Being over 80, I remember those "good old days" before Roe. Where I lived every body was against publicly recognized legal abortion (If you were middle class or higher it was all done privately. There was even a hospital on the North Shore of Long Island that specialized in "D&C" procedures. If a young women with the money missed a couple of periods, she had one. Problem solved.)
The unmarried lower class women who became pregnant had 2 choices: illegal abortion, which could lead to death or sterility; or getting the putative father to marry them, no matter how reluctant he might be.
But those of us in the upper middle class knew they were just poor people, so our girlfriends got their D&C's and we all supported the ban on legal abortions.
Ah, The Good Old Days!
2
1) Overturning Roe would mean the Roberts court would no longer have any legitimacy in the eyes of the majority, who believe that women must have the final say over their own bodies.
2) Being pregnant puts every woman at some risk during that 9 months and during the birth process, some far more than others. Birth control methods are not 100% effective. Requiring all women who get pregnant, especially those at high risk, to carry each one to term and give birth means some women will die or suffer serious and lasting health consequences from forced pregnancy. Think about that, especially where some of these folks want to make it even harder to obtain birth control too. A century ago without birth control or abortion, women had 10-12 (or more!!) children, and their bodies and sanity paid a price. Is that the future of our country???
3) When medical research makes it possible for men to routinely ( give up or pause their careers and) go through the various physical /emotional/etc challenges as they carry babies to term, go through birthing, and nurse the baby for another 9 months, THEN we can talk about it.
They will NEVER overturn Roe. It is what galvanizes the Republican Evangelical base. How else could they rally
supposed Christians to vote for the guy who regardless of their morals, does everything to make the rich richer. They'll find technicalities to vote it down to keep Evangelicals voting Republican to get even more justices who support the top 1% of the 1%.
5 to 4, the five are just waiting for the right case.
1
Two deep red states, West Virginia and Alabama had a referendum on their 2018 ballot. The text of WV was: "Nothing secures the right or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion".
In both states those amendments passed, while the language was intended to make the uninformed believe that any abortion was being funded by tax payers money, which of course was never the case.
As always, the oh-so-pious ones in those states only care about a fetus, but once a child is born into poverty their piousness comes to a complete halt.
1
"The court’s legitimacy...rests on respect for precedent"
More so it rests on overruling precedents to correct past mistakes..
Who would want to live with the Court's findings that slaves are property not people (Dred Scott v, Sanford), or that forced sterilization by a state of persons it deems unfit to have children due to perceived intellectual disabilities is okay (Buck v. Bell), or supporting inferior segregated public schools for black children (Plessy v. Furgeson), or sanctioning imprisoning citizens of Japanese heritage (Korematsu v. U.S.)? Precedents are often followed because judges are too lazy or too inept to interpret the laws of the land for themselves.
Abortion should neither be illegal nor sanctioned by law. It involves killing those among us who are unable to defend themselves, and thus deserving of our protection--but not by laws that criminalize mothers who make the agonizing decision to kill their babies, nor by punishing those medical personnel who perform abortions.
Both mothers and abortionists are victims along with the dead babies when abortions are performed. The laws of nature and of nature's God alone are capable of resolving the dilemma of abortions. If we get government entirely out of the abortion business, precluding it from judging, punishing, underwriting or sanctioning such a wrenching, personal decision, in due course a culture of life will replace the culture of death abortion fosters. All Americans will be made safer thereby.
3
For all of the people who rage at the prospect of Roe v Wade being overturned, there are a couple of salient points.
The ruling asserts that the states have no interest in regulating abortion during the first trimester, except in protecting the health of the woman. The fetus has no legal rights until the quickening. In most western states, abortion is without restriction only during the first 15 weeks, which is consistent with Roe v Wade.
After the point of viability, that is the point at which the unborn child can theoretically survive outside of the womb, the child has acquired human rights and the state is obligated to establish balancing of the mother's and child's rights. So a woman whose life is not threatened is not entitled to an elective abortion if the unborn child is better off continuing gestation inside the mother. In 1972, the point of viability was considered the end of the second trimester. That point has been pushed back by technology to 20-21 weeks. At that point, heroic action to preserve the life of a 20 week premature delivery is successful in preserving the life of the child 50% of the time, comparable to that of a seven month premie in 1972.
1
Let's start calling the right to life supporters, Probirthers. They only want to protect a child until it is born. Afterward, the mother and child are on their own. If the father does not provide they will be on welfare or "takers", a conservative term. Of if they are lucky the family will help with the rearing of the child. There are many grandparents raising grandchildren.
The decision to discriminate against single mothers is based on the idea that the woman is to blame for the pregnancy. It isn't based on facts. Where is the father? Was she raped or sexually molested by a relative? Was it a birth control failure? These factors are ignored because there is no respect for woman's rights. It's really all about power and has nothing to do with babies.
It's about keeping women in their place, the 1950's.
No precedent, no reversal.
Worst case scenario:
Roe is overturned, and the decision goes back to the states. Some states (like mine) remain pro-choice, others do not. If I drove to a state where abortion was criminalized and picked up a pregnant woman and brought her to New York for an abortion, could she be arrested in her home state on a murder charge? Could I be arrested as an accessory?
People, including the protesters in the picture, who argue that they want to defund PP because they value life so much fail to consider the consequences of their actions. If the courts permit states to withhold payment from PP, millions of women will not receive treatment for deadly diseases, including cancer.
Many of these women will die, unintended victims of a campaign to save the lives of unborn children. Since only about 3% of PP's budget funds abortions, the lives lost would surely outnumber those saved.
A tragic outcome to a crusade whose stated goal focuses on saving lives.
I love all the talk of “rights” and the Constitution and precedents, which is all well and good until you start talking about the Second Amendment; then, not so much.
1
The issue isn't legal abortions vs. no abortions. It's legal abortions vs illegal abortions. Women have always gotten abortions. They existed before Christ, so how come he didn't condemn them? The question is whether abortions are safe or not. If illegal they won't be, for many poor, and also middle class women.
We need to fear the overturning of Roe. We need to fear that the Republicans believe the people are not wise enough to govern themselves themselves. That is the real philosophy behind Roe v. Wade: the individual is wise enough to govern herself. We must fear that the Republican party philosophy that money is more important than people. which is well supported by the Supreme Court in Citizens United, will creep into all American law and undermine all our freedoms. Trump just put money ahead of murder in the Kissoghi case. We must fear that our rights are eroding away and we will end "being free to obey".
The saddest thing here is looking at this photo of young faces. I was truly hoping the religious right was aging and dying out.
Planned Parenthood is more than abortions. They preform both men and women cancer test, etc.
Yes, this new Supreme Court will overturn Roe VS Wade, and American women will suffer the consequences for a generation or two. Some states will jail them. Some states will force them to have children they cannot bare and they will die. We will have another increase in teen birth rates. Girls lives will be ruined. Some states will allow abortions as they are currently practiced under current law. Poor women will suffer. Middle class women will do what they please. After a few decades some national political leader will point out that poor women in some states are getting a raw deal, and we will do the whole thing over again.
I would love where every business would stated what they believed is and see how their business survive or not. Why should I support a business if they are against my beliefs. If a pharmacist are against certain pills over abortion, lets that be known. If a company are against certain peoples lets the consumers know on your products, lets see how long you will last.
Someone needs to explain to me why anti-abortion activists don't support free birth control. If they believe that life begins at conception, wouldn't it make sense to prevent the sperm and egg from ever meeting?
1
We can hope. It was among the worst decisions the court ever wrote. Leave aside millions of dead babies, it was horrible law, as there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution which even remotely suggests that such a right exists. The court pulled Roe out of thin air; it has no place in a system in which judges obey the law, not invent it.
If the people rise up in righteous anger to amend the Constitution so as to expressly protect the right to kill a child, that is their call. Heck, there IS precedent: in 1860, the Pro-Choice crowd dissolved the union and provoked a civil war in support of the proposition that some people aren't really people, that humanity is not a matter of basic biology, but of subjective personal opinion.
The idea that a woman can never be truly free absent the right to tear a child out of her body is preposterous. it's awful policy. And it simply isn't law.
2
Good. Let the SCOTUS overturn Roe VS Wade. If that's what it takes to put the final nail in the coffin of the GOP, so be it. Then with those dinosaurs out of the way, we will finally get laws to protect women's rights and stop the pro-life movement in its tracks.
Didn't we hear Justice Kavanaugh tell us that Roe was "settled law"? Let's hope that the other justices see it the same way.
1
I'D LIKE TO BELIEVE That the Justices do not make their decisions from inside silos buried deep underground. There is reason to believe that they do not. Roberts's rebuke of Trump characterizing judges according to who appointed them and Kavanaugh's utterly unexpected comment about supporting stare decisis, suggest that there is some concern in the court about being independent and avoiding being aligned with the insane rollercoaster ride that is Trump's disgraceful excuse for a presidency. He daily shreds the Constitution with aplomb. And his heavy footed clomping around in his ignoramus clodhoppers. Surely even the most doctrinaire of them must be aware of the extreme instability, narcissistic unpredictability and incompetence rolling out of the Oral Office on a daily basis. I'd dare to opine that the members of the Court do not wish to appear to be perceived as prostituting themselves to a president who's about as close to a whoremaster as anyone to occupy the Oral Office. In fact, I believe that directing his attorney to pay off some women with whom he'd had sex to protect the outcome of the 2016 election was prima facie evidence of Trump's utter disregard for his oath of office, for the solemn duties related to the office of the president and for the welfare of the nation. I do hope that the justices realize that our nation is unraveling and in danger of falling apart. I am naive enough to hope & believe that they do not wish to hasten the end of our democracy.
I was once “pro-life.” I had been indoctrinated by the Conservatives in the RCC and Republican Party.
Sad, to see these young women advocating against the free will of other women. They really do not see the truth in front of them, nor the lies they believe.
The so-called-pro-life movement has be outed showing us whom they really are! Anti-immigrants, anti- healthcare, pro-misogyny and pro-patriarchal! They promote lies, fear and misinformation.
I am clinging to hope, that Justice Roberts will side with the Liberals on SCOTUS, when the time comes. Roe v Wade will be challenged! May as well, prepare ourselves.
"...I suspect it has something to do with the fact that some respondents in these cases are named “Planned Parenthood.” That makes the Court’s decision particularly troubling, as the question presented has nothing to do with abortion..." Then why bring it up? The dissenters desire to kill "Roe v. Wade" by a "thousand cuts" is so transparent... Predictions: 1) "Roe v. Wade" will be overturned... 2) Red States will pass laws making it illegal to perform abortions... 3) Medical School students in those states will not receive licenses to practice medicine in Blue States because they will not be fully-trained... 4) Women in Red States will slowly but surely relocate to Blue States...
NO, They won't. But you are asking the wrong question. The more significant question is will they overturn the restrictive laws some states have tried to use. While everyone is gnashing their teethe about Row vs. Wade, laws have been passed that severely limited the access iv various states.. Up to now, the Court has generally not been by fooled these type of laws. But if upheld, abortions will still be done but as they were before Roe vs Wade, backrooms and clothes hangers
Nobody, but nobody, responding here seems aware of the fact that the world population is 7 billion and increasing exponentially. We NEED contraceptives and abortion.
If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, won’t it be on the basis of return of control of this medical procedure to the states? And if that happens, won’t we hav ‘wide-open’ states, like California and New York, that fully support abortion rights up and down the economic spectrum? And won’t there be other states, like Mississippi and Alabama, that forbid it entirely? What will the disparity do to our already strained relations, to our ability to coexist as a nation? Will the Supreme Court, which has shown little aptitude, of late, for creating decisions that bring us together as a country, preside over yet another dismemberment of our body politic?
2
This appeal had nothing to due with abortion and everything to do with the question of whether Medicaid beneficiaries have standing to sue the government regarding coverage issues. It is tempting to read into this question more deeply. But, that isn't the basis for the decision of the Court.
1
Here's a grim sign for Roe: Kavanaugh said at his confirmation hearing that his favorite SCOTUS decision is Brown v. Board. That case is most notable, legally speaking, for completely reversing precedent.
The sad fact is 158 years later Lincoln whilst making the correct judgment on slavery missed it on the confederacy. The founders left a structure that enables the minority to have not just protective rights, but disproportionate power legislatively and at the executive branch. We'd have been and still would be better off as 2 or maybe 3 nations. The cultural divide is widening and as someone who has lived & worked in every part of the nation, I see that continuing.
2
They may not "overturn" Roe v. Wade and they don't really need to. The SCOTUS only needs to affirm the myriad little restrictions states are proposing and the odds of the average woman to obtain an abortion become miniscule. Death by a thousand cuts. Of course the wealthy and connected will, as before Roe, be able to get them, either from cooperating doctors in the US or by going to another country. The poor will be left in the back alleys.
5
It's a little late to bring it up now, but Roe v Wade, although it reflected good public policy, was "bad law" in the sense that it became the law of the land long before the land was ready for it.
