Just to be clear, the Alabama law is not about overturning Roe v, Wade, strictly speaking. The original case in Texas involving “Jane Roe” was set in a legal context in which Texas then permitted abortions in the case of rape, incest, and threat to the mother.
The Alabama law does not turn the clock back, it sets a new standard far stricter than existed prior to Roe v Wade.
200
@Paul McGlasson - Not about overturning Roe v Wade?
Even though that is precisely why it was engineered? Eric Johnson drafted the bill said: “Until now, there was no prospect of reversing Roe. Why not go all the way?”
Senator Clyde Chambliss said in chambers during debate "What this bill was designed to do is to go to the the Supreme Court to challenge that particular precedence." The precedence he was speaking of was Roe v Wade which he characterized as abortion anytime anywhere.
There should be no surprise that the Forced Advocated continue to mislead and hide the truth.
15
@Paul McGlasson, it seeks to make it harder for women to receive the care they need because they will be frightened away. How many poor women or middle class women will feel free to go to any doctor if they start to have a miscarriage if they fear being charged with murder? How many doctors will feel free to recommend or even perform a needed abortion? This decision is an attempt to control women's lives, limit them, and deprive them of the right to decent lives whether or not they ever intend to be parents.
Abortions, when done legally, are safe. They are far safer than completing a pregnancy. And being a wanted, cherished, loved child is far better than being an unwanted, abused, unloved child. Ask any adult or child who knows that s/he was unwanted about that. Being wanted makes a tremendous difference in how one deals with life as a teen and an adult. I know. I was an unwanted child. My mother told me when I was 16. I still remember the words: if it weren't for the abortion laws you wouldn't be here.
I don't want more children to hear those words. I'd prefer to see fewer children born as long as they are loved, wanted, cherished, and don't go through what I did. And it never goes away. An abortion would have been preferable for all concerned. I'm not saying this for sympathy. I'm saying it because it's true.
5/15/2019 11:38pm
11
Doctors are licensed to heal humans, not to triage who should live and who should die and most certainly not to perform euthanasia/genocide of the elderly or the unborn.
The issue here is euthanasia, although it is named "slow medicine". Doctor Jack Kevorkian called it "assisted suicide." In the State of Oregon, under the "Death with Dignity Act", doctors can murder humans. Murder by definition is 'kill' and is synonymous with slay, murder, assassinate, and execute. During WWII Adolph Hitler sanctioned the "T- 4 Nazi Euthanasia Program".
Abortions among little 12 year old girls, teenage girls, and young girls in their 20's and 30's is alarming. No, it is not for medical reasons or rape. It is because these young girls went out and boogied on a weekend, got pregnant and then wanted to have the bothersome fetus removed so they can go out and boogie some more. Even if these little girls had been taking birth control pills, they still could have contracted syphilis, AIDS, as well as other sexual communicable diseases. The young males are just as irresponsible.
Most Americans believe that they can do whatever they wish because the constitution gives them permission....no matter if what they do is moral or immoral, decent or indecent, or right or wrong. With this kind of total freedom the future will have no need of prisons, law enforcement agencies, nor law books. Why? Because if the law allows you to do what you want, then there is no wrong you can do.
2
Chip away at women's rights to be an autonmous human being capable of making her own decisions about her body and her reproductive life at your peril judges and legislators. Women are the majority in this nation, in this world and we are going to bring our numbers to bear down on patriarchy everywhere it rears its ugly head.
4
I’m trying to understand this whole situation. The states that are the most restrictive on abortion are also the most racially decisive both overtly and covertly. So to punish black people you restrict the abortion so you force them to have children that you don’t want to educate or have in their cities or states which costs more money that these states don’t have. And then since you effectively made these folks have kids you incarcerate them which costs even more money. I just don’t get it
8
I am a 57-year-old woman and a lifelong supporter of reproductive rights. My advice to the pro-choice activists in Alabama, etc. -- do NOT fight this in the courts. That is what they want. Let them live with the consequences of voting for legislators who fear women's sexuality (that's what it boils down to) and want to control our bodies. I predict massive migration to pro-choice states!
2
Abortion is a religious issue. Here is the Unitarian Universalist position on reproductive justice:
https://www.uua.org/reproductive
It is each person's decision. Period.
Contrast this with the Christian Evangelical position that states their God requires women to submit to men, God approves of pregnancies caused by rape and incest, zygotes are people who take precedence over their mothers, and women have no bodily autonomy.
My religion is Unitarian Universalist. I claim my 1st amendment rights with respect to abortion.
5
Why is this still a legal issue rather than an individual and religious issue.? It could be a very short legal opinion if done correctly. Something to the effect, "The Federal government and all state governments shall have no right to pass any legislation encouraging or denying the right of any woman to have an abortion."
Somewhere we have gotten messed up on the difference between faith and belief. Beliefs are what one religion uses to differentiate itself from other religions. As such they are restrictive and not based on broad interpretation. It is very dangerous for a particular religious denomination to think they have a "right" to impose their beliefs on the general population.
2
I wonder if any doctor in Alabama whether he or she is an obstetrician , family doctor or surgeon will risk their freedom treating a pregnant woman. Another concern would be if a woman had a miscarrige, would the mother and doctorbe investigated for possible homicide. If I were a physician, I would be concerned about these liabilities
4
This is simple. Using the golden rule of personhood: I won't tell you what to do with your body as you won't tell me what to do with mine.
1
Look at the roster of states that are severely restricting abortion: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas. Then google "infant mortality" "poverty rates" and "high school graduation rates."
The people in these states who support this punitive ban should take a hard look at what's going on in their backyards. Your neighbors are poor, ignorant and dying. And your "choice" is to focus on abortion.
Shame on you.
100
The pro-life people are the ultimate hypocrites. They don’t support equal education, maternity leave, health care for the poor, or basic nutrition programs.
They claim not to support legal and social safety nets because of the morality of the poor. Yet, they conveniently ignore that kids don’t pick their parents and suffer accordingly. But yet all life is precious?
17
There is no denying that the renewed vigor we are witnessing in the anti-abortion campaign in the country is the outcome of the unexpected departure of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy from the Supreme Court. This would not have happened if he stayed on the court as long as his health permitted, as has been the case with most Supreme Court justices in the past.
It is not out of place to ask these questions: Was Kennedy’s sudden departure part of a grand scheme put together by anti-abortion lobbyists on the right, the grand scheme being abrogation of the law established by Roe v. Wade? Did the Trump White House play a role in his departure at this critical juncture?
If so, Justice Kennedy has done a great disservice to the court and the country. There is a real possibility of the fate that befell the country, when Justice Thurgood Marshall was replaced by the ultraconservative Clarence Thomas, befalling it again. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s loud proclamation, during his confirmation hearing to replace Kennedy, that he was a firm believer in the legal validity of precedents set by the Supreme Court can be taken only with a pinch of salt. The way Justice Thomas has been conducting himself since he joined the court is, to say the least, a disgrace to the legacy of Marshall.
