives want to be able to jettison federal rules in favor of adopting conservative rules across multiple states. (Unsurprisingly these same conservatives want the Feds to step in and manage open carry, allowing abortion protestors access to patients entering clinics, and suppression of state environmental laws they don't like.)
Abortion is all but dead in many parts of the country which has few places to obtain one, and which disallows medical abortion outside of a clinic. Anti-regulation conservatives have regulated abortion out f their states.
There is no such thing as "settled law." States can undermine the intent with regulation; the WH can refuse to fund law enforcement or fund the agency meant to carry out law. Congress can whittle away at a law. And the Courts can whittle away too, granting the WH or the states the ability to undermine the intent of a law.
Voting matters. It is just that some people don't know what is at risk until they lose it. The right to abortion. The right to healthcare. The right to breathe. The right to an education.
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@Cathy But gun rights are in the constitution, the others are not specifically mentioned. Legally you have no right to health care (except at the emergency room) and no right to a college type education unless you pay for it.
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@vulcanalex You have no right to own a gun unless you pay for it. And the Second Amendment is unique in the Bill of Rights, in that it expressly recognizes the government’s authority to “regulate” the right to bear arms.
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@Rich Casagrande Fair enough, but "regulate" means that the right exists - and so "regulate" can't mean "outright forbid" - so your point is not that convincing.
4
Perhaps more significant than the Supreme Court's future position on Roe is the fact that abortion/abortion rights has become the single biggest litmus test in politics and in government. Close behind are gun rights/control. All other issues facing our country pale in comparison, including immigration and the economy. When push comes to shove, there are so many single issue voters driven solely by these two issues that all other considerations are moot. (ironic that these two issues are actually diametrically opposed.... life vs death, yet the respective proponents typically contradict their own logic. Anti-abortion advocates are frequently guns rights advocates. And Pro-abortion advocates are frequently gun control advocates).
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@Bill young Not to me, abortion "rights" effect a very small minority of our population. Gun rights are in the constitution and also effect a minority of our citizens. Other issues effect a majority of citizens, like say infrastructure, immigration, national defense, etc.
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@vulcanalex Ummm...abortion rights affect all women at some times in their lives at least. Almost all women can get pregnant, and too often not because they want to be. Women are 51% of the population. Abortion rights also affect men who are not willing and able to become fathers and support a family and do not choose to have a family at that time.
@vulcanalex Minority? Women? Really? A telling characterization.
“ Senators who vote YES will bear responsibility for all of them “. Sure. But Women, especially poor Women will BEAR unwanted and medically unwise pregnancies , forced births, and, yes, deaths. But hey, they are just Women, after all. No better than livestock, and treated as exactly that, by the GOP.
VOTE in November. VOTE to run your OWN life.
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There is no such thing as "settled law," Senator Collins (R-ME). The believer beware.
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Every last pretense of adherence to the Constitution's original intent of the constitution as amended for ratification is belied by their cowardice to address the plain meaning of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". As far as I am concerned, the whole Federalist Society is liars and frauds as awful as Trump himself.
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@Steve Bolger What laws are related to establishing an official religion in the US? You know what Europe had a long time ago? Where the state used taxes to support the only acceptable religion? That is the clear meaning of those words in that time.
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"Abortion opponents, like their adversaries, recognize the potential for electoral backlash if the court reverses Roe outright."
The right-wingers who manipulate "abortion opponents" do not want outright reversal because they would lose a perennial red-meat issue. For them the balancing act is finding more tiny cuts to show they are doing something, while preserving the issue.
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When does an abortion “regulation “ under Casey, requiring only that such not be an “undue burden”, magically morph into an abortion “restriction “ under Roe, necessitating a higher “strict scrutiny “ legal analysis test to be applied, or vice versa? This jurisprudence does seem ridiculous, and to think that the lives of millions of women in America depend upon an absurdity that is being grossly manipulated by the opponents of a women’s right to choose is infuriating.
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Can someone please explain why in 2018 we are still talking about ‘abortion’ and ‘abortion right’? Are there women in this country who still ‘get’ pregnant against their will? Unless raped, why would a woman ‘get’ pregnant? You only ‘get’ the flu, not a pregnancy.
Educated, responsible women should no longer need abortion - a tragic choice for our mothers and grandmothers.
Use birth control, for goodness sake.
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@Rosalyn
Birth control and even sterilization occasionally fails - even for the most responsible person. When this person has a serious reason to not have a baby they need abortion. This does not just include single women who can't afford one or teenagers whose life would be derailed, but married women with serious, even potentially life threatening, medical reasons not to have a baby. Should they just cease all marital relations in fear?