Had the court exercised more restraint at the time of Roe, most of the states would have, by now, adopted progressive statutes supporting access to legal abortion. It's true that there would be pockets of reaction and resistance to abortion rights, but the nation would not have suffered the half century of political infighting that Roe has engendered. It is the single most critical point of division in our entire structure of policy formation, and has done untold harm.
Overruling the decision now would, of course, just compound the error.
3
@gradyjerome You are so wrong in saying that Roe "became the law . . . long before the land was ready for it." If you were around in the 1960s and early 70s you would well know that women were very ready for legalization of abortion - because they knew well about back alley abortions and the deaths and maiming that resulted. Women learned where to get abortions thru an underground network - and they took a chance as to whether it would be safe or botched. Roe was way past due in 1973.
The Republican appointees were chosen for the express purpose of overturning Roe v. Wade. Roberts may imagine otherwise, but eventually they will have to pay their dues.
1
@Paul Sitz The justices are lifetime appointees. It’s not like Trump or past Republican Presidents can change their minds now.
A new metric to consider: with Kavanaugh that makes five Catholics. No way it'll get overturned. But... what we may see is
an addendum that allows counties to not permit abortions within their borders. Considering there's a whole lot of counties already without those facilities, it'll be like handing the pro-lifers a Pyrrhic victory. Kind of like those counties where alcohol can't be sold, but I imagine there'd be a different euphemism as it pertains to abortions.
1
This is so medieval. As a supposedly advanced democratic society, we should be way beyond fighting over this basic reproductive right. No way, no day - law or no law - will abortion end, as long as women get pregnant. Rich women have always and will always be able to end pregnancies. We should instead focus on improving birth control and pre-natal care.
7
Roe is a problem for the Republican party, and hence for the Republican justices (there's nothing conservative about them, so let's be accurate here.) If they don't overturn Roe, the fundamentalist GOP base will be (justifiably) outraged. After all, they have 5 anti-choice justices; what more could be needed? But if they do overturn Roe, the issue will go back to the states, where it is a political loser for the GOP. So my guess is that at least one of the Republican justices will content himself with strangling Roe rather than overturning it. Whatever the decision, it will be depend on what the GOP thinks is best for it politically. This court has no regard for stare decisis. (See Citizen's United, Shelby, and Janus, just for starters.)
1
I support abortion rights; I believe a woman's decision what goes on within her body is hers alone and should only involve her physician.
What I do not understand is why this cannot be a matter of the states as opposed to federal law. Has it not been the case that many judicial decisions been turned over to the states? Do the states have the right to respect the majority view of their own constituents? When yes, and when no?
Of course, one does not turn over the matter of slavery or women's voting rights to the states, no matter the predominant views of the citizens. But these are encoded in the Constitution.
So again I ask, do judges have the judicial right to turn Roe v Wade back to the individual states? It is not in the Constitution. Should it be?
2
@Victor Mark You say you support abortion rights and believe a woman's decision to what goes on within her body to be hers alone and should only involve her physician. I agree. Where I disagree is with your notion about turning it over to the states. You ask whether states should have the right to respect the majority view of their own constituents. The should -- except when the majority want to deny the rights of a minority. If the majority of a state wanted to impose a religious obligation on a minority, they should not be able to do so. If abortion is a right, and your first paragraph seems to indicate you believe it is, states should not have the right to deny that right even if the majority within that state want to do so.
2
These young people like those in the photo here are one of the reasons the pro life movement has made such great strides today. They have been out in force supporting the cause and not giving up. They have been promoting life which for so many years has been devalued by the pro choice advocates. They have already seen 60 million innocent lives lost to abortion and they want to end this travesty.
I know many young people from my pro life work and they are some of the finest I have met. They are educated and have bounds of energy. They have already made a difference in helping save lives in the womb and will not give up this fight. They see the value in life and do not want to see any more precious babies lost to abortion. They should be admired and not scorned. I think they are great and are my role models. They give me lots of hope for the continuation of this movement and to the end of abortion in America. Hopefully it will happen sooner rather than later with their tireless devotion. They will not give up the good fight.
3
Their enthusiasm can be admired, but their intention to tell other women how to live their lives? Not so much.
To have an abortion is sometimes an agonizing choice. It is no one else’s to make beyond the woman’s decision with her doctor’s guidance. And protesting against that does not make it not so.
6
Perhaps this commenter hasn’t seen pictures of young people on the other side of the issue.
Or isn’t aware of the following statistic: Just 44 percent of young Americans say abortion goes against their personal beliefs, compared to 60 percent of Americans over 65.
1
If repeal comes to pass, the first state to outlaw abortion and then arrest a woman will be subject to corporate and business shunning like never before. That state will become a pariah. The GOP will lose most women's votes for a generation. After all, let us be frank: this is a religious issue. I do not think most Americans will prove to be fine with creeping theocratic rule trumping the idea of equal rights. Such radical messages may fill pews, but that is a minority, and it surely will not fill ballot boxes favorably for the Party held responsible for such a coming civil rights train wreck.
I fully appreciate the issue is complex. But not just legally, but socially, in many ways this is established precedent, and any "new order" is going to be awfully hard to stomach once people see it in action.
As I said, just imagine what will happen when the first woman gets arrested -- for attempted murder -- for trying to secure an abortion.
Kicking this issue to the states is no solution at all. It is about equal rights under the law. I simply do not see, at all, how our society can live with a situation where in one state a woman has full reproductive rights, but over the border in the next state, she has none.
"Let the states decide" is something said by someone who has not at all thought this matter through. It will not work. At all.
10
Will the Supreme Court Overturn Roe v. Wade After All? I wouldn't put it past them. If they don't overturn it outright they will side with states that pass restrictive legislation to severely limit abortion rights.
4
I'm pretty sure the Supreme Court will not take any case that would overrule Roe vs Wade. Roe vs Wade is one of those cases that once ruled on by the Court, the Supreme Court is very reluctant to overturn. The Dred Scott Decision that stood for the legal position that African Americans were were property had to be overturned by the Civil War and the 13th Amendment because the tradition of the Supreme Court is that they do not
directly overturn their own decisions.
1
Close question. My bet is Roberts will be slow to attack precedent in a nakedly partisan way. That does not mean shrinking options around the fringes is off the table.
4
They will definitely overturn Roe v Wade, but they need the right case to do it. Until then they will let lower court rulings stand.
4
They will over turn it at the very first opportunity they have to do so and kick it back to the states. This has been on their agenda since day one and if you don't believe they will dare upset legal precedent, you have not been paying attention. This is the most activist court in years in terms of over turning established precedent across a range of issues. Stare decisis didn't help campaign finance, unions, or voters rights and it won't help with abortion either.
59
@Stuart M I think the deputy legal director of the ACLU probably has been paying attention.
@Stuart
They just had the chance and declined.
This court will not overturn Roe v. Wade because that will deprive the Republicans of their most powerful tool in energizing their base.
1
The picture is so frustrating, seeing young women protesting, asking for rulings that would curtail their individual rights.
Currently (notwithstanding individual states eliminating clinics) there are rights for both camps. Those that believe in abortion, can choose to have one. Those against abortion can give birth, and utilize adoption services if they so choose. What can be more fair and equitable? You follow your own conscience, and if you feel strongly, try to convince others to adopt your views.
However, these protestors would not only not have an abortion themselves, they believe that others should be legally prevented from acting against their beliefs. it should be their way only, with no other choice or option.
They should be ashamed of themselves. Learn to respect others beliefs, and the rights of others to make different choices.
25
I believe murder is moral, so I should have a right to murder people? Please don't limit my freedoms. Follow your own conscience and I'll follow mine, don't legislate away the right to murder.
@Billy Don't be too sure that the protesters featured in the photo accompanying this op-ed piece wouldn't or didn't themselves have abortions. There are religious women who, regretting the decisions they made when they had option to choose, "atone" by working to deny choice to others. Pro-life should be referred to as anti-choice and pro-choice is correctly, pro-choice. As recently as the 1960's, rape victims and women who because pregnant because birth control was unavailable or failed, or not used, had NO choice either to terminate a pregnancy or, once their pregnancies came to term and their children were born, to keep and raise their own children.
Why would anyone think that abortion could not be overturned?
100 years ago, statues and memorials to Confederate heroes adorned the South. Cigarettes we're labeled healthy. Seat belts were only in planes. No one spared the rod, lest the child became spoiled. No sensible business man would consider opening his doors on a Sunday morning, everyone being in church and all. Women weren't in combat. Hawaii and Alaska were exotic and dangerous and not many people went there, let alone desired to live there.
Yup, things change.
2
I hope my liberal friends will realize the base problem... activist liberal judges that can make... or overturn laws based on personal bias... right or left.
But remember making judicial law has been a liberal monopoly... by definition conservative defer to legislation passed by Congress and signed by the president. .the only legitimate way to make laws
3
The editing correction is still wrong. Until Clinton's executive order, Medicaid not permitted to pay for elective abortion, except if the mother's life was threatened or were the result of rape or incest. After the Clinton order, a state could use Medicaid to pay for elective abortions as long as they did not use federal funds.
The statement that Medicaid does not cover abortions is false. It does in blue states.
1
Instead of relying on a Court decision, Democrats should have passed laws years ago that guarantee the right to terminate unborn children. I wonder why they didn’t do this during the first two years of Obama’s Presidency. What else was so important?
4
I'm OLD, ENOUGH to remember transporting female patients to the E.R., post D.I.Y.-Abortions!
I wonder:
Will Pro_Life_Jihadists be as proud...if/when, women / girls are again dying much of the time?
I'm reminded of that Iranian-born dentist who died in London, (septicemia, due to a rotting fetus), after the hospital REFUSED to perform a D.,'N, C., on a hopelessly, deformed pregnancy!
16
We've virtually reinstated Jim Crow in the South and reneged on LGBT rights, only a matter of time before the right attacks women's rights too. I do wish I lived in a country that was moving forward.
14
Right now you can get an abortion if you live in a blue state or if you live in a red state and have the money to travel long distances and take time off from work--or don't need to work.
If you live in a red state and are poor or even working class, you very well may not be able to get a legal abortion.
The anti-abortionists have essentially overturned Roe already.
11
Let them try. It will be the biggest mistake the Republicans ever made.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/15/1582937/-Why-the-Right-Needs-Roe
35
@Next Conservatism
Yes it will, but the'll do it anyway.
1
No, Roe v Wade will not be overturned. Maybe not ever. Not by the current conservative Justices. Not by anybody. Not gonna happen.
This whole subject is demagoguery used against any conservative Justice nominated since the 70s. To be fair the Republicans would use the samie scare tactics against a liberal nominee, say, by claiming that the nominee would vote to overturn gun ownership. Demogoguery is a cheap but effective equal opportunity political gimmick.
When are people going to realize that a nominating process has deteriorated into pure political theater? The opponents deliberately try to create hysteria so they look good in a televised hearing.
Then they can go home and smugly claim how they stood up against a nominee, while accomplishing nothing more than whipping half the population into a frenzy.
Both the late Justice Scalia and sitting Justice Ginzberg, ideologically opposites, were confirmed almost unanimously. The integrity shown in both those Senate votes is gone, forever. And we applaud it because we are gullible.
2
First, provide free contraceptives.
Second, mandate age-appropriate fact-based teaching about the human body and reproduction.
Third, if the woman chooses to continue the pregnancy, ensure she has proper obstetric care, including prenatal vitamins. A healthy mother is far more likely to have a healthy baby.
Fourth, ensure all new mothers have what they need--support, education, in particular about parenting, and access to free diapers and other necessities.
Fifth, accept that some pregnancies are destined for failure, usually through no fault of the mother, and an abortion at any stage of the pregnancy may be needed to save the mother's life. If the fetus is viable, super! If not, then no amount of wishing and praying will make a difference. Some medical conditions are just too severe to allow for survival.
Do these, and the amount of abortions will decrease. This has already been shown in states that, for instance, provide fact-based education. Reduce the reasons for abortions, the number of abortions magically decreases, and more and more pregnancies are wanted.
6
After signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have said something to the effect that: "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a generation."
If the five conservative Supreme Court justices (who are all Catholic or were raised Catholic) overturn or severely limit Roe v. Wade, the GOP celebration may be short-lived. I think that those Justices will have just delivered nearly 50% of the population to the Democratic party for at least a generation.
5
We have heard for decades that Republicans are going to outlaw abortions. It’s an effective voter turnout for Democrats like Republicans are going to take away your social security used to be. Of course, Republicans use similar fear based tactics to turnout vote. One begins to wonder how many times a party can cry wolf before the electorate stops paying attention.
@John
Republicans have effectively outlawed abortion in many states. What makes you think they won't try to do so at the federal level? This is not crying wolf. The wolf is at the door.
1
Now if America is flooded with unwanted babies, the crime rate will increase and the per capital income will fall, the jail population will increase, the poor performance in schools will increase, the country will suffer.
10
Roe v Wade is the best fundraising tool the GOPers have. Sonce the Roberts Court decides every issue based on what's good for the GOP, Roe will be weakened but not overturned. Should it go down, the fundraising bonanza shifts immediately to the Democrats, and the GOPers are left with no support except for the white evangelical "christian" base.