The only hope now is Chief Justice Roberts. The integrity of the Supreme Court will depend on whether he continues to play the institutionalist role he has been playing since he became chief justice.
4
Hypocritical Alabama sentences more people to death than any other state ... and executes them. They are set to murder another human being tomorrow. Sacred life? A pathetic joke down there in Uncle Daddy country.
6
Two questions for Chief Justice Roberts:
1. If you and other justices promised to respect precedent for Roe v. Wade during your confirmation hearings, then will you report yourself to the bar association and request immediate debarment for overruling Roe now? You can't say one thing at one time, do the opposite later and say you're ethical unless you're making legalistic contortions on an incredible scale.
2. If the conservative majority of the Supreme Court overrules the Roe precedent, what's next to be overruled? Brown v Board of Education or Marbury v Madison?
4
A state which criminalizes abortion and ranks 50th in public education doesn't give a damn about children.
9
So, Roberts is playing politics and isn't really playing it straight as a member of the highest court of the land. Time for a constitutional amendment that limits Supreme Court Justices to one 10 year term. If they are going to act like politicians, we need to treat them that way.
7
All you need to know is that the SC is dominated by 5 ultra right wing, ultra fundamentalist religious extremists. You need only ask " What would a ultra right wing, ultra fundamentalist religious extremist do?"
Whether they do it "incrementally" or all at once, the result is the same. Either way, they are the most socially backwards people in the highest position of power the US has ever seen. And the MAJORITY of normal Americans did not vote to have these cretins put in power over us.
5
Where would the Republican Party (following their lead I guess I should call them the “Republic Party”) be without this issue. Of course they don’t want choice for women completely eliminated.
6
What do you think the recent restrictive abortion laws' hidden purposes are: (1) to keep the poor and less educated from bettering themselves?....because rich folks and folks with moderate means will be able to find way to circumvent the laws and move on with their lives....(2) to punish "Eve" , the bearer of the sinful fruit (be it healthy or unhealthy, happy or unhappy child to the world)? ... but definitely not "Adam" who also took a bite of the forbidden fruit.... (3) to prepare for the inevitable future like that of the Hand maiden's Tale? .... rounding up the less educated and less connected maidens are much easier than otherwise....(4) to increase cheap labor force by keeping the poor and less educated "in their places"? .... since we are keeping out poor and less educated migrants... (5) Maybe all these just a push for both men and women to be more responsible for their action and Big Brother is carrying a big stick to make sure of that.... but something has to be done about "Adam" too...
2
Women, beware! While this bill is horrible, these people are really anti-birth control/anti-abortion. The goal is for complete control over women's bodies, and to keep women in the home. BEWARE!
8
Trump has proven one thing....rules no longer matter which make SCOTUS ILLEGITIMATE!!!
4
I am always amazed at how the "pro-lifers" are only pro-life when we are talking of a few weeks old fetus. After that there is no "pro-life" anywhere: no maternity care, no good delivery care, no health care for the child and his/her mother, no gun control to allow the child to have a safe school environment, no therapy for suicidal teens and of course the pro-lifers are often pro-death penalty.
9
Great job, Alabama. You've moved me and many other people to devote more money, time and energy to defeating Republicans. You picked the fight; and in the long run, you're going to lose.
5
Pro-life is often an affectation. When the daughter comes home pregnant there often occurs a transformation and the reproductive reset button is quickly hit.
It is easy to be a member of the mandatory motherhood movement. Pro-lifers seldom hang out in front of orphanages with teddy bears, Easter baskets and baby clothes.
I am an environmental and climate change activist which is why I travel so much.
6
This SCOTUS has at least 4 conservative justices who are results-oriented and ideologically driven; they are not the textualists or originalists they pretend to be. They'll overturn Roe at the first reasonable opportunity.
4
It seems to me that this has nothing to do with the lives of real people - mothers, fathers, and children - and everything to do with stories spinning wildly out of control in the minds of the ruling class. Adults everywhere suffer from mental illness; it may go unnamed but we see it daily in our government.
3
We can argue ad nauseam about whether a fetus is a baby, or when a human becomes a person and we will never agree as it's fundamental to our religious belief systems. But we have the first amendment in our constitution that states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
We are a nation of LAWS. The 14th amendment states "All persons BORN or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States..." The operative word here is "BORN." So from a legal standpoint, fetuses are not "persons" recognized in our constitution, and the only way to uphold the Alabama law is to amend the constitution to bestow personhood on fetuses.
You anti-choice Evangelicals may have a president who is pandering to you now to get your vote (and believe you me, he couldn't care less about you folks otherwise), but the majority of Americans support the pro-choice position, and a personhood amendment ain't NEVER gonna happen.
5
Looking at the abortion issue as a First Amendment question perhaps recent SCOTUS decisions on gender and marriage issues will apply.
If so, Roe May end up strengthened not chipped away.
It's worth remembering, here, as the Supreme Court's justices surely shall do when reviewing the latest screwy law passed by the State of Alabama, just WHY Roe was decided as it was in 1973: Roe did NOT create a new "constitutional right to abortion". Rather, Row recognized that every person (female or male) has a constitutional right of privacy in her own person and, thus, in managing her own pregnancy.
In his short dissent in Roe, CJ Rehnquist relied principally on the notion that, while Jane Roe might claim a right to have an abortion, the standard by which to review such a right should only be the "rational basis test". Under this test, a State should be able to regulate "social and economic transactions" without interference by the Court, where it can show any "rational state interest" in support of that legislative action. Rehnquist refused to concede to the Court's then-rapidly developing "strict scrutiny" standard, under which State legislative and executive acts which "substantially impair or deprive" a person of his/her "liberty" without an offsetting and "compelling state interest" must be struck down. Rehnquist doubted that such a "compelling state interest" standard could be properly developed and applied.
2
it is my hope that women in these anti-abortion states will buy a supply of heavy duty condoms and refuse sex without them under any circumstances unless they are trying to get pregnant.
1
Let us tally the religious views of white evangelical Christians that bear on the question of abortion:
1) Men count, women don't. Women are to be submissive to men in all cases.
2) Rape and incest are the woman's fault.
3) Pregnancy is the woman's burden.
4) Men bear no responsibility for pregnancy unless they choose to take that responsibility.
5) These arrangements are the will of their god
Clearly, abortion is not a privacy issue. It is a religious issue. It must be fought as a violation of religious rights, per the 1st Amendment.
8
Being a good parent is very challenging. People with all the resources in the world will be bad parents if they weren't raised with love and compassion. The supporters of this bill are not thinking about the welfare of the unwanted children. This law will deepen the misery poor women are already suffering and guarantees greater suffering by children. It's an abomination. Everyone supporting such draconian laws might as well say, "I hate girls, I hate women, and I don't care about the millions of children already suffering neglect and abuse, and the four LIVING children who are killed every week by their own parents. I want more suffering. I want the rapists to win!"