Women who plan their pregnancies also sometimes get a tragic diagnosis or life threatening complication. Another situation where they might want an abortion that was otherwise unpreventable.
I have three daughters; I absolutely intend to educate them about GOOD, long acting implantable birth control and facilitate them getting it. But if they were to be the unfortunate .01%, I would want abortion easily available for them.
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You are right Rosalyn but keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of Americans (of both genders) is neither educated nor responsible.
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@Rosalyn. I see you've been very lucky that you had the means to access contraception and that that contraception never failed you. I too was lucky. But I have known women, usually smart, educated and well-off (because that's the circles I travel in), who have indeed gotten pregnant using every method of contraception known to woman. So unless you are recommending no sex for women unless they want a child...your question is out of order.
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The Millennials and Gen Yers who will lose their reproductive rights have no one to blame but themselves. 54% of eligible Millennials and even more Gen Yers didn't vote in the 2016 Presidential election. (NPR and US News and World Report)
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@Lona: there is no such thing in the law or anywhere else as "reproductive rights".
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@Concerned Citizen Don't you think that the right to decide if you want to bear a child falls under "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?" Seems like the right to control what happens with your own body is pretty fundamental.
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Can you let this go? This battle was won by Democrats decades ago. Stop fighting, the war is over. Focus on more timely issues.
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I hate to tell you, but trust me, this battle is NOT over.
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@Navigator You are completely incorrect. 90% of counties in the US have no abortion provider (source: Guttmacher Institute). Some states have only one. One clinic in the whole state. Now that you are informed, will you join the fight?
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I have no horse in this race but I have always supported abortion. Young people have the morning after pill. Old folks are still fighting the wars of their youth not realizing that time has moved on and things have changed.
It is plain to me that equal protection of the law is the last thing to expect from this Supreme Court of fakes chosen to be blind to the first amendment prohibition of faith based legislation and second amendment citation of the dangers of unregulated militias. When it even matters where you vote in presidential elections, the promise of equally protective law is just another big fat lie.
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For some reason, this article just reminds me of the common and grossly misinformed refrain from the Bernie or Bust, Jill Stein, and non-voting continents: “Trump and Hillary are the same.” Oh really?
Tell that to the young girl suffering through an unwanted pregnancy without any help.
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@Mark: tell that to the young girl who -- despite years of sex ed in school PLUS unlimited sexual information on her SMARTPHONE -- decides to have unprotected sex with her boyfriend because "its romantic and spontaneous".
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@Concerned Citizen Birth control, even tubal ligation, can fail. Antibiotics can render the pill ineffective, or less effective. Do you blame people as immoral who do the best the can when they are driving - are sober, wear seatbelts, etc - but nevertheless have an accident?
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@Concerned Citizen And when you were a teenager, you never made a mistake. Will forcing teenagers to have unwanted children help anybody?
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Conservatives on guns: "If we outlaw guns, then only outlaws will have guns. People will just obtain them illegally. Gun control doesn't work!"
Conservatives on bodily autonomy: "Women shouldn't be allowed to choose whether to be pregnant. Outlawing abortion will make it nonexistent."
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@Randall Comparing apples to giraffes doesn't work.
I'm an independent. I don't care in the slightest about reproductive rights. Because of this, I feel the Democratic Party doesn't want anything to do with me.
Am I alone?
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If you don't care, then why are you commenting? If you don't care, why would vote with the party trying to strip away reproductive rights, thus bringing the issue to a more immediate, pressing concern in the public conversation?
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@Mtnman1963
If you really expect the Democratic Party to only care about issues important to you, just stay on the fence.
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@Mtnman1963
Maybe that's because you're an old man who a) can't get pregnant and b) can't empathize with other people?
You apparently can't reason, either, because you feel that because the democratic party cares about an issue that you don't care about, that they want nothing to do with you.
With the number of fallacies jammed into that comment, I sure hope you're alone.
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Why is Donald Trump, now an un-indicted co-conspirator to a federal election crime that helped steal a presidential election, still allowed to make ANY lifetime judicial appointments?!?
And there’s more reason for outrage. Republican senators collectively represent something like 18% of the US population, mostly from rural and low population states. They had to jettison the filibuster rule for SCOTUS appointments to get Gorsuch seated, killing any remaining need for Senate bipartisanship.
Our Republican government has moved into tyrannical territory. The majority of Americans did not want this president to govern us, even before we knew he was a criminal. And we certainly don’t want right wing religious zealots who can’t get bipartisan support seated on the Supreme Court.