12
Reproductive rights are one spoke in the hub of fundamental health and well-being rights not just for females but for all of society. Every nation on the planet functions better and males are more stable where females are valued and have reproductive rights. Those that don't are a caldron of unrest, crime, and antediluvian deviancy. This is why the U.S. has dropped many rungs of the global ladder while other nations have risen. To wit, abortion is set to become legal, safe and affordable in one of the most Catholic nations on the planet: Ireland.
Before 1973's Roe v. Wade decriminalized abortion, the medical procedure already was legal in some states. Abortion never would have reached this velocity and divisiveness in Amercia but for systemic sexism by Catholics and evangelicals. Today, most of the few abortions are sought by adult females, married and mothers. In the past, it was unmarried girls and women. The cause for both eras is the same: males who refuse to use condoms.
The gateway that allowed misogynist religions to destroy and deny females a full valued life was the rich white male founders codifying rights and powers for themselves while purposefully excluding women. Thus, reproductive health always was tied to overall right of each female to control her destiny and uterus + the rights of non-rich who cannot afford unwanted babies that reduce a woman's short and long term earning ability (not to mention sanity), if not remove her from the labor force altogether.
11
I'm at the point where if the red states want to do this to their women, let them. As long as the women in blue states have access to safe health care, that is all I have the bandwidth to worry about.
We all know the reddies just want to make the lives of their poor and working-class women as miserable as possible, and that when it comes to the lawmakers own women, they will just quietly provide the funds to send them to blue states for them to get safe medical care. I know that.
I just can't care anymore about the hostility of red states to their own people. I only have so much left.
11
Those who think that opponents of legal abortion would suddenly be OK with it if Roe vs. Wade was overturned nationally and then most blue states legalized it...I'd like some of what they're smoking.
5
I know SCOTUS isn't supposed to be political--yada yada--but I'm guessing that Roberts said something along the lines of: "Listen, Brett. Tom, Sam, and Neil want to take up the Louisiana and Kansas case, but I'm going with the libbies on this one. Why don't you join them this time, spread a little good will, and make things a little easier on yourself this time around?"
1
Let them try. Gorsuch is a fascist. Thomas is a little mind recruited by his wife to do the bidding of the rich and powerful. Alito was rewarded for helping Dick Cheney justify torture. I can't wait to see what the history books have to say about these contemptible, weak-hearted stooges.
11
Why even write or publish this column. Basically it says that we have no information that says which way the Supreme Court would vote. Printing this column just delegitimizes the Times. It is just a notice that "Hey, the NYT and its readership support Roe v. Wade." Everyone already knows that.
1
There is simply too much attention paid to the Supreme Court and its effect on abortion rights. The Supreme Court doesn't have to take an anti-abortion stance to severely weaken, even kill off Roe v Wade for some states. Trump and McConnell are going under the radar and packing some federal appeals courts with anti-abortion judges. At the appeals court level, there can be case precedent that effectively ends Roe v Wade for certain states. The case may never be taken up by the Supreme Court and affect the whole country. Instead, an appeals court decision will affect multiple states for those federal appeals courts. The most affected federal appeals courts so far? IMO, 5th, 6th, and 8th Circuit Courts. Combined together they make law for Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, and Missouri. Women living in those states may find their abortion rights severely curtailed in the coming years by their federal appeals courts, and the Supreme Court doesn't have to be involved at all. Wake up, people. Elections matter. So do Trump and McConnell's partisan choices for federal judges.
4
It would be wonderful if roe v. Wade was overturned but it is unlikely at this stage. But of course, anything is possible. Hopefully little by little there will be more restrictions put upon abortions by the states and this will result in the saving of fetuses/babies lives.
I do think one day roe v. Wade will be overturned as this is what the prolife movement has been aiming for. They have been busy at work and they will not give up until this happens. They have been coming closer and closer to see this outcome and will not rest until this occurs. They have many within the movement who have been working tirelessly and many young people are joining the cause. It looks positive.
@WPLMMT. Have you and your pro forced birth colleagues given thought as to how a ban would be enforced?
Require that every pregnancy be registered and monitored by the government? Institute police 'tip lines' where a nosy neighbor or bitter ex could leave a comment? Investigate miscarriages, still births, premature births and birth defects? How could a woman prove she had not been pregnant or had been pregnant but miscarried without intervention?
2
"Reading the tea leaves on abortion rights."
In other words, I will proceed to engage in rank speculation on the topic, and necessarily, paint a narrative that has no basis in fact.
Conflating Roe v. Wade with abortion "rights" is a cheap stunt coming from someone who (resumably) has a legal background.
Roe v Wade was about privacy, not abortion.
And it was restricted to a limited set of laws in the state of Texas.
1
Ask every self-proclaimed “pro-lifer” you know, how they intend to prevent females, with money, from simply flying to pro-choice nation’s to receive even late-term abortions, if the GOP is successful in making the use of birth control illegal again.
Ask, and keep asking, until you obtain a reasonable answer.
Which you won’t.
2
Supreme Court will never overturn Roe v Wade.
1
If this weren't so disturbing it would be funny. My wife's BFF voted for the Grifter-in-Chief. I am no longer her friend. Over her life, she has had three abortions and has a gay man as her giggilo. He does not fit the definition, but you get the point. She voted for Trump. I cannot excuse such behavior.
8
"But we also know that the chief justice cares about the court’s institutional legitimacy."
Hey Bobbaroo, you lost your legitimacy with your fanatical, decades-long efforts to gut the Voting Rights Act, and your bald instructions to right wing lawyers on how to bring a case the SC could rule on to make corporate money unlimited in campaigns. Those two are among the worst SC decisions ever and you orchestrated both of them. Shame on you. You have zero legitimacy among normal Americans.
1
Hard for me not to see the 'pro life' women in the photo as idiots rather than moral crusaders. By all means...YES! Let's limit your control over your own body.
From my moral perch (and yours)...we know FAR better than some individual woman what should be done with her pregnancy.
When it comes to something as sensitive as pregnancy, the only individuals who should be involved are the woman, her partner, and everyone else with an opinion.
That makes total sense.
7
What are we to make of it?
Another day, another, "The sky is falling and it's Donald Trump's fault" piece in the NYT.
4
I'll agree to give up my reproductive rights and in return those women denying those rights shall be publicly identified by wearing burkas, as the Taliban does. Let's call these concerned citizens exactly what they are: religious zealots who would impose their rigid theology upon us all. Our American Taliban.
6
@AG
I'll never give up my reproductive rights, nor those of my daughter.
Before males earn the right to pipe up as to what females do, males first have to get easy, cheap and reversible vasectomies.
2
The whole idea of overturning Roe is the ultimate hypocrisy. In our age of modern medicine, that a law could deal with all the complexities of pregnancy and birth is ridiculous. It is a medical issue! Women's bodies are not the property of the state, though Abigail Adams was not able to get her husband and his brethren to agree. Men, if you don't want to deal with birth issues, keep your pants zipped!
9
The Supreme Court are Republican conservatives and the last thing they ever want is to do is take away a cause that gives them five to ten points in elections. Republicans desperately cling to the pro-life agenda, and these women holding up their signs, are really promulgating for life for the Republican party.
3
It frustrates me the "pro-life" actually means "pro-fetus." For the most part, these are people who do not care about the child after it is born, and are unwilling to provide nutrition, healthcare, etc. This holds true in Canada as well.
12
At the moment, the court has no reputation as an independent arbiter that can be challenged. That boat sailed long ago.
3
Everyone who really knows Law, knows the right to privacy, never protects the right to commit a crime, all societies that have killed, or made slaves of a class of people ( Jews, Blacks, Armenians, Kurds, the unborn, first claim the people killed are less than human and then pass laws ( the Nazi's, Chinese, Turks, liberal Congressmen and judges ) to defend their point of view
2
One of these days we will come up with better terms or less misleading ones 1) one side is not pro-abortion; believing abortion should be legal does NOT = being in favor of it and 2) the other side is not pro-life; any group that is also anti-education, birth control, health care, nutrition, etc. and in favor of the death penalty is NOT pro-life - at best they are pro-birth full stop (e.g. after birth they don't care). For me - abortion should be legal but rare and every person born alive should be entitled to a chance to live a full and productive life.
12
Indeed, there was momentary relief when the Court declined to take the Planned Parenthood cases. That new Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined in the demurral was additionally hopeful. However, the current Court has five “conservative” Justices and four “liberal” Justices, with Roberts as a conservative who might be a swing vote on a Roe decision. If Justice Ginsburg can hang on until 2021, maybe the pro-choice folks will be able to relax. If President Trump gains one more nomination, the game may be up, and Roe will soon be history. Elections do make a difference.
3
I'd guess no, but I wouldn't bet on it.
They may do it, but they'll lose Republican votes non-evangelical women forever.
6
I lost any respect for John Roberts after Citizens United.
14
If the right to an abortion is abrogated more young women will die. The religious right doesn't care about that.
9
Medicaid should cover abortion with no legal restrictions.
14
In the mean time, it would be wise to begin educating young women on how to obtain abortion pills over the internet. Medical abortions at <10 weeks gestation in the privacy of one's home are very safe. To that end, early detection of pregnancy should also be emphasized.
19
This is an alarmist essay. This is huge win for Roe. Chief Justice Roberts wisely wants no part of Roe. Give him credit instead of writing the precise opposite message. Justices often do not vote the predictions. Roe is the long handled spoon case. Don't get near it. Love or hate him, Roberts knows Roe can only hurt the court because it is a judicial minefield that would discredit the independence of the court. Most people know that to flip Roe means disempowering women. Today. Thank you, no. Let Congress pass a law instead of expecting the court to legislate. Great Justices pick their battles wisely and Roberts wants no parts of Roe. Roberts has a maverick streak and that is refreshing. The messages is loud and clear: "Stay Away from Roe."
3
@dudley thompson
"This is huge win for Roe. "
Not really. This case actually doesn't have much to do with abortion or with the validity of Roe v. Wade, at all. Nor is it new or unusual. States have been trying and failing to cut PP off from federal funding for years.
This case is about the interpretation of the statutes and regulations that implement Medicaid.
A lot more complex then whether "aborshion kills bayyybees!1" but a lot less scintillating.
Nothing about the denial of cert here sheds light on what will happen to Roe.
2
"It’s not easy to read the tea leaves here because the cases didn’t pose a direct challenge to the constitutionality of abortion restrictions."
But why skip an opportunity to stir the pot, right? I'm surprised Sandra Fluke wasn't referenced somewhere..
1
if it came to pass the Supreme Court accepted a case that resulted in overturning of Roe v Wade and once more making abortion illegal throughout the land, as Trump promised in his campaign, that would be the worst possiible outcome for Republicans. they need abortion to remain volatile and unsettled, something forever on the edge but never resolved, in order to keep a key segment of their voters. if abortion was no longer an issue - one way or the other - it would be a death knell for conservatism and Republicans. therefore, don't hold your breath; abortion is more valuable as a conservative cause than it could ever be if overturned.
4
The unspoken underbelly of the anti-abortion righteous men who threaten women's lives and safety is the entitlement that allows men like Mr. Trump to have unprotected sex with no liability for the consequences.
Frankly, I find it difficult to believe that a pattern of unprotected sex has not, at some point, led to an "unexpected" pregnancy and, at least, the consideration of a legally obtained abortion.
8
"The question now is not what the Supreme Court soothsayers will tell us, but whether Chief Justice Roberts and his fellow conservatives uphold the integrity of the court, or use their new majority to deliver on Trump’s promise."
This is a joke, right? Conservatives have not upheld the integrity of the court since they stopped the Florida recount in Bush v. Gore. I expect Roe to be overturned within the next two years.
10
This has always been an artificial fight.
Give women birth control and eliminate 90% of unwanted pregnancies and abortions.
Pro-life people use birth control.
Evangelicals use birth control.
They should be helping Planned Parenthood to give women birth control.
13
If enough male-dominated legislatures want to revive Plessey v. Ferguson (that sanctioned segregation) and want to revise Roe v. Wade (that sanctioned abortion) then we will have a return to less than quality education in the South and a return to women dying unnecessarily. It's enough to turn one's stomach!
3
So my suggestion for a new title for this story:
Sky hasn't fallen yet but it might still so stay tuned!!!
The Kavanaugh Smear was one of the most disgusting displays I have seen in a long time. All out of a fear that was always inflated and never going to happen. Oumuamua has a better chance of turning around and colliding with Earth than Roe vs Wade has of being overturned. Sky may indeed fall some day but it won't be because of the Supreme Court.
4
My first vote was cast for Republican Barry Goldwater. Until the GW Bush second term I voted predominantly Republican. Since then I have almost never voted for a Republican at any level.
Evangalical Christians have ruined the Republican party, and until they expunge this scourge from the party, I am committed to voting a straight Democratic ticket.