3
@Kathy
The welfare of the born doesn't matter, that's in His hands...
This is not a pragmatic argument, but fundamental for some. Well, it is a fundamental question. Some just believe they read the answer in ancient tales.
I’m a feminist, but one issue I don’t understand is abortion. How is a fetus not just an unborn child? And shouldn’t that justify life? In the case of consensual sex and a healthy pregnancy, It’s personally very hard to justify ethically.
2
@K: If you lived in Alabama, and you had a 14 year old daughter who was raped and became pregnant, you would want her to carry that pregnancy to term? You agree she should have no choice? That a fetus is just (or more important) than your fully formed independent daughter?
16
@K
Is it not an unborn child if it was a result of non-consensual sex? How would you justify abortion in such a case?
Clearly, unless you base on religion, there's a gray area between an impregnated egg and a child. otherwise... if it's a child already, shouldn't it have rights? Like, momma's taking a glass could be construed as endangering the unborn-child person, so the unborn should be able to sue the drinking/smoking momma?
I cannot decide when a person constitutes such. Assuming that women don't abort without careful consideration, let them decide.
9
@K
A fetus begins as a naught but a mass of cells. Is scraping a callus off your feet (throwing away your own cells) also ethically wrong?
12
Despicable men
4
Your Court reading is puerile. Stop scaring and worrying people.
The Alabama abortion ban bill was sponsored by a woman, Rep. Terri Collins. The bill will probably be signed into law by another woman, Gov. Kay Ivey. There may have been 25 Republican men who voted for this bill, but these two ladies obviously don't believe in woman's rights either. Totally pathetic, IMO.
57
@NYReader
25 to 2 is a pretty stark ratio.
5
Let's hope that the Supreme Court starts chipping away soon at the abortion rights cases that are brought before the bench. And chipping away and chipping away until abortion becomes extinct and roe v Wade will fade away into the sunset. This would be such a great triumph for the babies and the pro life folks who have been toiling toward this end. It looks like there is light at the end of the tunnel for the babes in the womb.
29
@KMW and just toss aside the autonomy and rights of women like me, who suffered a drawn out miscarriage and had to carry around a dying fetus -- despite a heartbeat that I thought was promising but my doctor recognized as troublesome. My doctor recommended termination, it was the right decision, it's supported by the Old Testament and you have no business in my womb. And, by the morning of the procedure the heartbeat had stopped - because my doctor is a doctor and not a politician, and knew what she was talking about -- but that is no one's business but my own.
I hope you are never in the position I was. A "heartbeat" does not equal a baby, as any woman who has had difficulty conceiving and carrying to term will tell you.
391
@KMW - Newsflash, making abortion illegal doesn't mean people stop having abortions.
It really helps to pay attention.
285
@KMW you think banning abortion will stop them? You obviously aren't a history student. Or one well versed in world affairs. There's a reason why nearly every other developed country in the world has legal abortion.
229
As the war on a woman’s right to regulate her own biology escalates and races toward the US Supreme Court, has anyone stopped to consider where the Right To Life movement will focus its wrath and anger should Roe be overturned?
2
It’s easy enough to imagine. Once we have established that women’s wombs are under the control of the state, fertile women will be forced to bear children for infertile women. They will fight to eliminate women’s right to vote...or even read. I think we know exactly how this is meant to go.
2
Birth control.
1
@Andy
Contraception seems logical.
1
During their confirmation hearings, both of Trump's appointees to the Supreme Court stated that in their view Roe v. Wade was "settled law." We'll see what they really think over these next months and years.
2
It would be wonderful to have a court that cared about people.
3
A woman can still need a medical abortive procedure (D&C) and not actually be pregnant. Pregnancy tests come back positive, bodily changes still occur, and yet there is non-viable fertilized egg implants in the uterus and will fail to come to term. It becomes a mass like a tumor that is medically necessary to remove- google molar pregnancy. This is not up for debate, this is fact. Alabama is putting the health and well-being of millions of women at risk by this insane law. We need doctors trained & well versed in this procedure to perform it safely.
36
@Kte yes and how hard is it going to be to get well-trained doctors to work in a state where they could be imprisoned for life for making decisions to save their patients' lives?
11
@Kte: For those with sufficient wealth and connections, a D&C is the option of choice for terminating an unwanted pregnancy without the nuisance of legal interference or the stigma of abortion. The main procedural difference is in the paperwork (which will also provide insurance coverage for costs other than the undisclosed doctor's honorarium.)
As for the less fortunate majority, the usual aristocratic response is "let them eat cake.. and then just go away".
5
Unsurprisingly, in U.S. News and World Reports latest ranking of the states, Alabama ended up, again, in the bottom five. Why is this not a mystery? Because they continue to do things like this. Roll Tide!
1
If MEN gave birth (see Male Seahorse) this would not be an issue.
Abortion would be legal, paid for by the government and have a year's paid leave for the wimps to recover.
2
@RABNDE
Yay, and there'd be no war if women were in power... because they're all angels anyway.
Sorry, that's exact same kind of stereotypic thinking you find on the other side.
1
The Court usually prefers small moves. That is especially true when the Court is divided.
The Court has occasionally made dramatic big moves. It has almost always been careful to do so only with unanimity or near it.
This Court would be divided, likely 5-4. That makes small moves near certain, unless they do a total departure from all past practice and throw all caution to the winds. Even these people seem unlikely to be so reckless.
Make no mistake; this is not about protecting precious life, or there would be Medicare for All, abolishment of the death penalty, and sensible gun control. This is about vengeance for Original Sin. Religion has felt the need to control women’s urge for self-determination since the dawn of time, blaming her and every woman since for leading Adam to eat that beautiful, delicious forbidden fruit. We have been oppressed and controlled ever since. Listen up, Religion: women have awakened, and we are more determined than ever!
12
@Rebecca HK: Birth is "original sin". Roman Catholic doctrine has always held that a miscarried fetus goes straight to heaven because it didn't commit the sin of getting born alive.
It is of paramount importance that women who have had abortions come out of the closet. Especially the very small number of late-term abortions, which never occur "out of convenience" by any rational woman.
If women don't start telling their stories publicly to counter the false narratives of the pro-lifers [sic], Gilead wins.
3
Think people, really think. There are thousands of women in this state now being denied abortions. These are women who have no means to raise a child, who have a non-viable fetus, who were raped, and on down the list. Elections and laws have repecussions. There are women thru no choice of their own born in this state who are now a sub class with no self determination. It is evil.
5
I doubt that right wing political strategists or their financial backers care about the actual issues in the Roe v Wade controversy. Their paramount concern is the preservation of the controversy itself because it has proven to be a very reliable, low-risk, easily manipulated, hot-button topic among targeted demographics.
With the majority faction of SCOTUS appointed by by the GOP, incremental "chipping away" at elements of Roe v Wade may be the Court's tactic of choice. That avoids the finality of a sweeping decision that would reaffirm or overturn the established law. They would thus appear to be doing their job without slamming the door on future prospects for assaults on the civil and medical rights of women... and their political daddies will smile.