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Testing stance on abortion is a good razor for determining whether someone's thinking is based in the scientific or theological. People are free to subscribe to either school of thought, but the latter should have ZERO presence in federal legislation.
If you want to tell someone else what they can and can't do with their body, because Jesus, then unfortunately 16th century England is gone. But hey...there's always Saudi Arabia.
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@Farquad There is a multiplicity of law telling you what you can and can't do with your body, none having to do with abortion.
Those laws are constitutional. Science says human life begins at conception.
@Farquad
Traditional Muslim law allowed abortions up to the quickening. I don't know what Saudi Arabia allows at this point, but if they don't allow abortions up to the quickening, they can not claim to be following the Koran on this issue.
I guess we need a heavy dose of fear-mongering before Labor Day (no pun intended).
Roe v Wade is long since a done deal, and very likely nothing we Democrats can do will prevent Kavanaugh's confirmation, which by the way will not lead to repeal of Roe v Wade.
So much of what is appearing in the NYT these days seems aimed at getting Democrats to beat their chests and gnash their teeth. Wouldn't it be better to focus on what we all can do to help get out the Democratic vote in November? That is what will really make a difference.
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Oh, my...Where to start...
Just because a justice of the Supreme Court was appointed by a Republican doesn't mean that they are necessarily conservative, or under the authors apparent assumption, that they are destructively conservative.
David Souter is not known for his conservative leanings. He is, in fact, known for his ideological shift from conservative to liberal as his term on the court unfolded.
The author, however, seems to ignore the fact that the most LIBERAL Supreme Court in living memory was that of Chief Justice Earl Warren, an appointment of President Dwight Eisenhower (R-PA) and whose legacy was continued by his successor, Chief Justice Warren Berger appointed by Richard Nixon (R-California.
It is ironic, too, that the case was decided in January of 1973, shortly after the re-election of Richard Nixon, the Republican candidate for president in 1972.
Another key point is that some of the most society-changing and legally correct decisions that the Supreme Court has ever made have come under the leadership of chief justices appointed by REPUBLICAN presidents...I offer both Roe v Wade and the decisive Brown v Board of Education.
I could go on with more precedent setting decisions made by "conservative" supreme courts, but doing so might be somewhat offensive to the author's sensibilites.
Ms. Mayeri's understandings of how the court looks at issues seems to be somewhat colored by her own political biases...Not a reliable defense of her argument
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@The Owl
To compare Eisenhower or even Nixon to today's Republicans is like comparing Lincoln to Trump. Totally absurd. When Nixon and Eisenhower made their appointments there was no abortion litmus test. Both presidents were far more responsible in how they governed and believed in good government, and yes this is even true of Nixon, despite his egregious flaws and Watergate and the Southern Strategy and his lying about the Viet Nam negotiations. (In fact, if you look at Nixon's actual policies, they were to the left of Obamas.)
Potential appointments are now far more scrutinized for their political leanings and their potential rulings than decades ago.
Yes, maybe Kavanaugh, once appointed, would prove to be another Souter, and maybe pigs will fly, but I would not bet any money on either.
Scalia, Thomas, Alito and for the most part Roberts have proved to be just as reprehensible as they were predicted to be.
@White Buffalo...What a straw man you are trying to build, sir.
By your argument, only the liberal view deserves to be represented on the Supreme Court.
And, I am of the strong belief that you are still having difficulty accepting that Hillary Clinton lost the election to Donald Trump.
And to the argument that Trump is destroying the rule of law, our Constitution, and our democracy?...
Let me point out that it is difficult to say with a straight face that enforcing the law is destroying the rule of law, and that insisting that Congress pass needed legislation is doing away with the Constitution. And any argument that his choice not to permit the bureaucracy...Deep State, if you will...to create law without the prior approval of the Congress fails on the most basic of Constitutional elements...the separation of powers.
What is reprehensible, sir, is your cynicism about all things with which you disagree, a condition that reveals that you are seriously afraid that you way is not carrying the day.
To correct this, you need to provide reasoned arguments, not emotions screeds or blackmail attempts to substitute unworkable "moral" solutions on an electorate that wants no part of them.
Give it a try for a change.
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Younger generations have never been in the position where they've had to fight for their rights. Previous generations did the work for us with the civil rights movement, womens rights movement, and LGBT rights movement. We've largely taken for granted that we will always have access to safe abortions because we don't remember when women had to use the Jane network if they wanted a safe abortion.
Ireland now is a good example of where we were with this debate when Roe vs Wade was decided. As the atrocities of the abuse towards the most vulnerable by the Catholic Church have been revealed the Irish have chosen to throw off the tentacles of patriarchy and grant rights to women and the LGBT community that were once thought impossible. Hopefully they will be more diligent in keeping their conservatives from slowly erasing those rights.