Barry Goldwater warned Republicans about embracing religious zealots. When you allow them to control a party you get legislation that basically mimics Sharia law---- just different dogma.
27
@Bobcb Agreed. I resent that I can never vote for anyone with an "R" because of the madness of the national party, and that's been true since Buchanan declared the culture wars in 1992 (although I also loathed Reagan's union busting. They really do make a choice pretty easy).
The national party now is an abomination.
9
hence, Pence.
4
When it comes to the anti-abortion group I find it difficult to understand how in one breath they claim that abortion is not accepted by their god(s) when in the next breath they claim to limit the number of children they have or will have even when their god(s) gave every woman close to 1/2 million eggs when they reached the age when they could begin to become pregnant. The god(s) wanted women to live over one million years and to remain pregnant that entire time. How can so many of the woman who are opposed to abortion not meet their god(s) desires that they have children seemingly “forever” particularly if your believe this world is less than 5000 years old.
1
@David Gage The same group (anti abortion) is also generally anti sex ed, opposed to effective birth control, opposed to women's equality in the social and economic spheres, climate change deniers. They are pro theocracy, white patriarchy and authoritarian government. They cannot be appeased.
This is a fight for sanity.
1
Assume the SCOTUS did overturn Rowe v Wade. The issue would go back to the States, as it was prior to Rowe. Would there ever be a stronger impetus for ousting Conservatives from the State elective offices they now hold?
Does anyone recall the late GHW Bush's apoplexy when, in the spring of 1992, it appeared that SCOTUS would undermine Roe v Wade in Planned Parenthood v. Casey? He knew that would be a terrible thing for his re-election prospects and for the GOP long-term, robbing them of their 2nd-greatest issue (after racist dog-whistling).
Justice Kennedy either saw the light or felt the heat, preserving this issue to be hammered on in perpetuity. Kennedy's replacement followed suit and will continue to do so. Legislators at all levels will continue to chip away at privacy and bodily sovereignty, but Roe v Wade will stand.
2
If I may make several disparate points.
Those who object to abortion on the ground that it is killing a human being, and that killing is barred by the Bible ignore basic facts.
The Bible does not prohibit killing. The original language prohibits murder -- unsanctioned killing. The Bible contains many instances where G-d herself orders killing. Indeed, on the Passover, the Lord passed over the houses of the Jews and personally slew the first born of the Egyptians.
The other question is the right to privacy upon which Roe is based and commentators securely rely on.
The right to privacy can be found nowhere in the Constitution. Mr. Justice Douglas found that it "emanated from the penumbra" of other rights. Of course, a bright light may eliminate a penumbra (shadow). So I would suggest that reliance on a right that seems as solid as the right to privacy could disappear given the right Supreme Court make up.
1
Considering how access to health care for millions is already in jeopardy with GOP plans to dismantle the ACA (Obamacare), piece by piece, I have only one question for the Pro-Life religious right:
Where will those innocents, born to the poor or those without adequate pregnancy prevention (Planned Parenthood), obtain medical care AFTER they are born??
It’s not like the GOP now has, or even ever had, an actual plan to replace ObamaCare despite all their protestations and claims to the contrary. Shortsightedness with life is pure evil.
8
If we are now relying on the integrity of the court as the only bulwark left to preserve Roe v Wade then that decision is doomed. The composition of the court is not simply "more conservative" than before, it is more Republican than before, and the Republican party is engaged in a national campaign to disenfranchise women, minorities, and liberals with a new set of Jim Crow laws. In the face of this anti democratic agenda todays Republican justices will be impeached if they display integrity since they were put on the court precisely because they lacked integrity. Many of the judges which the current Senate is rushing through have an "unqualified" rating from the ABA, an unprecedented situation but a clear indication of what is happening. The Republican party is at war with our democracy and intends to use electoral cheating and partisan courts to destroy justice itself and replace it with a one party state that looks suspiciously like the old Confederacy. Or very much like the authoritarian regimes rising in Hungary and Turkey. Republican authoritarianism is not coming with tanks in the street, it is coming with Senatorial maneuvers and gerrymandering, but it will get to the same place. Losing Roe v Wade is the least of our worries when we are losing our democracy itself.
7
I am heartened by the picture with this op-ed; young people supporting the right to life, not death at the whim of inconvenience. There is hope for the future. Thank you.
3
@Southern Boy. Your comment makes a couple of unproven assumptions: A). women who get abortions are doing so out of inconvenience. Plenty of data proves this is not true and many abortions are because women do not have the financial resources to raise a child.
b) abortion is death. You may want to research the biology of gestation - abortions are only allowed for the first trimester, and at that point, no, the fetus is not viable in any sense of the word. Women do not get pregnant and have a fully formed fetus the day after - or even at the end of Month 3. A biologist or medical person can explain it better than I can - but it is not death comparable to the death of 8 month old fetus or a day old baby.
5
@Southern Boy
You and your buddies need to figure out the user directions for condoms. Problem solved. Female lives saved. Unwanted babies prevented.
4
As a former Planned Parenthood volunteer during my years training to become a Pediatrician I can attest that it is a multi service institution for women from all walks of life.
Abortion is a very personal and private choice as a form of birth control that is not reached lightly. I am now retired from my profession but think there is some irony that these fresh young faces are protesting something they can only scratch the surface of what is frequently a medical or social matter beyond their comprehension. Roe v Wade must stand if women in this country are to progress. Particularly women of minority and the poor.
17
Leaving aside the issue of abortion (and be assured I am and always have been a very strong proponent of a woman's right to choose), the issue should not be muddled as this and other writers have done with the application of stare decisis, ie. "respect" for precedent represented by the fact that Roe is on the books. Plessy v. Ferguson was a precedent until it was overruled by Brown v. Bd. of Ed. The fact that Plessy was precedent didn't mean it should or could forever be left undisturbed. Citizens United is a recent, horrible and wrong decision, on the books, and right-thinking Americans await the day it is revisited by a future Court. Sometimes it is the job of a Justice to consider in good conscience and good faith (archaic notions of course) whether a precedent deserves to stand. As horrifying, disrupting and unfair as it would be for Roe to be overturned, to relegate the role of the Supreme Court to being a rubber stamp for precedent in all cases is not a good idea. That is narrow thinking.
7
I'm sure I'm one of the few people who supports abortion as a medical procedure subject to the usual rules that govern such procedures [doctors need to be licensed, etc.], but thinks that Roe was wrongly decided. There is simply no "right" to abortion in the Constitution as written. The Court invented it. If a past Court could invent a right to abortion couldn't some future Court invent a right to life from the point of conception? Maybe what's best is for the Court to not invent "rights" in the first place. Correcting this error would be a good way to underscore that point. As the essay says, this was a largely procedural matter not a substantive one so you can't really draw any conclusions from it.
1
trump actually said something during his candidacy that was logically correct: he told Chris Matthews on "Hardball" that if abortion were criminalized there would have to be a punishment for those who break the law. He obviously wasn't prepared for the question, and was unable to artfully dodge it. It was a question that the "pro-life" crowd studiously avoids.
If Roe v. Wade falls, many red states will quickly move to criminalize abortion. The question becomes, what will be the punishment for women and doctors who intentionally violate the newly minted laws? I would think that this question will pose a real dilemma for the anti-abortion crowd, and should spark serious public debate.
5
Ironically the key vote on abortion is now with Justice Roberts. Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch have long opposed the legal theory on which Roe is based.
They also subscribe to the the Scalia approach to deference to judicial precedence. He argued that deference is only warranted if the original decision was correctly decided. This double talk was his argument on why the conservatives were not an 'activists court' effectively legislating from the bench.
But Roberts, while opposing they legal basis for Roe prefers a more gradual approach. He would like to see a series of cases and allow Roe to die a death of a thousand cuts.
The radical right wing of the court now led by Thomas not only wants to overturn Roe, but also proclaim the personhood of the fetus. This would not only end abortion as a fundamental right, but it would prevent states from enacting their own 'right to chose' laws.
Either way, whether it's from the radical right or the radical centrist, Roe's days are limited.
4
The "Right" to choose abortion, is NOT a "core constitutional right" Mrs. ACLU "legal" director. It's not even a law written by an elected representative. What is it? A decision by 9 unelected white men that governs our entire country. One could call that tyranical, not least for the hundred million or so unborn babies that were torn to pieces in the womb.
3
@PJ ABC | Roe v. Wade was not unanimously decided.
John Roberts will continue to chip away at women’s reproductive rights with alacrity. He will never vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
1
The order of castes in the US:
White men
Fetuses
White women
Children and seniors
Animals
Black and brown people
With Trump putting white men in charge it’s pretty clear that only those who can’t speak should have rights.
13
@SW
In Reality, it's simply....
Rich Folks
Everybody else
The wealthy use Roe as a tool to demonize women in order to get tax cuts. That's all this is all about.
Greedy rich people who can never have enough.
4
@SW
FYI: That's been the hierarchy in America since 1776. Therein lies the taproot problem.
Because they can't sleep for thinking about what you are doing in your bedroom, and with your body.
7
“...The court’s legitimacy, of course, rests on more than unanimity or incremental change. It rests on respect for precedent...
I’m on your side, but – bluntly – you’re not making your strongest case...
The Court’s ultimate legitimacy rests on its being a stabilizing reflection of what’s more decent in us than not...
The arguments for “states’ rights” in situations like this would be laughable, were the situation not so dire...
At the time SCOTUS was of a majority mind to let states’ rights rule in segregation, William Douglas happened to travel outside the then-48 states to India, where he was asked this question:
"Why does America tolerate the lynching of Negroes?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education
Per your categorical line of thinking, Douglas could have cited respect for precedent...
Even then, some states kept and enforced anti-miscegenation laws for several years after...
I think Kavanaugh went into his confirmation hearing already a pretty decent man...
What I’m hoping is that he emerged as even more decent...
PS
For anyone saying a woman doesn’t have the right to choose – does that lack extend to her choice of religion or spouse...
1
1. History:
A. illegal abortions risk lives of women.
B. Smallpox a great killer was abolished by effective vaccination program.
C. In CY 2015, Colorado showed: funds provided by a philanthropist- Intrauterine contraception not only significantly decreased unwanted pregnancies & abortions, but also decreased MEDICAID expenditure by 10%!.
2. Intrauterine contraception & easy availability of “morning after pills” will not only significantly decrease unwanted pregnancies, abortions but most importantly: unwanted babies - the most tragic sufferers!
3. Closing Planned Parenthood Clinics results in:
A. No contraception - unwanted babies.
B. No Pap smears, HPV treatment: now an epidemic in this country.
C HPV epidemic will result in increased cancers in both males & females.
IMHO, this is not only short sighted but also not “For Life”!
4. Finally the Legal issue: a woman’s right to her body; I’ll leave that to the Supreme Court.
8
Kavanaugh and Roberts are just waiting until things quiet down, and until one of the more comprehensive anti-choice cases being set up at the state level by the anti-abortion industry reaches the Supreme Court. Don’t be fooled. Neither man actually cares about women or their constitutional rights.
180
@Renee Margolin
“Anti-abortion industry.” Nice phrase.
26
@Renee Margolin
Renee, you're exactly right. That are waiting for the proverbial belt high fastball before they swing.
11
@Renee Margolin Kavanaugh is pulling a Gorsuch. Remember when Gorsuch sided with the 4 liberals in his first case decision? Then bang, the next decision from Gorsuch punched out the public sector unions. Kavanaugh's doing the same. Making a nice gesture at first. But afterwards we will see why he has been put on the Supreme Court. As for Roberts, he sold out a long time ago with the Citizens United case and gutting the Voting Rights Act. His institutional concern for the Supreme Court doesn't match his greater loyalty to the Republican agenda. Roberts has already demonstrated that.
2
There are few things that I find more upsetting than seeing clearly privileged, healthy young white women holding up signs calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, because a small percentage of its non-government funded services concern the termination of unwanted pregnancies. In a country where millions of poor and vulnerable women, often mothers with young children, are uninsured, PP is frequently their only access to breast and cervical cancer screening, screening for sexually transmitted diseases, pre-natal care,and contraception advice. Are these budding anti-abortion zealots really so blinded and compassionless that they believe the “rights” of the unborn cancel out the rights and needs of millions of women for access to healthcare and reproductive services?
These privileged and healthy young women shouldn’t be demonstrating in tee-shirts and shorts, they should be wearing the whalebone corsets and bustles from another age.
385
@Susan
Yes they really are blind and compassionless concerning the poor women who will be effected. There are two Americas now and you need to understand that you are not going to change another persons allegiance by talking to them. One America is firmly rooted in the racism and hatred of democracy that characterized the old south. The other is firmly rooted in the yankee constitution and the concept of equality. The difference between these two sides once caused a civil war and even that did not settle the question for long. We are continually moving toward the extremes of the 1800's on these topics and eventually we will get to where the only action left is fighting and not talking. As far as which side is winning and has been winning for 40 years, it is the Confederacy. They taste victory in their takeover of the courts and they are not going to back down now. Remember, it was just this type of partisan takeover of the Supreme Court that generated the decisions that started the civil war. We are getting perilously close to those decisions again.