2
The Supreme Court may also prefer glancing improvements and clarifications of the right to an abortion. Of course, Democrats in Congress, especially women, can remind us of the hundreds of Bills they introduced that would make abortion readily available, nationwide, without restrictions, to any woman who wanted one. Or was it dozens of Bills? Maybe one or two?
1
I see a problem with the heading "The supreme court might prefer incremental changes". it's really Congress that should make it the law of the land that abortion should be legal, as it's the right of every woman to chose what do do about her pregnancy. Even if Congress decides to put some limitations, it should be only towards the late term of the pregnancy, and with exceptions for incest, rape and medical condition.
And oh look--if women are convicted of a felony under this draconian abortion law, even if they don't serve a full 99 years, they nevertheless will most likely never get their voting rights back after completion of their sentence--basically losing their right to vote, because they're a woman. I'm sure the GOP are delighted with this mighty convenient side effect.
2
Conservative judges should be guided by the constitution and the law, rather than their ideological beliefs. Unfortunately, the SCOTUS has been tainted by trump and hyper-partisan politics. How can we have justice when we have a court that rules in this way ?
4
@S B: These utterly dishonest people won't even give a straight answer when asked what a legislatively prohibited "establishment of religion" is.
1
Why is government even involved in the medical procedure business? Qualified physicians and their patients should be able to make good decisions.
Makes me wonder how much freedom one really has in the US when goverments (state and federal) define those freedoms and police the same.
Who owns any human being? Government? Sure seems that way.
6
For those who haven't seen it, Carl Sagan wrote an article about the facts of abortion, the "start of human life", and how faulty concepts of development from centuries past still affect our discourse about abortion:
http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml
7
Imagine a male Supreme Court Justice's reaction if the government told him that he couldn't have a say in the removal of something from his body, that was the result of a criminal attack upon him.
Alabama "raped" all women when it took control of their bodies and their lives and the GOP controlled SCOTUS is complicit.
12
For Trump is law could doom hi 2020--among other issues. Going into this election cycle supporting rape and incest---which is how I would frame it---let us say, is not a winning slogan.
5
Only Roberts is looking to protect the legacy of his court by avoiding big changes to decades of established law and precedent. Given one more Trump / Pence pick, Roe v. Wade is gone, and it is up to states to protect choice. Ironically the same Supreme court will decide that states cannot have their environmental laws. The court will truly be Trump's then - everything determined on party line, including gerrymandering, voter suppression. The court will protect the minority rule, and potential downstream constitutional convention. Social safety net and press freedom are the first to go. Congressional oversight, no - legislative only. EPA, OSHA, regulatory oversight - good bye.
2
The forced servitude discussion is fascinating. Andrew Koppelman's discussion of the 13th Amendment in terms of forced pregnancy is definitely worth the read and appears to be a viable argument. No one may be forced into servitude by another - interesting perspective. Forced pregnancy involves the use of a woman's body, potential for bodily harm or death, and social and economic negative consequences.
Check it out.
8
The Supreme Court stopped everything they were doing to hear the arguments in Bush v. Gore. Why can't they do the same to adjudicate: (1) the the new Alabama anti-abortion law which is clearly unconstitutional; (2) the refusal of the executive branch to allow the legislative branch to perform its constitutional duties. Why must these immediately-important issues have to go through lengthy legal procedures?
5
the only person who gets to decide what is right for a woman, for her life and her future and her body is HER. if she wishes to involve a life partner, friends, parents, some other confidante, that is also her choice. where strangers, men no less, who have not met any of the women their narrow minded decisions will affect get off thinking these issues are any of their business blows my mind. In a million years I would never have an opinion much less make a law about a part of another person's body. Where do these white men get off? I can only conclude as so many others here have stated-it's to control women, especially poor women and women of color, groups which overlap all too often.
11
I am as pro-life as they come, and I certainly reacted against the knee-jerk pro-choice screams that emerged yesterday from the Alabama decision. Even so, I agree that the Roberts Court is probably not going to like this frontal challenge to Roe. I have wondered, in fact, whether the Alabama law wasn't a deep machiavellian stratagem by Trump's supporters to get the legal system to repudiate the Alabama law precisely in order, first, to get the issue off the calendar for the 2020 election and, second, for exactly that reason to mobilize the pro-life base of the Republican Party. IN THE LONG RUN, the Supreme Court could do the Democratic Party no greater favor than to put some decisive brake on Roe sufficient to lift that incubus off the party's back. Nothing in its history has so alienated that party from conservative and religious voters than that (to me) infamous decision.
1
NO way are the Republicans going to destroy the core issue that has repeatedly elected them to power over the past 50 years. Abortion rights will remain, at least enough to keep people agitated. There is no sincerity among these politicians.
4
@Frank We should constantly remind them who their bosses are.
They will chip away to leave an empty Roe decision alive in name only. Why? Because the Party of Trump knows that the majority of Americans want abortion to be rare, safe and legal, and the former Republicans will tell them that all is well.
Roberts wants incremental change on abortion because he knows that if he does if all at once, it will prompt a woman's movement that would make the Republican Party a footnote to history.
70% of the population wants to keep Roe.
Between Trump, the anti-abortion movement, add the Republican attack on the working class, Republicans are doing their best to destroy their own party.
Democrats need to stop trying to save them by refusing to oppose them.
Stop trying to compromise with a party that is so extreme that they would punish the doctor that performs the abortion far more harshly than the rapist who impregnated the woman, the party that got 45,000 troops killed or wounded in Iraq (a majority of Democrats actually voted against it), the play that created the Great Recession, the party that supports a president that keeps talking the side of the foreign intelligence agency that is attacking it elections while activating or defenders of treason.
This is the moment to bury the Republican Party under the weight of their terrible, anti-constitutional ideas. If the centrist Democrats don't remember how to win, then we will get rid of you too.
5
Yea, just killing a few hundred thousand human-kind each year is not nearly as barbaric as killiing a million.
Roe-Wade was based on erroneous biology. Give women the help they need tthroughout their pregnancy...and beyond, as needed.
Better yet, avoid unwanted pregnancy before it starts and use a contraceptive.
We are each responsible for our own decisions, including the protection the lives of our unborn.
@Lake Woebegoner People get pregnant using contraception. It's not "helping" anyone to use a woman like a slave.
8
I am a man. If I have sex with a woman and see gets pregnant, and our relationship is not as such we were ever going to be a couple, or eventually get married, so she seeks to get an abortion, don't I have a shared responsibility. I did supply the sperm to fertilize her eggs, didn't I? Those white men who keep voting to ban abortions have a right to there opinions, but really not a single one of them or some other man they know hasn't been responsible for a women having to make a tough choice about what to do have learning they are pregnant. I was a teenager when Roe v Wade happened, so I have been pro choice ever since, having said that if I were a women I might not choose to get an abortion, but I don't see how I can make the same decision for another woman. I would like to see more people having (impulse or planned) sex be more prepared, if there intent is not to make a baby, but with everything thing out there for prevention, pregnancies still happen. So as a man I will continue to stand with the women who want to be the decision makers of what's going on inside there bodies, not a bunch of old white men, who should understand that its males who share the responsibilities of the tough decisions that women have to make regarding pregnancies and abortions. Maybe women should just say "NO". There is a for sure solution.