Abortion will always be available for the wealthy. As birth control has improved abortion isn't as necessary now. Young women have way more options than were available pre roe vs Wade than ever before.
Conservatives may find that they will regret winning this battle. Instead of allowing abortion to become unnecessary they've made womens rights a rallying cry. The parkland kids have shown us that the younger kids know how to fight back when they feel their rights are being trampled. If conservatives become more hostile towards abortion rights under a conservative court they will alienate the youth and they will lose in the long term.
15
I support abortion rights and I oppose efforts to limit access to abortion. However, I've always been flummoxed by the line of reasoning that I hear frequently, also mentioned in this Opinion piece: "Many states have enacted laws that drastically limit access to reproductive health care, particularly for poor, rural and immigrant women WHO CANNOT AFFORD TO MISS WORK AND MAKE REPEATED TRIPS TO CLINIC HUNDREDS OF MILES AWAY." ..... The amount of time, money, and missed work necessary for an abortion (even with the onerous restrictions in some states) is still _far_ less than the amount of time, money, and missed work necessary for a full-term pregnancy, birth, and parenting of child.
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@GBR Yes, parenting a child is a lifetime obligation. But abortion is a common, necessary and legal procedure and all the tactics used to make it extremely difficult to access are frivolous, paternalistic and cruel, because the legislators who promote them wish to punish girls and women for becoming pregnant.
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Contraception is least time consuming by comparison. Yeah, it fails occasionally, 5% of the time at the most -- way lower than the abortion ratio (186 per 1,000 live births in 2014, according to the CDC.)
For the Republican politicians who count on Pro-Life votes and are able to get them as long as they are fighting to repeal Roe v. Wade, will they be able to keep their voters if Roe v. Wade is overturned? It's the fight that mobilizes these voters, but where will they be if their battle is won? Could it be another version of Ender's Game?
5
@LJL Austin Yes they will keep their voters because that will mean they actually accomplished something. To the victor go the spoils...
Could someone please explain how the 2016 SCOTUS ruling on Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstadt that struck down TX TRAP laws won't prevent further erosions/1000 cuts the author worries about coming from the 1992 ruling she focuses on? Is it as simple as that with a new conservative majority SCOTUS will simply overrule their own recent ruling, or rule directly contrary to it?
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@khd5
Whole Woman's Health was a strong decision.
However, there are lots of different bills being advanced by the anti's that are designed to undermine or directly attack Roe in different ways, under different substantive and procedural theories. (20 week bans because of "fetal pain," "informed consent" laws, laws preventing abortion "because of" disability or sex of the fetus, bans on specific procedures...) So while WWH is very helpful, it doesn't serve as a road block for each theory.
They won't attack it directly, they'll come at it from the sides. They may not overrule it, but they'll find a way to limit it's import.
A simple explanation, but hope that helps.
1
Precedent is the subordination of the court's duty to uphold the constitution to the benefit of stability in the law. A judge takes an oath to the constitution, not to the opinions of other judges. Stability is a desirable goal and worth sustaining to a certain extent, but if a judge believes a previous court has strayed from the constitution, the obligation is to the document.
5
It's a sign of democratic decay when the highest court in the land becomes the most politicized institution in the land. When you can predict with near 100% certainty how the Court will rule simply by looking at the political affiliations of the judges, something is very wrong. There is no such thing as a conservative legal approach to the law. There is no such thing as "original intent" or "textualism." These judges use whatever interpretive tool they need to (or just make it up) in order to produce whatever result they want. It's sort of like Christian apologetics: while the text says one thing, I'll use whatever interpretative tool I can think of (or just make it up) to make the text say something else. I've read Roe multiple times, and I become more and more convinced every time I read it that it's right. And it was a 7-2 decision with 5 republican-appointed judges, who weren't appointed with an eye on decriminalizing abortion. These new judges, however, have been groomed for decades on one issue and one issue only: abortion. That the states could/would/might not criminalize it again is no comfort. The writing is on the wall; get your pitchforks ready.
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@Jon: and yet, the last time an abortion case came before the Court...they punted and refused to hear it.
It's not nearly as cut & dried as you think.