33
@Susan
The thing is, these women are NOT against abortion. They just claim to be against abortion - that is, until they themselves need one; or their 11 year old daughter gets raped, becomes pregnant and needs an abortion; or they get pregnant and find out their fetus is unviable and carrying on with the pregnancy will almost certainly result in death to the mother and unborn child. Then they want the right to choose an abortion as a way to deal with the situation that they're in.
In that moment, wow! All of a sudden, even to the most die-hard anti-choice zealots out there, abortion suddenly becomes a sensible medical decision - you know, like what all those godless pro-abortion people keep clamoring on about.
At that point, anti-abortion/pro-abortion dogma goes right out the window and these anti-abortion women CHOOSE to have abortions at approximately the same rates as pro-choice women. It's kind of funny how circumstances always trump ideology.
And then the next day, after having their abortions, these women go right back to protesting to ensure that no other women get to enjoy the freedom of choice that they themselves just exercised.
96
@Josa
In other words, hypocrisy is the epitome of privilege of the anti-abortion crowd. I might add that hypocrisy is what constitutes American exceptionalism.
27
Glad the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Worth pointing out that Planned Parenthood is the number one health organization in the U.S. reducing the need for abortion. With principled family planning and access to affordable birth control, fewer abortions are needed. Thank you, Planned Parenthood. I am a grateful supporter.
323
@Ann, good points. Many anti-choice protestors don't realize the work that Planned Parenthood does for everyone--men, women, and children. Most PP clinics don't provide abortions, but they do provide pregnancy and maternity care, well-baby care, care for diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease. They are the local neighborhood clinic in many places in America. Everyone gets quality care, and pays on a sliding scale--no price gauging. And for many rural communities, Planned Parenthood is the only clinic for miles and miles.
18
Roberts will steer the Court away from taking cases that would overturn Roe v. Wade in favor of cases that meaningfully, but only incrementally, undermine it.
Kavanaugh will look for opportunities to cast symbolic but largely meaningless "liberal"/reproductive-rights-friendly votes to try to fig leaf over his illegitimacy.
And Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor are prepared to go full "Weekend at Bernie's" with Notorious RBG.
1
"What are we to make of it?"
That liberals have deep-seated emotional beliefs about conservatives that are, once again, wrong.
4
The abortion debate has nothing to do with babies. It has everything to do with women's equality.
21
@Murray Bolesta - everything to do with women's equality
And control.
8
There's one word that's blatantly missing in this article, and that is "democracy". "The court’s legitimacy ... rests on respect for precedent and the idea that court’s decisions don’t swing with each new president." In other words, how the American people vote doesn't matter. What do the voters want? This sentence gives us a hint: "State legislatures are racing to pass abortion restrictions.", presumably because they think that wins votes.
Roe vs Wade has distorted our politics for nearly half a century as popular restrictions on abortion are thwarted by the Supreme Court, with the result that abortion opponents will vote for any idiot who promises to reform the court. It's time to end the constitutional crisis and follow democratic principles.
@Charlesbalpha - what voters want. Are you sure you want to go down that path with Republicans openly declaring "we don't care what voters want - we are doing this."?
And remember we don't vote on your rights.
2
The sweetest carrot to get people to vote against their own interests? Overturning Roe V Wade won't happen until every Republican politician has gotten every $ out of every honest worker in the US.
2
I seriously doubt Republicans will ever get rid of their favorite wedge issue.
3
Too bad Trumpist judges and politicians who believe in “right to life” don’t also believe in the right to a living wage, the right to protect the planet that sustains all life, the right of migrants to sanctuary from violence and famine, the right of journalists to not be murdered with impunity, the right of children in America to go to school without fear they will be gunned down, and the right of children in Yemen to not to be bombed and starved by a Trump business partner. I could go on and on. Abortion aside, Trump is consistently pro death.
12
The Roberts court has already smashed precedents in every direction, including limitations on campaign contributions (Citizens United),not allowing free riders in unions (Janus) and forcing states with a history of discrimination to check their new voting laws with the Justice Department (The Voting Rights act.)
What makes anybody think these guys won't overturn Roe v Wade?
The Roberts Court lost credibility as a neutral arbiter a long time ago. Its legacy is awful.
7
This debate lacks nuance on both sides.
PP prevents way more abortions than it provides, something the right should consider here.
Framing something as a "health care" decision where one of the principles is killed in the procedure is clearly disingenuous, something the left might consider.
What ever happened to Obama's mysterious "third way"?
1
@keith
What is the nuance in enslaving a women to her womb and forcing an unwanted birth on her? And it is entirely possible that a pregnancy is danger to a woman's life.
5
This is that famous "Horns Of A Dilemma" and the Republicans are stuck on it.
If they DON'T get rid of abortion, then their base will never forgive them (a problem that they face right now: their base is furious that they didn't outlaw it when they had ALL the power in the Universe) (and why didn't they?)
On the other horn though,
If they DO get rid of abortion, then why would their base ever have to vote for them again? Mission accomplished.
I suspect that someone has done the calculation and discovered that the Republicans lose FEWER votes if they DO NOT get rid of abortion.
And, that may very will be because the birth rate of all of those southern states is the same as the rest of the country (only Utah is out of whack) and that evangelical women use birth control and abortion at the same rate as the rest of the nation.
And, as for those young women holding up signs claiming that they are "pro-life" and that Planned Parenthood must go?
May you all have a baby a year for the next 30 years of your lives.
My "magic number" was 37. From first flow to last, it was 37 years. A "baby" a year would have given me 37 "babies".
Who would all have to be fed, housed, nursed, educated, diapers always changed, I can't get sick, I can't read a book or go to a movie, can't work, will have to depend on my neighbors and church....
How long before my church tells me to get an abortion because they are sick of my uterus claiming all of their resources?
Girls: Give this more thought!
10
Maybe the court is so political that they are not choosing to go after PP/Roe until after 2020.
Bill B. from Michigan states:
"Perhaps we would all be better off if they do overturn Roe v. Wade. If they do, and it becomes an issue for states to decide, the issue would surely turn up on ballot measures in every blue to marginally-red state in the country."
Dream on!
If the Supreme Court rules that abortion is unconstitutional and that it violates a fundamental right to life of the fetus, it will be unconstitutional for states to permit abortions--FULL STOP.
This would be required under the Supremacy Clause in Article VI.
Don't kid yourself--the right to life movement will make sure of this.
3
@Josiah Don't be silly. Even prior to Roe vs. Wade abortion was already legal in certain US jurisdictions and regulated by legislation. All overturning Roe vs. Wade does is make abortion subject to legislation it does not make abortion "illegal".
It's strange that a legal director for the ACLU would say that the right to choose an abortion is a "core constitutional right." It's not only NOT in the constitution, it's not in any other law created by our elected representatives who's exclusive job it is to create them for us. No, Roe V Wade, a case in which Roe regrets defending her "right" for an abortion was determined by edict, not legislation from elected officials. It was decided, not enacted, by a group of unelected white men (the irony kills me), namely the supreme court justices who ruled in favor of Roe. When legal experts start hiding truths about the law, and calling that which is not law, "The Law," we know we are entering a very lawless period. There is no law about abortion, only judicial edict, and in Obama's case, executive edict. This is a form of tyranny, certainly nothing to do with democracy or a republic. The ACLU stopped defending actual civil liberties within this millennium in favor of positive rights that require another citizen's unwilling participation, namely the baby and anyone else who has to pay for it. The right to choose abortion is not a civil right.
1
@PJ ABC - please direct me to your right to exist in the Constitution.
3
There will be soon, a thriving black market in mifepristone and misoprostol, the two ingredients of the "abortion pill".
So called "pro life" forces will be stymied by technology. But will the Supreme Court then seek to jail or otherwise punish the millions of women who use the abortion pill?
5
Women are going to have abortions whether the law allows them to or not, because women have always had abortions whether the law allowed them to or not. The difference is whether the abortion is conducted safely in a clinic or under high risk in some back alley. Thus the issue is not whether women will or will not have abortions. The issue is how many women will die in doing so.
7
I think more accurately, the Court will decide whether safe abortions are available to all women or only to the children of the wealthy and powerful. In the bad old days, daughters of the well-off simply took time off for "travel abroad". It was the poor and lower middle class kids – for whom it wasn't a matter of impugning the family name but of actual economic survival – who suffered from available safe abortions.
7
Of course not. It is never going to happen. The threat of overturning Roe v. Wade is just a fundraising tool for the left. You could have 9 Scalias on the bench and it wouldn't be overturned. Why? Because everyone knows it would create a literal pitchfork rebellion. It will never be overturned and everyone knows it.
3
If abortion is overturned, the Religious Wrong will have to provide national prenatal parturition and adoption services. They will never do this since they invariably oppose "big guvmint".
Other writers have noted that these religious hypocrites see abortion as a right for the rich but not one society should provide for the poor. In this sense it is identical to their policy on drugs: the decadent Hollywood DC and Wall St crowds can access all the drugs they want, but we cannot risk the poor becoming addicted and turning to crime to finance their habits.
The Religious Wrong see women as baby making machines pure and simple. They don't understand that pregnancy is a life threatening situation that they have no right to force upon anyone. They also have succeeded in framing the argument as though the right to abortion means one must have an abortion, again a sinister and devious rhetorical fiction.
Abortion advocates also are wrong in promoting abortion like plastic surgery rather than a necessary if tragic amputation to save one's life.
Both groups are blinded by their own ideological constructs.
You don't need to read tea leaves to know what is coming.
It may be pretty to think there are no Obama judges and Trump judges, but you need only follow the votes on any case with "cultural" content to be able to predict with 95% accuracy how each judge will vote on any case. While 70% of cases may be decided unanimously, it's the cases which pit those in power against those without power, classic conservative v liberal which are prejudged by justices who bring their own values to bear.
The whole idea that precedent and predictability and stability are vital is taken as an undisputed good, but those who would "pack" the Court would see it as a good thing for the court to change as public opinion changes, as reflected in shifts in elections of the President.
The Court will reverse Roe, either in pieces or in total, and that reversal will last as long as Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Alito, Roberts and Thomas live.
The right to abortion will likely revert to states, so the liberal West Coast and Northeast will still make them available, but the Bible Belt and all those empty Red States will forbid it.
Unwanted pregnancies among the poor will rise precipitately. Back alley abortions will return in Mississippi and Texas.
But this is what "the people" (or at least the unified 40%) voted for.
We will reap what we have sown, in utero and in the various states.
3
Without a doubt women should have the right to an abortion.
As a Catholic, I'm much more concerned about what goes on with our priests behind closed doors than what a woman chooses to do.
16
The fear of an overturning of Roe v. Wade is overblown. Even if the Supreme Court were to rule in a case that nullified a constitutional right to choose, the practical impact would already be almost negligible in those states where practical access has been significantly curtailed and will have no impact in those states that support a woman's right to choose.
Fundamentally, Roe v. Wade is an anomaly. The government has passed laws that prevent assisted suicide, that restrict your ability to sell organs, that requires medical care for children, that require young men to fight in wars, etc. These are all violations of personal choice, but we have legislated society's interest in these issues.
I believe, in the long term, legislated choice rather than Constitutional right is a better, more stable protection to a woman's right to choose and overturning Roe v. Wade may actually provide a path to legislation that a significant majority of Americans support.
2
What are we to make of Roberts and Kavanaugh voting not to take up the case, Ms. Melling?
Do not be lulled into thinking they have changed their life-long ambition to take away a woman's right to choose what she does with her own body and life. After all, they are good little catholic/corporate boys who think they are supposed to run the world. Roberts is very crafty. He will wait until he thinks the heat is off before renewing attacks on over 50% of the population.
WE THE PEOPLE must elect Socially Conscious Women and men to OUR U.S. Senate in 2020 and every election in the foreseeable future. WE must DEMAND that they increase the size of OUR U.S. Supreme Court - and other federal judge positions - and pack them with progressive judges to neutralize the courts.
Once that is done they must pass a law or HARD rule that at least 60% of senators must approve every federal judge position. That will stop these games for the time being.
Last, but by no means least, WE must DEMAND a Constitutional Amendment that says NO LAW MAY BE PASSED in the United States of America or it's territories that discriminates based on gender.
That will protect women - over one-half the population - and the LGBT community from these senseless attacks.
7
@njglea We already have it. It's called the 14th amendment unless somehow women are excluded from "equal justice under the law".
1
@OneView I don't know what the current SC would decide, but Justice Scalia was quoted at various times stating that the 14th amendment did NOT include women.
In recent times, each Republican President has tried to pack the supreme court with the most conservative justices they can find. Mr. Trump got additional opportunity to do this, thanks to Mr. McConnell who (illegally) snatched it from Mr. Obama and handed it to Mr. Trump.
It goes to the credit of the justices when they refuse to follow the conservative dogma and make judicial decisions based on their own sense of fairness.