4
“… Chief Justice Roberts’s interest in preserving the court’s institutional legitimacy …”.
This is nonsense. This Op: Ed shows that the Supreme Court is a conniving cabal of entitled individuals who are beyond the reach of the Law. When the Supreme Court decided to give voting power to money it destroyed any semblance of institutional legitimacy.
2
Since the only justification for the state's involvement in abortion would be the state's interest in life (ignoring all the instances where the state has clearly not supported life and unconstitutional religious justifications even though they were clearly the basis of the law) than there is one big question:
If the state has an interest and the legal justification to protect life prior to birth what is the state's interest in protecting and sustaining life after birth. If the state stakes a claim in life prior to birth it cannot logically abandon that claim after birth.
In addition to requiring birth will the state also proscribe what medical procedures, life style, and care the fetus shall receive prior to birth? And pay for it?
What about the old conservative cry of unfunded mandates?
4
Where there is uncertainty we have always designed laws with flexibility to accommodate the vagaries and uncertainties of life. Roe V Wade did that. Biology and biological processes are not absolutes. Women, families, doctors are the ones in the best position to decide what happens within their lives and families.
Who want to make abortion unnecessary, except under the worst of conditions, than make the possibility of unwanted pregnancy almost impossible. Nothing done along those lines could be anymore intrusive into the lives of others than forcing people into gestation and birth.
5
While the Supreme Court is not, and should not, be merely an institution that makes decisions based on public opinion, they should also not make decisions devoid of any consideration of the impact a decision will have on society. I hope that Justice Roberts and the rest of the court pays attention to public sentiment when considering overturning Roe or any other "established law" (to use the term that most nominees employ while failing to answer when asked their opinion regarding precedent). A vote by Kavanaugh to overturn Roe will only increase the perception that the SCOTUS is a partisan and illegitimate institution and serve to erode trust in our judiciary. Given the dysfunction exhibited by both the Executive and Legislative branches of our gov't, my hope is that Justice Roberts will guide the court in a direction that strengthens public trust in it's ability to protect the Constitution and thereby protect the rights of all Americans. To use a term frequently employed by many political commentators, the SCOTUS is the last of the remaining guardrails that protect our Constitutional Democracy and we should all pray that it holds.
6
The republicans and Trump have made a big mistake here. Women will not stand for laws that mess with their reproductive freedom. We've fought too long to allow a group of "leave it to Beaver" 50's minded hare brains to dictate about their bodies. They should be run out of office with the old woman who signed the flipping bill in Alabama.This attempt to erase Roe vs. Wade will not stand as long as there is even a trace of justice, civility and humanity remaining in this country. Just plain stupid!
12
Not to be harsh, but I guess we'll have to learn to use birth control, eh?
As usual, the pro-lifers spout with religious zeal their position that women shouldn't have the right to decide for themselves. Their religious zeal dissipates once the child is born. Bonafide hypocrites.
9
No, the supreme court might prefer to affirm equal protection under the law. Liptak's opinion has no basis in fact. Pure hyperbole.
It's ironic that the few states that care about the lives of babies are the first in line to execute adults.
8
So we have a sitting president's admission that he has selected nominees who not only have expressed a personal view on at least one issue expected to come before the court but justices who have publicly expressed their opinion on those issues, and Republicans are going to lecture us on their "Originalist" approach to justice? What a sick joke!
3
Yes we know you are for abortion in New York and California, BUT, DO THE PEOPLE OF ALABAMA, as a state of the USA have the right to pass laws within their own state that ONLY apply to Alabama ? Let the highest court decide.
If abortion is a “right”, then no, the states can’t decide to take it away.
4
@Mark Andrew
If that were the case you'd still have slaves.
Toxic America is deleting it's account on moral fortitude and worthiness. No problem... it has been all fake since inception.
4
And she warned us again and again and again.
6
I feel that these backwards states are trying to force unintended childbirth simply because of the money to be made down the road. After all, where will they get the human bodies to fill the prison complexes that handle those vendor contracts, or our lower military ranks once folks stop volunteering for service? Because - think about it - how deeply do you suppose these legislators in poor, uneducated red states are connected to the people whose wombs they are trying to control? Anybody living in this country knows what blatant disregard the good ol' U.S.A. has for its poor and minority children. Do you suppose the people of means - in, shall we say, oh, the top 30 percent - will also be prevented from having a termination of a pregnancy? The governor's daughter? The CEO's wife? For sake of argument the beer-goggled Brett Kavanaughs of appointed position who might have a sweetie on the side? The rich family down the road whose rebellious daughter had a fling with a guy from the "wrong" side of the tracks and whose luck ran out? I highly doubt it. Don't you believe for a minute it's a highly principled movement with religion or humanity in mind, although if they can ensnare the sympathy votes from the little old church ladies, well, it's all gravy, then, isn't it?
7
Would someone please quote me what Jesus, himself, said about abortion. I can only find that he railed against fornication and adultery. Wonder why it wasn’t on Moses’ tablets. It was legal at the time Christ lived.
4
Don't forget, girls get pregnant too.
So, we may end up with twelve year old girl children who have no idea how to care for themselves in a government=enforced pregnancy.
Is this what they mean by "making America great again"?
9
I foresee that using the "morning after" pill becoming the ubiquitous means of birth control since A) the woman is unlikely to know if she is pregnant before the six week period and B) it is better to be safe than sorry.
3
Abortion past six weeks is extreme. Babies form neural connections past six weeks and begin to experience pain and pleasure. Torturing, agonizing and causing pain to a baby is the only extreme presupposition mentioned heretofore in your opinion-piece (disguised as news). Allowing majorities within states to pass their own abortion legislation a perfectly logical and constitutional measure. Only extremist liberals on the far left like to impose their extremist positions by legislating from the bench of the Supreme Court.
Past six weeks, abortions are still needed for medical reasons.
3
6 weeks is extreme, and so is 6 months. Can we find a middle ground?
If the Democrats did not restart the abortion debate every 15 minutes and stopped bring it up by announcing the will execute viable babies actually born alive when an abortion is botched it is likely the Roe B. Wade stuff would have been left as is. Why are we talking about abortion in the first place? We had a law making it legal within certain parameters. Why can't we just give it a rest and let it go on both sides of the issue and stop this foolishness?
@NYChap
Amazing. The ONLY reason abortion keeps coming up is because Republicans keep threatening women’s access to reproductive care, including birth control and abortion.
It was Trump, not Democrats, who made the preposterous claim that people were killing live born babies in the hospital.