@Jon - I too am a Democrat, but the left, including the left wing of the Court, is just as willing to use whatever tools are needed to achieve their result. Case in point: Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 ruling that served as a platform for Roe eight years later. The Constitution says nothing about privacy, yet William O. Douglas cherry picked several clauses of the Bill of Rights in order to derive a freestanding right of privacy. I have nothing against privacy, or abortion rights, but the left can be just as dishonest as the right (if not more so sometimes, as when they parade as "liberals"),
Abortion has always been a difficult topic. As I was adopted at birth 66 years ago I have to assume the odds are good I would not be here today had abortion been legal at the time. On the other had I don’t see how anyone can tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her body. Have an abortion, sell herself for sex, it just isn’t anyone else’s business. There is no good answer to this only various forms of compromise. By the way, I have never heard of a specific condition afflicting the mother that would call for a partial birth abortion.
7
@TW Smith: For late-term abortion, which you call "partial birth", a severe but late-discovered fetal abnormality could call for one. A severe danger to the mother's health is another reason. I've read about such cases, to know they occur.
84
@TW Smith...
I am well aware of the arguments and completely in tune with the concept of a woman's right to determine the life of her body. No arguments to the contrary for me.
But please, if you will, address the question of when abortion, a legal and elective medical procedure, turns to murder, an act that is an anathema to and illegal in all civilized communities.
Further, I would appreciate if you would address the role of the state in defining the line between abortion (legal) and murder (illegal).
I would think that civil people can have a reasonable discussion on those two topics as they are, in fact, at the root of the current controversy.
Please give some thought to your answer and outline to us how you think the two issues are to be resolved....
4
@TW Smith, keep in mind that women were having abortions long before they were legal, and if abortions are outlawed, women will still get them even if they risk dying to do so.
22
"With one more justice, Mr. Trump’s Republican Party will fully control all three branches of government, eliminating the last check on his power." Control of the Judiciary was the prize Republicans have been after for decades, because Judiciary rulings allowed this country to become more progressive through landmark decisions from Brown vs the Board of Education to Roe vs Wade to Obergefell vs Hodges. It won't matter for years and years to come if we have Democratic control of both Houses of Congress and a sitting Democrat for President, if Kavanaugh is seated on the Supreme Court. Further the lower courts have rapidly been loaded with conservative judges as well. The Democrats still have many Senators not willing to commit not to seat Kavanaugh, which I find unimaginable, and just yesterday Chuck Schumer struck some kind of deal with Mitch McConell to confirm 15 more conservative judges (supposedly to give Democrats more time to campaign at home), and thus clearing the decks for a vote on Kavanaugh.
If Kavanaugh is seated, and it is looking right now as if that will happen, then the right to choose will either be turned back to the states to be decided, or abortion may become outlawed again throughout the country.
The Republicans have welcomed the distraction of the investigation of Mueller's investigation and Trump's outrage against it as they went about their task of filling the courts. Now the biggest prize of all, control of the Supreme Court is within their grasp.
37
@Diana, Schumer, if he made a deal to allow confirmation of more right-wing extremist judges, is a traitor. I will look into this. It should be front-page news.
18
@Thomas Zaslavsky:
What Diana says is true. Schumer did exactly that:
https://abovethelaw.com/2018/08/invertebrate-chuck-schumer-makes-deal-to...
4
@Diana: trust me....the real politicians SELLING YOU DOWN THE RIVER are your fellow Democrats.
There is only one solution to his process. Voting. Women and their male allies have to vote relentlessly. Vote to control the Senate, control Supreme Court nominations, replace conservative justices and secure rights. It is a decades long struggle. And we should know that because that's how the extreme right has fought it.
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@RS: OK but remember the other side is thinking and doing THE EXACT SAME THING (and more successfully!).
@RS Now that the reports on the horrific sexual abuse in Pennsylvania have been released, more states should initiate investigations. People, especially women, need to become aware of this dreadful religious hypocrisy, even if statute of limitations for prosecution have passed.
67% of the country wishes to keep abortion legal. This is fact. Concerned Citizen's post about "the other side" is wrong.
1
Isn't it interesting that Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley found that in 2016 the politics were just too hot to allow President Obama's appointment to go ahead, but this year in such a race to hurry Judge Kavanaugh's appointment he'll forgo a full and complete hearing and proceed without there being provided ample information on the candidate. The current candidate has voiced the opinion that unlike the impeachment investigation that he helped with, it would now be incorrect to burden future presidents with such a situation.
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"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." - H. L. Mencken
Voters brought this all upon ourselves. By that, I mean those who voted for Trump, those who stayed home, and those who voted third party. Enjoy.
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@MadelineConant - Not necessarily the voters. Ironically, it is the Constitution itself. Not only the Electoral College, but the system of checks and balances, meaning Congress. And the lifetime appointments of Federal Justices. All designed by Our Founding Fathers.
4
Support ranked choice voting so you can stop blaming third party voters for having the nerve to support someone they actually believe in.
And the poor candidates are not to blame?