We are sorry Mr. Trump, your appointees to the supreme court, once they get there, will use their own understanding of the law, the interpretation of the constitution, and their own sense of fairness. Unlike your job, they have a lifetime appointment; they need not fear your displeasure.
1
This seems to me to be naive. Roberts is an incrementalist and my guess would be that Kavanaugh is trying to learn from him. Look at the history of campaign finance for instruction. Of course he won't overrule it all at once. What he will do is chip, chip, chip away at different parts of it until the original premise is ripe for revisiting. (Ripe is, admittedly, in the eye of the beholder; they went well beyond where they needed to in Citizens United). Five justices do not believe in a right to privacy beyond either first amendment or fourth amendment strictures. That's the premise that will be eroded first.
The "abortion: leave it to the states" argument is a complete canard, by the way. Were Roe overturned, the next argument would be that a zygote is a person under the 14th amendment. Were that true, any statute -legalizing- abortion would be subjected to searching judicial review (think First Amendment). That's the pro-life end game.
9
Overturning Roe is not the outcome to worry about. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, the issue returns to the states to decide. Some would outlaw abortion, no doubt, but some would have laws legalizing abortion. The outcome to worry about is that 5 members of the Court find that the fetus has a constitutional right to life. In that circumstance, the Court could rule that no state has the right to legalize abortion, at any point in the pregnancy. I would not put such a ruling past Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch for sure. Roberts and Kavanaugh may have too much desire to preserve the Court's legitimacy to go that far but I would not bet on it.
5
I believe unreservedly that the right of a woman to choose an abortion should be considered fundamental and absolute. However, many reasonable people of good will disagree, on grounds which I do not accept, but which are coherent and understandable. Given this, it would be far preferable in a democracy for the right to abortion to be chosen by the representatives of a majority of the people, and ensconced in legislation, rather than imposed by a poorly reasoned Supreme Court decision.
1
The writer suggests that it would be better to have elected representatives of the people decide whether abortion should be legal or not in their states. As a 67 year old feminist, active in the ERA and pro-choice movements of the last 50 years my response to you can only be - give me real representation before you try to take away my hard fought rights!
When will 51% or more of legislators be women? When will representative numbers of low income and median income people and the ethnicities of a state and the straight versus LGBT people be represented? No offense to you personally if you’re a straight (cis) white male, but I am fed up with the lack of representation in the decision-making bodies that actually decide things that have significant consequences for me and most people in my community and my state.
8
@Theresa Rubin Women have had the right to vote since 1919, so are women simply ignorant and vote against their own interests or is the issue far more complicated than 51% of legislators should be women? Liberal progressives need to wake up and get out of their identity politics.
@BGZ123
Sorry, no, you can't think it's a fundamental right but then say it would acceptable for people to vote to strip women of that right. That's not how rights work. You can't vote away my right to free speech or religion, etc. That's what makes it a right.
3
The right to abortion flows from the right to privacy. And the right to privacy is fundamentally embedded in the Constitution.
Absent privacy rights, we will lack the fundamental right to do as we please. And if conservatives give up a full array of such privacy rights, freedom as we know it will be undermined. Abortion rights are tied to dozens of other rights and if we give up those rights we will give up the Constitution as we know it.
139
@michjas There is no privacy for a man who wants to beat his wife in his own home. Privacy is of necessity limited. Is killing a fetus taking privacy too far? This is a difficult question and you seem to be taking a particular answer for granted that if women are not allowed to kill fetuses then they will be prevented from traditional health care, or even from choosing their own toothpaste.
Your case is weaker than you think.
7
@Ludwig - Only 3% of what PP does is abortion. The other 97% is affordable, effective contraception, cancer screening, prenatal care, and STD testing and treatment. PP is the only source for those services for millions of poor women. They accept Medicaid, which many doctors don't, and they accept those with no insurance at all. The money PP gets is reimbursements for services provided for Medicaid patients, just like all doctors, clinics, and hospitals get.
60
@michjas
There is no direct reference in the US Constitution to a right to privacy, it is a right created by Blackmun in order to defend a decision that he wanted to take on moral grounds despite a lack of compelling precedent or language. That is why Roe v. Wade has always seemed like it could be shaky in the face of a conservative majority.
Congress could solve this by passing a law explicitly protecting a woman's right to chose.
18
I appreciate the work you are doing with the ACLU, but don't you need to focus at least as carefully on the ways in which the courts and legislatures (federal and state) have already succeeded in eviscerating actual access to abortion even where it is ostensibly legal?
In law school first year students are told that there is no right without a remedy. As has been well documented, increasingly large numbers of girls and women in this country have no access to safe, legal, and affordable remedies for unwanted pregnancies. I want to see us work as hard as we can to promote such access, regardless of whether the official right continues to exist.
Thinking in this direction makes me feel far more empowered: the views of Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and their ilk on the abstract right to abortion become little more than "dicta"--irrelevant commentary--in relation to the important goal of ensuring access to safe remedies.
Simply put, have we reached a point where we on the pro-choice side are willing to act in violation of restrictive anti-choice laws which we view as unjust? For me there is no doubt: women have an inalienable right to control our own bodies. That right is granted by no court or legislature, and it can be taken away by no court or legislature.
128
@UI: I am pro abortion when it comes from saving the mother or the child from insufferable danger or pain.
I am not pro abortion when it is used as some sort of contraceptive, or because it "Just does not suit me to have a baby right now".
Contraceptives are for before impregnation, not after.
But the worst part of the "unlimited" right to abortion "because it is my body to control", is the total dismission of the rights of both the father and the unborn human being. Freedom must have its limits.
3
@Bjarte Rundereim
"Just does not suit me to have a baby right now"."
Having a baby is one of the most fundamentally life-altering experiences a woman will ever go through, and one that can have major physical ramifications for her. It is not a question of whether it "suits her right now." I decide if I want to get a manicure based on whether it "suits me right now." I decide whether I want to redecorate my living room based on whether it "suits me right now."
Does it ever "suit you" to go through major abdominal surgery? How about an episiotomy? How about taking 3 months off of work to let the tears in your body heal? Does it suit you to risk developing gestational diabetes or preeclampsia? How about placental previa? Or hyperemesis gravidarum?
You are being deliberately dismissive of the incredible impact that childbearing has on a woman's life.
"Freedom must have its limits."
The "father" does not have the right to force me to gestate a baby for him for the same reason he does not have the right to force me to have sex with him. The "unborn human being" does not have the right to force me to gestate it for the same reason I cannot be compelled to donate blood to a baby to which I have just given birth.
The right to abortion is completely consistent with all person's existing freedoms under the law. Neither the father or fetus have the right to control my body.
I hope that clears it up for you.
50
@Bjarte Rundereim
21st century, please. Or 20th would do.
10
Almost one million (1,000,000) mostly teenage girls (age 13 - 19) in the U.S. need an abortion each year. These people
have rarely finished high school, gotten a job, left their parents' home, or are able to support themselves. The Republican Party wants to force these girls (other people's children) to have unwanted babies. Most of the new mothers would be eligible for welfare for two years after the
birth and the child would be eligible for eighteen years.
10,000,000 mothers over ten years (for two years each) and 10,000,000 babies over ten years (for 18 years each),
and on and on and on. All so the Republicans can win elections. Figure out the taxes needed for that, gents.
I once asked a wise and loving priest what he thought about
abortion. He responded: Why ruin two people's lives?
An illuminating book on the subject is Suzy Smith's "The Book of James" and later her "Ghost Writers in the Sky."
Interestingly, both pro-life and pro-choice individuals are
motivated by love.
79
@Thomas I am totally sympathetic, but the right to abortion is not a matter for the Constitution as written. That is the heart of the problem. Let's fix it.
1
@Thomas
The GOP does not want to force all these girls. Only the poor ones.
The rich ones can go anywhere they want for their procedure without any consequences whatsoever. Not a problem at all for the "Right to Life" crowd.
77
@Thomas - "Interestingly, both pro-life and pro-choice individuals are motivated by love."
While some may be, those most invested in forced birth clearly come from a motivation of holier-than-thou punishment. You made your bed, now lie in it is not motivated by love.
It is revealed in their tone and messages where they believe that those who are pregnant deserve to suffer and to be punished for their transgressions and to be taught a lesson of the circumstances.
58
Perhaps we would all be better off if they do overturn Roe v. Wade. If they do, and it becomes an issue for states to decide, the issue would surely turn up on ballot measures in every blue to marginally-red state in the country. Like Ireland, the voters would mobilize and decisively give women the right to choose in all of those states.
In all but a handfull of cases, the issue would be taken out of the hands of right-wing politicians and their single-issue voters.
93
@Bill B - Good thinking but I really hope we don't have to go through that.
10
@Bill B
Bill B is absolutely correct. The abortion issue obviously mobilizes the far right every time a Supreme Court vacancy occurs. Because of this single issue we now have a Supreme Court with a strong conservative majority.
Better to end all that drama and put the issue before the voters in every state.
5
@Thomas Kurt
This won't end the drama. First, there would obviously be very intense political fighting about the issue as it is put up for a vote. Second, it will throw many, many women under the bus by taking away their ability to access abortion.
Please do not sacrifice my body because of your political goals.
28
When we change the discussion from abortion rights and choice vs. "right to life" (ugh) to MEDICAL PRIVACY, we might get Republicans on board. After all, those of us who lived through the years before abortion was legal, know well that Republicans make sure their loved ones have choice about abortion and medical privacy.
They just do not want taxes and funding for people who cannot afford what they can afford. It's an open secret!
144
@Judith Logue
And I have always thought that the vast majority of anti-choice people are absolutely anti-women-having-sex-without-"consequences", therefore they shouldn't be having sex unless willing to give birth. They ignore the vast many women who are married and seeking abortions, have already finished their families and seeking an abortion, and do not want to be parents at all, ever (and try to block sterilization and birth control).
Of course, it's worse when poor women seek to be sexual and don't want to become parents. We all know who "they" are...
8
@Judith Logue I think memories are short. At the time of Roe, most Americans including religious ones favored choice. Abortion did not become legal in order to "kill babies". It became legal so young women who were raped or made regretable (but human) choice didn't have their lives ruined or die at the hands of the butchers and perverts who supplied many of the illegal abortions to the poor. And who would want to criminalize such women. People forget how Talibanesque things were.
1
As a physician long retired I am old enough to remember women suffering from sepsis from abortions performed under primitive conditions I am a firm believer in the right to a safe abortion.
Women who bear the burden and risks to health and life of pregnancy and delivery have tried to control their reproductive lives since the stone age.
When life begins is not a certainty and people do differ but no one has the moral authority to force their opinions, opinions not facts, on women.
Roe was rightly ruled that women deserve the privacy to make decisions about their reproductive lives.
Roberts knows and rational Republicans know that if Roe is overturned and abortion rights are retuned to the states every state legislative race and governors race will have abortion rights as a central issue.That may be a winning message where Evangelicals are a majority but since they are 15% of the population it is not a national winning policy. And the Supreme Court will lose standing as fair and just in the opinion of a majority of Americans. Roberts knows this.
He may let the court nibble at the edges of reproductive rights but he fears for his legacy and the legitimacy of the Court.
281
@Edward Blau
You are lucky to say 'old enough'.
A friend of mine nearly died from an illegal abortion in Mexico about 15 years ago.
12
@Edward Blau
If it goes back to the states there will be 50 different laws. But since these laws will be constructed around the concept of murder it will make murder legal in some states and not in others. This is the definition of unequal laws and is unconstitutional on its face. These unequal laws will be appealed to the Supreme Court and then what? Are they actually going to rule that we have no national consensus on what murder is? This would be the beginning of the end of the concept of Federation on which the republic is based. At some point the court has to decide what the laws of the country are for everyone. Or we are not really a country at all.
5
@Edward Blau Thank you Edward. Clear and concise. I believe you are right. But what a horrible mess making the transition from a Federal Law to laws in 50 separate states. Basically we have a clash between religious zealots and pragmatic religious and nonsectarian realists. Leave Roe v. Wade alone. Recognize the good works of Planned Parenthood. Individual choice is the issue and the zealots can live with that if they have a mind to.
1
I can't help but wonder if the young women in the photo have any idea of the history of abortion in this country. Not to mention, if they understand the range of services that so many Americans have access to at Planned Parenthood.
364
They don’t. Planned Parenthood gave me my only access to health services when I was in college, over 30 years ago. Sliding scale meant is was almost free. I will defend them for as long as I live, though I no longer need their services. Others do.
226
@A I see what you are saying. PP does things besides abortion. And they are good things for health. Wouldn't disagree with you. But think about it from the perspective of those protesting. If you think that an organization is murdering children, but they do lots of other good things too, would you support them?
8
@Nathan Howell
It is one thing to think those things. It is another to find out facts. They do not act like they are interested in facts.
55
I have a few random thoughts generated by the article and the comments. The writer mentions "core constitutional rights — such as the right to choose an abortion." If a right discovered in 1973 by means of deep analysis is a core constitutional right, how does one describe a right expressly protected by the text of the Constitution?