It was yet another outrageous and despicable lie from your President, mindlessly repeated.
5
If life is sacred, as many Alabama rulers seem to say, you must also be against the death penalty. You can't talk about the inviolability of life when you talk about an embryo and at the same time don't have any problem taking the life (under the law) of an adult human being.
6
This dichotomy proves that punishment and judgement are the driving factors in deciding who gets to live, not the sanctity of life itself.
It won’t be surprising if the court moves in the direction of incremental change concerning abortion. The United States has some of the least restrictive abortion laws in the world. Likely the country will move more towards a European model of continued legality but with more restrictions like instituting waiting periods, mandating counseling and severely restricting later term access to the procedure.
Roe v. Wade is based on a very precise interpretation of the Constitution regarding privacy and choice. If the Judges determine -due to their originalist views- that this interpretation is overreaching- meaning, women do not have this choice and no right to privacy- then Roe is over. If the Judges go beyond -which may be wishful thinking- the constitutional words and prefer not to hurt women as citizens and constitutionally protected, then Roe may have a chance.
@DAT -due to their originalist views-
There is no such thing as "originalist" views. It is a lie. A scam. It is nothing but opportunistic and expedient interpretations to support their viewpoints.
And it isn't even hard to see the lie. Just look at DC v Heller where so-called originalists explained away the words written by the original framers for their own end. As if they were written, but didn't matter. What other words can they decide to ignore?
1
This is a regressive attempt to again control a woman's reproductive rights to decide to bear a child.
Pro-lifers routinely bring up God as their moral compass in this absurd battle over women's bodies.
It is a religion-based legislative decision. As such, our Founding Fathers were very wise to separate governance from religion. Our Constitution requires that religion take no part in the development of any law. This is not a theocracy and politicians cannot dictate any legislature's version of morality.
For myself, the religious right is a hypocritcial bunch. They segregate, abuse power, and fail to support the life actually exists through cuts to welfare, maternal health programs and education initiatives.
This is a thoughtless waste of public funds by the right as they continue to ignore the real problems we face. Where is the debate on climate change? poverty? education? maternal health? early childhood education? free college? job training for the new economy? food security? vaccinations?...
6
I was born to teenage parents in a country that has not legalized abortion to this day.
Unwanted children are often resented by their parents, and grow into adults with no support system. No one deserves the childhood I had, simply because my mother had no say over her own body.
These people who are so concerned about fetuses, aren’t considering the impact on the unwanted child, on the mother, and on society as a whole. Not to mention the risks that illegal abortions will pose on women, and the many existing children who will be left motherless; young women who are unable to conceive after botched abortions, etc.
I was lucky to have been able to immigrate to the U.S., but these headlines make me sick to my stomach.
9
No reason to bring this up if it is not a teachable moment for the 2020 voters and beyond. Had people not listened to Susan Sarandon or voted for Jill Stein, this would not have happened. What is the point of preaching and mourning after you cast the dice more than two years ago without waking up some of the people who are upset now have sealed their own fate!
Before banning abortion, let's enact one law first.
Any elected official who proposes such legislation ( or votes for it) must publicly declare if they have had an abortion since Roe v. Wade or have paid/helped arrange an abortion. This includes whether they have been the bio father of the fetus.
Let's ask every employee of conservative news outlets the same question.
I am personally opposed to abortion but if we are going to attempt to criminalize it, "let those who have never sinned throw the first stone"
3
"until abortion becomes extinct"
I'm tempted to ask if you are actually a sentient adult, to even express such a bizarre premise. As long as human beings continue to contribute the raw materials towards conception, that will never, ever, ever, ever, happen. Simply, not ever.
Once you accept that - and it's up to you whether to accept or continue to deny reality, it's your call, but it may help in the long run if you do - you can better channel your efforts into something that's actually achievable and fits with your platform eg better health care, greater awareness via sex-ed, increased availability of contraception etc, things that might help reduce unwanted pregnancies, rather than fasten onto your current delusions.
3
I was under the impression that generally Federal law preempted State laws. How then can a State restrict Federal law in this case?
1
Normally such things are the purview of states, like murder laws. The federal government wouldn’t interfere. But because Roe defines abortion as a right, that trumps states’ rights.
And the next project for the GOP: eliminate women's voting rights.
11
And the direct election of Senators.
1
The same person, Alabama's governor, said, when headlines stated that more deaths in Alabama prisons due to "unconstitutional" conditions, "all human life is sacred"!!
6
The sub-header should read, "The hard-right judicial activists may continue to destroy centuries of Supreme Court jurisprudence with their bizarre, fanatical ideology."
4
I am terribly upset about this new law! We are going back to the dark ages where women had no rights and used terrible practices to take care of themselves. Back alley abortions were criminal, and unsafe. Why did a bunch of white men not knowing what it means to be raped, to end up a pregnancy because of several reasons have decided on the future of women. It is beyond words. The supreme court will do nothing since Trump has his minions there. When you are pro-life, you have to take care of your babies in your womb and when the baby is born be able to afford to take care of him/her. Medical expenses, food, clothing, education. Can we do that in the States? No, we cannot! What is wrong with this county, what is wrong!
3
Science and Reason are increasingly being forced to take a back seat to Religious Belief.
Many Christians in the US believe that their god created Man in his own image, but woman was an afterthought, created by their god from spare-ribs. Their god also set up this secondary creation for the fall of Mankind. Her punishment, and the punishment of all women that have followed, was to be ruled by her husband and to suffer in child-bearing. The very idea that this female creature could have Autonomy is tantamount to Blasphemy.
These cruel and punitive beliefs, based on nothing more than ancient Middle Eastern cultural records, will be the undoing of our Modern Enlightenment.
7
Timing is everything. Eighteen months till election. The issue is the thing, not any definitive resolution. Cranks, ministers and the messianic are not the ones behind this ploy -- we are. We know this Court will not wipe out Roe, that is not the plan. The plan is to have the issue simmering, boiling, white-hot as voters head to the polls. Things will be enflamed by the preposterous mouthings of the well-to-do white women who scream bloody murder -- and we will be sure to amplify these absurdities, especially in the black press. Turnout is a two-edged sword as the donkeys will learn to their utter despair.
4
There ought to a be law that says a state legislature wanting to ban abortion statewide must 1- have accomplished a low homicide rate (1-2%) AND 2- banned all semi-automatic weapons in the state and , 3-have legislation in process to ban all modern guns in the state.
It should be law, that, before you can argue that life in the womb is just as important as life outside the womb, you have to prove it.
Any state that does not help it's citizens- who survived childbirth- pursue their right to life, liberty and happiness, by discouraging gun violence, eliminating ownership of semi-automatic weapons, and offer a guns-for-money trade-in program, should not be in a position under federal law to make determinations as to protecting life in the womb.
No state should not be allowed to discount scientific development in the medical field while encouraging scientific development of warfare weaponry that has brought us the fine killing machine, the semi-automatic weapon.