It seems to me that the real controversy regarding pregnancy is not over choice, but the timing of choice. If a woman becomes pregnant and gives birth, the child's father is legally responsible for the child. Effectively, he exercised his reproductive choice when he took his pants off. A woman can defer her choice for quite awhile.
The right to privacy is found nowhere in the Constitution. Arguably, it can be inferred from the text, but it seems not to have been discovered until the 1960s. I have long been puzzled by the fact that that right has little application in areas other than reproduction.
I don't quite get the solicitude for Planned Parenthood's welfare. Is PP the only institution capable of providing pap smears, mammograms and birth control? Would the people now making voluntary contributions to PP refuse to give to another organization providing the same services? Why must the provider be PP?
@John
"t seems to me that the real controversy regarding pregnancy is not over choice, but the timing of choice. If a woman becomes pregnant and gives birth, the child's father is legally responsible for the child. Effectively, he exercised his reproductive choice when he took his pants off. A woman can defer her choice for quite awhile."
Right, because his body's only role in the reproductive process is sex. Her body's role is far greater and lasts much longer--just in case you need a reminder, the woman is the one who gestates and gives birth. Her body performs other functions in the reproductive process, therefore her autonomy extends to more parts of the reproductive process. This is not complex at all.
Both parents are financially responsible for a born child. That burden is not unequally applied as between men and women.
5
The irony, of course, is that Trump never cared about the pro-life movement or Roe v. Wade before his urge to become president. Like his birtherism or sudden love for the Bible, it was simply a campaign ploy to win the support of Evangelicals. If offered a lucrative franchise for Trump abortion clinics, he would have opened a million of them across the country.
35
@Christy
Why should he care? He made a deal: fight Roe vs Wade in exchange for their votes. It's called a campaign promise, and it's part of how democracy works.
1
@Christy
Yes Trump has done a great job at demonstrating the complete and utter hypocrisy of the evangelicals.
3
It is unlikely the Court will overthrow Roe. Abortion opponents efforts are futile anyways. If it were overturned abortions would continue. They would not be in good clinical settings. They would be in back alleys, store fronts and other countries. The Results: Women damaged forever or killed. I would like to see abortions reduced or eliminated. If All the efforts of the Anti Abortionists were directed at education and contraception they would get results they want. Instead they waste their time, energy, and money trying to get a ruling from the sSupreme Court that is unlikely and just as importantly would not eliminate abortions.
9
America needs a more moderate pro-choice voice and a more moderate pro-life voice. I doubt that most NYT readers are even aware that if Roe v Wade is overturned, abortion will remain legal in many states including the blue ones. There will be no return to coat hangers.
Even the red states will not seek to ban abortion but to limit it in some ways. The rule "abortion at will until a heartbeat is detected" is a sensible compromise and liberals would be wise to embrace it.
2
@Ludwig - There are 22 states with laws on the books that would immediately ban abortion if the Supreme Court returns the decision to the states, and about another 6 working on passing such a law.
3
@Ludwig As many NYT readers know, you are right that if Roe is overturned then individual states will be allowed to decide whether they're illegal. However, you're giving many "red" states too much credit. It is very likely that most of the south and mid-west will outlaw abortions. This doesn't adversely affect women with money; they can afford to fly to a "blue" state and get an abortion. It does, however, adversely affect poor women who cannot afford to take time off of work and drive a long distance or fly to another state to obtain an abortion. By overturning Roe, the Supreme Court and pro-lifers are only punishing poor women.
The irony is that many women who want an abortion choose that option because they cannot afford to raise a child. By limiting their right to choose to an abortion and make a financially sound choice, Republicans and pro-lifers are sentencing those women to a life of financial hardship.
4
@Ludwig
"abortion will remain legal in many states including the blue ones. There will be no return to coat hangers."
... do you think women in red states never have unwanted pregnancies?
"Even the red states will not seek to ban abortion but to limit it in some ways."
This is farcical and demonstrably wrong. There are a number of red states that have rules on the books that will ban abortion that will go into effect automatically if Roe is over turned. As it is, Mississippi only has one abortion clinic.
You really have no business calling other people uninformed.
9
The Supreme Court has upheld so many truly horrible precedents over the years. The darkest example, Plessy v. Ferguson, was upheld from 1892 until 1954. The Supreme should have apologized to the nation for that case. Lifetime appointments make apologies unnecessary.
5
This fight is about way more than abortion. It is about the fundamental human rights to privacy and bodily integrity for women, who are real live whole human beings who can and should have personal control over their own bodies.
25
"Settled law" is a very thin reed on which to hang reproductive rights. The justices who believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided—and they are now a clear majority on this court—will not hesitate to overturn Roe if the right case comes along. And they can point to other wrongly decided cases that were nevertheless settled law, like Dred Scott or Plessy v. Ferguson, or Lochner, to justify the Court's reversal.
2
Who said this?
"The seven to two judgment in Roe v. Wade declared “violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” a Texas criminal abortion statute that intolerably shackled a woman’s autonomy; the Texas law “except[ed] from criminality only a life-saving procedure on behalf of the [pregnant woman].” Suppose the Court had stopped there, rightly declaring unconstitutional the most extreme brand of law in the nation, and had not gone on, as the Court did in Roe, to fashion a regime blanketing the subject, a set of rules that displaced virtually every state law then in force. Would there have been the twenty-year controversy we have witnessed, reflected most recently in the Supreme Court’s splintered decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey? A less encompassing Roe, one that merely struck down the extreme Texas law and went no further on that day, I believe and will summarize why, might have served to reduce rather than to fuel controversy."
It was Ruth Bader Ginsburg
What a surprise for the lynch mob that tried to block Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation!
He didn't vote with the conservatives on this case; is it possible he is his own man and will vote as his interpretation of the law dictates? I didn't doubt that he would.
2
"Will the conservative majority deliver on Trump’s promise to overturn Roe v. Wade?"
There is no need to ever overturn Roe, as its central holding permits alterations to the trimester system. If someone decides to move the legal ability to prohibit 3d trimester abortions over to the 2d semester, that would be something, but still wouldn't be tantamount to overturning. Political rhetoric of the right and left begs to differ, of course.
So far, attempts to ban specific procedures at the 20-week mark do not amount to anything close to that. The SCOTUS has been deft at distinguishing the difference between those two types of cases.
RE: "Kavanaugh, sided with the court’s liberals in rejecting the case."
How quaint and naive it would be, I guess, for the justices to side with what is right not the liberals or the conservatives.
After all, isn't that what "blind justice" is supposed to be all about? Giving up the sides?
15
@Marie Actually we don't want Supreme Court Justices to vote for what they don't think is "right." That makes them a super-legislature -- exactly contrary to the Constitution which places law-making authority in Congress. Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh weren't being liberal or conservative or political. They appear to have done their jobs by interpreting a statute passed by Congress which prohibits states from restricting access to health providers under the federal Medicaid statute. We don't know the details of their reasoning since only the dissenters filed an opinion.
5
@john640
From my point of view "what is right" (not what they think is right) is defined as "impartially interpreting a statute passed by Congress according to the Constitution".
I hope that clarifies.
3
It simply amazes me that so many women vote for men who have every intention of overturning Roe V Wade and then going after birth control. Why would any woman vote for these men? The same men who have tried to dismantle public education and proposed a health care "plan" that covered Viagra but not pregnancy and childbirth. To quote Cher, SNAP OUT OF IT!
34
Where are the Kavanaugh bashes now? Like any true liberal they run and hide when confronted by the truth.
Rove v Wade is not under judicial assault by the Supreme Court. Time to put away your placards and save your rhetoric for another day.
2
@George - Nope. Still do not like Kavanaugh.
A broken clock can still be right twice a day. That your dog didn't bite me today still doesn't make him a good dog.
2
@George
Roe v. Wade.
The ultras on the Court will do everything short of directly criminalizing abortion.
So we will go revert to the 1950s, when the well-to-do could obtain one from a friendly doctor who would do a "D&C" or go to another country. And the rest would have an unwanted child or go to an unlicensed person for an illegal abortion.
But an outright overruling of Roe would result in the GOP losing its issue and mobilize the rest of the country. So it will be a death by a thousand cuts.
8
I doubt that the Supreme Court will touch the core of Roe v. Wade, because there is no possibility that the court could discover what tho anti-abortion factions want: an affirmative right-to-life of a fertilized egg that exceeds the right-to-life of the mother. Not even the wackiest "originalist" could discover that in the Constitution. The supreme court cannot ban abortion.
Stripping the finding of a constitutional right to woman's privacy and personal authority in this matter would only return the issue to the states; some of which would allow abortion and others would not.
Doing this would badly damage the court and the collective body of constitutional law, for no real gain as a justice would see it.
8
Sorry, but if the chief justice cared about the court’s institutional legitimacy he should have spoken up when Neil Gorsuch, an illegitimate justice if there ever was one, was seated on the court. Gorsuch holds a seat that was stolen from the freely and fairly elected Democratic President, Barack Obama. Gorsuch's appointment by President Trump, who lost the popular vote and was fraudulently appointed by the Electoral College, has delegitimized the US Supreme Court and it will remain delegitimized until he steps down or is removed.
28
Pace Anthony Kennedy, the "legitimacy of the Court" is not sustained by adhering to flawed and erroneous precedents that lack scientific basis, subvert democratic participation, and makes society pretend that it is incapable of determining whether a class of persons comes within the remit of legal protection. The sooner Roe v. Wade joins Plessy v. Ferguson and Dred Scott v. Sandford in the trashbin of warped Constitutional jurisprudence, the better for the Republic.
2
While nobody can predict how the Supreme Court will rule in the future as history has taught us, especially with the Warren Court, Roberts has given us some clues.
With this decision, and the ACA, gay rights and a few other decision, he has given us indication that he doesn't want his court to be an extreme right wing rubber stamp court.
At least on some issues, he will side with the liberals.
3
Everything is appearances to Chief Justice Roberts. Justice Roberts and the other 4 hard core right wingers will, at the first opportunity, uphold state restrictions on abortion. They won’t reverse “Roe v. Wade” outright. They’ll just allow every state the ability to impose severe roadblocks that effectively eliminates the right to abortion. In this manner the 5 right wingers can pretend they’ve kept “Roe v. Wade”, when they haven’t. In a short time, over half of the states will, based upon that decision, outlaw abortion. There will be many states that keep abortion rights, such as Illinois, New York, and California. But the anti-choice states likely will seek to criminalize their residents traveling to these places to seek abortion. Who knows if the 5 right wingers will allow this?
This is the end game for the 5 radical extremists on the Supreme Court. Count on it.
8
@Demosthenes John Roberts is a radical right winger? In terms of the American electorate he (and Kavanaugh) qualify as just slightly right of center. By almost every measure they are moderates.
Thomas? He's closer to radical but still more moderate than many Americans.
1
"President Trump promised to appoint justices who would overrule Roe v. Wade."
Based on this alone, a proven bias to a specfic outcome, any justice appointed by Trump must recuse himself from cases dealing with the rights of women under Roe V Wade.
4
What the U.S. needs is a Supreme Court that will disallow the ability of individual states to place any restriction on abortion or contraception. Won't happen in my lifetime.
6
Roberts is in a quandary. He now has to deal with the reality that the Court can simply run over people's rights, and that he will be the sing vote.
I expect him to try hard to not hear a lot of cases.
But abortion? Well, the showdown is coming, and my expectation is that the Court will side with state's rights. Some states will have no resources, high death rates from illegal procedures, and an underground railroad sending people to states that allow the procedure. Black market mifepristone will be a big seller.
And I expect the people in the states will continue to fight a mini-civil war, trying to eliminate rights by a powerful majority in some states and a more powerful minority in others.
8
@Cathy - he Court will side with state's rights
That is the thing about so-called conservatives. They are guided by expediency only. If it suits their purposes they are for states rights, but on another they want strong federal control. Which ever is the best means to the end they seek.
5
@michjas, it stems from your right of personal property under the 5th amendment:"No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” The one thing we own unquestionable is ourselves.
5
@George
If you own yourself can you sell yourself? Or shall we say that America fought and won a civil war for the proposition that human beings are not subject to ownership?
1
Thank you.
But the implicit suggestion that we are now relying on Justice Roberts to maintain the balance and authority of the Supreme Court makes me seasick.
Bad boat. Leaky boat.
20
Roe v. Wade hinges on a woman's right to privacy. Privacy. I pray that a woman's right to privacy is the same as a man's right to privacy. Our history shows it ain't necessarily so... In our search for equal rights, let us not step backward when we have not yet achieved the goal.
17
The nagging truth of abortion debate is that the legal framework on whether it is a matter of someone's absolute right is incomplete and limited. Rights are rarely absolute. With any declaration of a right comes the immediate question of one's obligations and the boundaries where rights and obligations to others abut. Many pro choice advocates would also be in the camp that advocates for gun control. Yet the reasoning that is put forth about the constitutional right for abortion is parroted by the gun rights groups and the gun rights groups can point to the 2nd amendment which textually mentions the right to bear arms. My point is that the legal/constitutional conversation dodges or at least does not account for the inherently moral issues that lay behind abortion actions.