Any state legislature that bans abortion to keep it's unborn children safe, must first keep it's born citizens just as safe and protected, and limit gun ownership to a musket, maybe a 1900 model rifle.
We must protect all children in high school's "right to life".
4
Most of educated America has a dim view of the intelligence and education levels in Alabama. It is a very widespread perspective. This new development only solidifies the impression that Alabama still lives in the 14th or 15th century.
10
Why is it that many Democrats did not find the issue of Supreme Court appointments important enough to go out and vote in 2016?
Evangelicals and other Republicans voted for an amoral, dishonest liar, because of that one issue.
Democrats stayed home because the candidate nominated by a majority of the party in the primaries, did not meet some standard of purity. We will all pay the price for that folly, with Supreme Court decisions we can't agree with, for years to come!
I will not be surprised if we have a reprisal of 2016 in the next election, because I don't know if those voters will ever see the bigger picture.
12
How cruel is it to allow a few cells to develop further when it was conceived by rape?
How cruel is it when a person finds out that s/he was not born from love, but from rape? Get ready for substance abuse and a life of self-hate.
How cruel is it to say day to women who are raped: it’s your own fault and you now need to carry the foetus?
How cruel is it to deny a women her right to decide what’s best for her womb?
How cruel is it that a doctor can get 99 years of prison, but a rapist only 12 years?
How cruel is it to live in a state that allows guns to kill people, without any conviction, but removing a few cells it punished?
This draconion law will be rejected.
9
As in the antebellum era, the Confederacy clearly believes that the Constitution preserves its rights as a minority of white supremacist elites to trample the individual rights of other human beings.
It is, unfortunately, our duty, as fell to our Union brothers and sisters, to forcefully dispel this notion.
I do not know where this recurrence will lead us. The Confederacy successfully imposed its will throughout the Jim Crow Era, as it did throughout the antebellum era, as the Union hemmed and hawed at the enormous costs of defending human dignity against the depredations of white supremacy and plantation economics.
We need an Abraham Lincoln in the White House. Unfortunately, we have a James Buchanan. Or worse, an Andrew Johnson.
6
What shall happen with. the conservative SOCUS re abortion?
The nine Justices may decide that the State abortion laws are for the
particular State to decide .
I'll guess that so called red states would restrict & outlaw it.
Thus people in red states may go to aanother state for the operation.
This situation becomes state option.
The USA is becoming more divided than ever, and State Option seemingly
does this.
.
The votes for the governor's and legislators seem to be trending GOP.
Situation prevails because of the Tenth Amend is so interpreted as. aabortion
a State thing to decide.
The ftraditionl folkways and mores will prevail in State laws rather than a Federal
uniform law.
Sherry Finkbine went offshore as I recall.
Seen from the outside, the US has developed the habit to decide societal questions, that should be decided at the ballet box by society, by handing the decision to 9 unelected officials, that piercing into 200 year old document, that neither contains the words privacy nor abortion, nevertheless discover a right of privacy , in the penumbra of which they then find a right to abortion.
This is not democracy. It is handing over of hot potato issues by politicians bent on re-election to unelected officials.
2
I was a youg lawyer in France in the seventies.
As such I had to defend pro bono young women who had become pregnant, but could not afford to have children,, for whatever reasons. Only life threatening circumstances allowed "legal" abortions.
So when they were charged, the files and testimonies were just "bloody" horrible;
Without other remedy, they would use hangers, lime, whatever the rumors would say you could use.
"Pro life " doctors would even proceed to curettage when the abortion was not complete, but in some casses without anesthesia, such as to punish these wantom women.
But of course that was for poor women.
Rich ones would just travel in style to Switzrland,England or Belgium.
They could even easily if they knew the right people, have the abortion performed by a competent surgeon in a nice private clinic, right in Paris.
That was really unfair, specialy as people of means could easily have financialy supported a child. For them it was just an inconvenience.
In 1975 , outraged, the Frech Parlement finally voted in 1975 to allow abortion for all, rich and poor.
By the way, are "pro life "supporters against the death penalty of unquestionably "living persons"?
4
@Max Lewy
No "pro life" supporters are only "pro life" until the baby is born and then they seek to condemn the baby and mother for having had the temerity to be born and the mother for being unable to support the child. They will not, of course, provide any support for the "family" that they have forced into the world.
6
This abortion fight will never be over. For some, it is easy to give full rights to an unborn and little respects for the full-grown human.
Let the government be responsible for taking care of unwanted babies. Let father be found through DNA search and made fully responsible for taking care of the unwanted baby or go to jail.
Unfortunately, people who are against abortion are also against government welfare.
3
Another tool by the party of trump (formerly known as the GOP) to keep Alabama women and families in poverty, with the zealous hope that this will "roll tide" to the Supreme Court. It sickened me to hear an AL male state legislator gleefully pontificate that this is the case to overrule Roe v Wade as they have the votes, and maybe more given the health of Justice Ginsburg and she might not be around.
2
Is Alabama planning to help pay for all of the extra children who will be born?
I didn't think so.
6
I wonder why this governor doesn't do something about Alabama's dreadful prisons if she is so concerned about 'life' issues.
@Mary Peters : Thank you. Support, "life," from the earliest detection of pregnancy, then, support the death penalty. (?)
We allow for that latitude in what we believe and support, as we live together. It is an aspect of a free society.
Why not allow such latitude to a woman who is pregnant, to take one action or another?
Abortion is an invented right. It lacks even the constitutional basis of slavery, a 'right' that was repealed, except as punishment for a crime, in 1865. That being the case there's no reason Roe v Wade can't largely be repealed as unsupported ideological overreach.
1
Since men (and some women) believe that they have the right to control my body and my medical choices, I have a solution that adapts to these unique beliefs:
MANDATORY VASECTOMIES in all states that limit or ban abortions.
When a man is ready to impregnate a woman, he applies for a license from the state to have the vasectomy temporarily reversed, of course documenting who he intends to impregnate and her consent in this endeavour. When the impregnation is successful, snip. Any woman not agreeing to be impregnated, but forced by the state to carry to term, will be a fully compensated employee of the state, entitled to full-time wages and paid medical coverage.
8
Until the populace in hyper-religious states can manage to elect more reasonable people, an interim solution might be to establish a foundation funded by pro-choice advocates to purchase bus tickets for Alabama women to travel to another state for pregnancy-related medical services. Not ideal but an interim method of keeping ideologues from controlling women's medical decisions.
This is the only winning strategy for Republicans in 2020 . . .
it's the only way they won in 2016 . . .
bring every anti-abortion voter possible to the polls.
The open supreme court seat was the reason Trump won. A court battle for Roe vs. Wade might just do the trick again.
Vote with consequences in mind, in 2020, or we lose again.