Planned Parenthood's complete offering of health care is an example of a more nuanced understanding of the moral truth, so too are many of the services offered by Pro life groups to pregnant women. Dialing down the shrill absolutes of the debate would be in everyone's interest.
4
i want to know if Trump is either impeached or tried and convicted will his Supreme Court appointees step down. If it is proven that Trump sought and got Russian aid to fix the election then his appointees are not legitimate and should in the name of constitutional integrity retire.
15
@jonathan berger They are not his "appointees". They are his nominees. It is the Senate which "appoints them."
5
"that there are no Obama judges or Trump judges — only judges."
This is a juvenile and silly statement by Chief Justice Roberts. Of course Presidential appointments matter, otherwise we would not have had the spectacles of Garland, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
If there were "only judges," then no one would care who the President was who made the appointment.
9
All decisions by the Roberts Court, without exception, serve the short term interests of the GOP and/or the long term interests of the .000001%. This case is no exception. All eyes are on him and his partisan court right now. Any decisions that are clearly partisan in nature, as the decision to take this case would have been, give credence to narrative that the court is forever tainted with the stench of GOP zero-sum, party over country, rule by minority, partisanship. It is, but Roberts wants to maintain a veneer of legitimacy for as long as possible. He will fail, but he will try. And he will be able to thank Mitch McConnell for ensuring that he will be remembered in the history books as the worst Chief Justice since Roger Taney (of Dred Scott infamy).
8
Chief Justice Roberts, along with his Associate Justices, and the integrity of the Supreme Court. Do they allow the Court to be a rubber stamp for an illiterate, self-serving Executive Branch and its evangelical Christian base? We'll have to wait and see. Integrity, however, is one word that will never be associated with Donald Trump. Along with empathy, humility, intellect, common sense, etc., etc., etc.
14
Every attack on Planned Parenthood should be followed by an editorial comment reporting that the United States has three times the number of women dying in child birth as any other country. We need more of Planned Parenthood.
78
The Supreme Court is probably unwilling to unleash women’s rage that will be the inevitable result of overturning Roe, and stain it’s own legitimacy forever. It is interesting that Kavanaugh’s supported Roberts. I suspect he was chastened by his confirmation. I was disgusted by that circus but if it has served to assure a voice for the abortion rights, I’ll be happy with the result. Women’s control of our bodies is infinitely more important than some dubious stories about bad behavior decades ago. In any case, I hope that the judges realize that new technology quickly outstrips their hoary debates. Abortion is now important not only as a means of limiting the number of children to what the woman wants but also of eliminating defective or sick fetuses. If I were to have a baby now, I would have a thorough genetic testing that was unavailable when my kids were born.
6
Conservative men with young daughters and mothers cannot help but moderate their views, and so it will be with a few conservative judges such as Roberts and Kavanaugh.
Though I would have never supported either man, I am open-minded enough to believe that the real world has likely taught them things a conservative upbringing never would: when in doubt, don't over-moralize, or make decisions that are best left in the hands of the women who will, or not, choose to bring children into their world.
Kudos to Roberts and Kavanaugh for revealing a modicum of thoughtfulness to the issue.
7
@dmckj
In my view, your understanding of Conservative men and women is flawed. From decades of observation, I believe one of Conservatism's most fundamental and sacred rules is, "Do as i say, not as i do."
(REF: "Trump")
27
Roe v Wade is a moral stain on our country. An enshrinement of individualism and power and autonomy above our obligations to the most vulnerable and the protection against lethal violence. A decision found nowhere in the text or logic of the Constitution.
I pray for the day when the Court returns to the precedent that prevailed before it fabricated abortion rights and the "right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life" out of the thin, oxygen-starved air of the elite establishment.
3
@James
Donald Trump and his enablers are the primary moral stain on our country - but I agree with you that libertarianism, as advocated for by the Koch Brothers, is a close second.
51
@James Please consider what would happen if this procedure were banned. How would the ban be enforced? Would pregnancies be monitored by the government, with investigations initiated for miscarriages, stillbirths and birth defects? Would police have to respond if a nasty neighbor or bitter ex partner falsely reported a woman? How could a woman prove she had not been pregnant, or that her miscarriage (if she had one) had not been induced in any way?
Ireland banned abortion and some women died because they couldn't terminate their pregnancies. One that I know of, due to cancer, and another due to sepsis while miscarrying.
68
@James I look forward to a day that my daughter and granddaughters can stop by the local 7-11 and pick up birth control pills as cheaply and easily as a carton of milk, or when high schools distribute free birth control to students. If birth control were cheaply and easily available to every female of childbearing age, I guarantee you the abortion rate would fall toward zero. But this is not what the pro-life movement wants: they are all about controlling women, especially their sex lives.
99
Roe v. Wade was a terrible decision: the apotheosis of judicial legislation. The Constitution provides absolutely no support for the right to abortion, or the right to "privacy" generally. To be clear, I am in favor of a woman's right to choose for many reasons, but this endless debate, litmus tests, etc., are a product of Court overreach. Until we can get sufficient support for a Constitutional Amendment, this is a matter for Legislatures. I sympathize and agree with the pro-choice folks on their goals, but the Constitution and the Courts are not the means. Square peg, round hole.
6
@CSD
The Constitution provides significant protections for a variety of privacy rights, and broad protection for others - “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
The Constitution does not *grant us* our rights, they're OURS. The Constitution just lists some of them. It's a stretch to think that the physical autonomy of American citizens is somehow not protected.
41
@CSD
Is there any other democratic nation where abortion law is controlled by an unelected court obsessed with "precedent" instead of the will of the people? My understanding is that in most countries (even Ireland, this year) abortion law is determined by the democratic process. This should be a good sign that the US is handling it all wrong.
2
@S. B. You can't sell your organs and you can still get drafted and killed in war. You can be shot if posing some kind of "threat" in Florida and other "stand your ground" states. You can be involuntarily committed for psychological issues. No, you don't have 100% physical autonomy, even in the US.
None of Trump's promises really come to fruition. He is all talk. Since most of his women say he didn't use protection during sex, doesn't it make you wonder how many abortions this great virile man paid for through the years. I will never understand the fascination with taking a woman's choice away from her. Men need to back off and get their own lives.
106
Trump may regret that he doesn't have more children as those that made it through birth soon will be his only supporters.
2
Roe will not be directly overturned, but it will be gradually hollowed out and ultimately arrive at a middle ground consensus. The ACLU acts as if it is a clone of the NRA.
@David Shulman
What is the middle ground between abortion and no abortion?
3
reading tea leaves is a remarkably unproductive pastime. ACLU has swung so far left that they are no longer even credible.
2
Overturn Roe v. Wade? But then how will “pro-life” Republicans like Tim Murphy and Scott DesJarlais obtain abortions for their mistresses?
222
Don’t worry, they will still be able to get abortions.
They have always been and will always be around, legal or not, safe or not.
21
It's not a problem. People with money have always been able to obtain abortions. They're called D&Cs and they are readily in available if you know where to go.
18
When I see the back-and-forth about abortion, the means to limit it in certain cases and in certain places, it really does have a parallel to the legal battles surrounding slavery between the states from about 1805 to 1860. The fugitive slave law, the Missouri Compromise, Dred Scott v. Sanford...to me these were skirmishes that dealt with the great division over slavery between two irreconcilable camps. Argument of "property" over "human dignity" or "lower race" over "created equal". Historically, the issue was, "Is slavery right or wrong?" But people couldn't effectively talk about that question. And so they skirmished until it led to war.
To me, the question at issue is, "Is a fetus a human life?" I think most anyone who would say yes, would say any human life cannot be taken from an individual except in extremely limited circumstances. But if the answer is no, then perhaps we are just talking about "potential life". And if the answer is maybe, then is it worth the risk that if a fetus is a human life, that I should take that life? Is there any reason I can give to take that risk?
I don't know if any real progress on this issue can be made unless we actually talk together about this central question honestly. Those who advocate for abortion rights effectively are saying that a fetus is not a human life. I am pro-life, but I don't think that pro-choice folks want to kill children. They must think that a fetus is not a life. I wonder how they can be so sure.
4
@Nathan Howell. We both agree that you are a human life. If you were dying and needed a transplant, blood or bone marrow and I were the only person who would be a match I could not be legally forced to donate to you. This is true even if I had been responsible for placing you in this precarious position (say, I ran a red light and struck you with my car). You are a 'human life' but I cannot be forced to sustain your life against my will.
I cannot be forced to donate because bodily autonomy is sacrosanct. To force a woman to continue a pregnancy against her will is to make her a slave to the state.
164
@Nathan Howell
Until the 20th Century human life is defined by breath. Human being breath air. A fetus becomes human upon the first breath, and one is a corpse after the last. For me that view has not changed despite the advances in medicine. There is never a guarantee that any fetus out of the womb will ever take that first breath.
No culture had defined it otherwise, as there is no upside to doing so. In some cultures, the creature was not human, or named, or counted as a person for a week, or a month, or maybe a year. Before the 20th Century infant and child mortality, even in the best conditions, were huge. And in many cultures, severely deformed babies were left out to die and not counted at all.
When a fetus becomes a human is purely arbitrary. There is no definitive answer.
46
@Nathan Howell
Those who are pro-choice aren't saying the fetus is not a human life -- we simply privilege the life of the mother over that of the fetus. In any situation in which there are competing rights a choice must be made, and the rights of the fully-formed, walking, talking, independent human supersede the rights of the not-yet-formed, fully dependent fetus whose "life" cannot be disentangled from its host (or hostess, in this case). Pro-choice folks don't want to "kill children" as you put it, we simply choose not to enslave women.
56
They won’t overturn Roe v. Wade. It’s a great wedge issue. Once it’s overturned, the conservatives will have to find another issue, but there are no others that elicit so much emotion.
89
Precisely, Claire light.
31
@Claire light The anti-abortion "justices" on the Supreme Court are not using abortion as a wedge issue. They have Supreme Court jobs for life. Not only that, they have ideological and religious objections to abortion. Their ideology and religious beliefs will drive them towards effectively ending Roe v Wade, even if they don't formally overturn it.
Abortion rights advocates need to do now what they should have done in 1973 - convince the majority of the citizens of the US of the validity of their position. Even Trump will follow popular opinion - as evidenced by his quick reversal of the policy separating families at the border. If the citizens of the US support abortion, what the Supreme Court does won't matter.
Remember that the Supreme Court will not and cannot outlaw abortion. All they can do is say there is nothing in the Constitution that supports a right to abortion. Then it's up to the citizens and their legislators to decide if and when abortion should be legal. So get out there and convince your fellow citizens that abortion is merely a medical procedure for a woman to decide, and that it is not effectively infanticide.
11
@J. Waddell Actually a majority of Americans DO support the right to abortion.
87
You’re right about what the court won’t do, but could you imagine a decision that any law not granting equal rights to a fetus is unconstitutional. Crazy idea, would cause chaos. It’s like the Court saying that there’s nothing in the Constitution saying a black is a person. Oops. Isn’t that the Dred Scott decision?
3
A fertilized egg is not a “baby.”
And it seems that many anti-choice individuals are happy with the death penalty, so what’s the big drama over “life.”
If the Founders didn’t even believe that blacks were worthy of freedom, it seems incredibly doubtful that they would consider a fertilized egg worthy of same. If they did, they were clearly awful hypocrites, which many anti-choice individuals clearly are.
Abortion & attempts at abortion has existed for many many centuries at the very least. I’m quite sure the Founders were aware of it. If they had such concerns for embryos why weren’t those written into the Constitution?
9
Roberts is no dummy. And his new mini-me, Bret LikeBeer, will accede to his every wish for the foreseeable future. Roberts understands that his reputation and gravitas are at stake and His own History is what he makes it. Let’s face facts : the “professional “ operatives and scammers of the GOP use Abortion and “ the Gays “ as their primary wedge issues and money makers. They are just fine with the status quo.
86
@Phyliss Dalmatian Don't forget their other wedge issues... "the blacks," the browns," "the Jews," and the most hated of all..."the leftists," "the liberals", and "the Democrats."
2
With two alleged sexual assaulters, we know full well the court ain’t got no prestige. One of them, the belligerent Kavanaugh, showed surprising political instincts today.
The desperately damaged cause of reproductive autonomy lives to fight another day.
37
Almost hate to say it but the best thing that could happen is for the SCOTUS to overturn ROE v WADE.
It will lead to multiple terms of Democratic presidents and the senate will be likewise democrat majority in 2 election cycles.
29
@davey385
You are absolutely correct. And the “ smarter “ of the GOP
Klan understand that.
19
@davey385
I don't know what the results would be, but letting the democratic process determine the outcome would be far better than any powerful group dictating to everybody else.
1
If they are going to maintain any semblance of blind justice they can't overthrow Roe v. Wade. Bush v. Gore, Citizens United, Voting Rights Act, etc. all point to a SCOTUS conservative agenda - frequently at odds w/ the majority of US citizens.
40