8
Abortion is not about rape; it’s not about men; it’s not about anomalies; it’s not about incest. Abortion is about women having options in all aspects of their lives, including whether or not to become a parent at a time of their choosing; when they feel the time and circumstance is right for them; when the obstacles are manageable for them - without needing approval, permission or input from anyone else. Until women have real access to the FULL menu of reproductive health options, their wombs are wards of the state. It’s no one’s business how, why or when a woman chooses to be, or not to be a parent. I thank god I am no longer of child bearing age, in this era.
12
Life is precious. However, to what extent should a state government, and then a nations government have near complete authority to dictate the choice a woman can make concerning childbirth. To overturn Roe vs. Wade would be a precedent. A decision of that magnitude would further undermine the progress that has been painstakingly made through the decades to give women more equality.
The law passed in Alabama today is a step backwards. Further considerations to challenge Roe vs. Wade should not preoccupy the Supreme Courts docket. Not because it is not important, but because every state and territory can, and should do better to pass legislation to give women the opportunity to actually be represented as an equal in todays society. By doing so, its purpose would serve as a more effective catalyst to bring about change.
"True progress involves change that does not cause the movement to revert to its former self, and be bound by ideology that inhibits its progress. In pursuing 'true progress', the path to equality, and a more perfect union shall be achieved." - Bryan P. Auza
Henry the 8th, I am, I am. Henry the 8th, I am. --Alabama.
5
Constitution? What Constituion.
Thanks Trump.
8
How about this: When there is no more rape, we can begin a sane contemplation about abortion. Until then, please hold men accountable for their participation in all/any unwanted pregnancies, say, a 99 year prison sentence for their actions should it result in a need or request for an abortion. If men carried any heavy load here, there would be as many abortion clinics as Starbuck’s . Come on, “men”, do better.
14
Abortion is not about rape; it’s not about men; it’s not about anomalies; it’s not about incest. Abortion is about women having options in all aspects of their lives, including whether or not to become a parent at a time of their choosing, when they feel the time and circumstance is right for them; when the obstacles are manageable for them - without needing approval, permission or input from anyone else. Until women are able to access the full menu of reproductive health options throughout their lives, their wombs are wards of the state.
3
If you listened to the male Alabama legislators speak, it was clear they do not understand pregnancy, reproduction, biology, or medical care. They are ignorant of what they vote on, yet they are making decisions that affect millions of people.
22
@Linda: Yes, but their bill has been signed into law by the governor, a woman who should know better...
3
The law law they passed did indeed impact millions—millions of children who would like to experience life. This is not a one way street. Alabama came up with a reasonable approach: if you conceive a child you can have an abortion but you can’t wait very long to make up your mind. What is so wrong about that?
2
@Confused
Are you going to pay for the medical costs, care and upbringing of the child you are forcing a woman to bear? Are you going to ensure that the "family" has adequate food, clothing, education and shelter to enable the child to be raised in a nurturing environment? No! You are about condemning women and children to poverty, pain and suffering for some medieval belief system without any humanity or compassion.
4
I grew up in an affluent neighborhood. Women I knew had ready access to abortions provided by a few doctors known to all of us. Women were admitted to the hospital for a "D&C" and an overnight stay. One and done in safe conditions. Abortion was illegal at that time but was happening the entire time. It's ludicrous to think laws can end abortion. But because of income disparity many women will not have access to safe or affordable abortions.
19
I don't want to offend anyone's religion, but how in the world did we end up with so many Roman Catholics on the Supreme Court? It is almost assured that a woman's right to choose will be destroyed in the next year or so with the makeup of the court. One of founding ideas for this country was freedom of religion, and apparently it is no longer an idea that we believe in.
23
But we SHOULD feel free to "offend" religious beliefs. They are not immune to ridicule, and we must not let the religious claim special rights and privileges based merely in belief. People believe all sorts of crazy stuff, it doesn't make them or their beliefs special.
6
Meanwhile, in Canada, the Supreme Court ruled today that doctors must give referrals for services they oppose (ie, assisted suicide, abortions, etc).
But hey. Socialism is evil.
Man. What a backwards place parts of America have become (and so quickly!).
28
That the thing, though - choosing which patients you will and won't refer for which treatment is a slippery slope. One day it's a doctor saying she won't refer her patient for an abortion, the next it's a doctor refusing to treat Jews. It's not difficult to imagine it happening.
3
Why don't we just force men to get vasectomies? Let's start with the statehouse in Alabama.
35
@JS Great idea!
Unbelievably Alabama is one of the few states that do not protect the victim or rape or incest from having to battle with their attacker over child custody, visitation or even arranging an adoption. This anti-Abortion law is completely unconscionable and what a rape victim will now have to endure after giving birth is staggaringly amoral.
24
This is not just about abortion anymore. The law of unintended consequences will create such ripple effects that the entire country may be transformed. What about frozen embryos in fertility clinics? Today the most promising of those are implanted, the rest destroyed. If this is homicide, the industry will go out of business. What about experimentation on embryos? It is outlawed today in the US but I always hoped that one day people will come to their senses and realize we can cure diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s if it is allowed (not to mention the boon to pure science). Now we have ceded our the lead in biotechnology to China which is not hobbled by medieval superstitions. And finally: what about the cultural effect? The law is telling me as a woman: your life, your mind, your freedom don’t matter. Your only value is in your uterus. I am a mother of two much-loved children but even when they were babies, I rebelled against being seen as a breeding animal first, a human being second. When a teacher in my son’s kindergarten addressed me as “Mother of”, I instantly corrected her. Nobody but my sons call me “mom”. For everybody else I am a boss, a researcher, an intellectual, a friend, a wife, a human being. Alabama women prefer to be seen as brood mares. Good luck to you and don’t expect solidarity from me.
30
These politicians who are trying to undo and criminalize legal abortion forget why abortion was legalized and regulated in the first place. It was very difficult for woman before these laws changed. People will find a way to get an abortion and this is fertile ground for unqualified and unscrupulous people to satisfy that demand. Women were routinely "butchered" by these predators and often died. No one has the right to tell a woman what she can and can not do with her body. That decision should be between the woman, the father and her doctor . . . PERIOD! If we take these misguided steps backward we will be recreating old and dangerous problems. If your religion does not believe in abortion I respect your choice but please do not force your views on others. It is none of your business.
15
Right now in many states there is already a de facto ban on abortion - states where freedom to obtain an abortion is already next to impossible - that is not going to change in our lifetimes.
Best strategy at this point is to work state to state where possible, as in New York - if Roe is struck down or further narrowed, certain states must remain the sanctuary for women’s rights.
Let us hope the issue does not evolve into a constitutional amendment debate, a federal prohibition about abortion - don’t think that battle is out of the question.
5
Fact is, the majority of Alabamans believe that abortion should be illegal in most if not all cases - no exceptions. That is precisely what is reflected in their state government and I think there should be not suit challenging it. Eighteen percent of American hold the same believe.
Since the majority of R-Americans strongly feel that there shouldn't be a secular government and that Christianity become a state religion, maybe people of such motivation need to get sorted and relocated south of the Mason-Dixon line, the states separate into the Southern Theocracy that they so desperately want and a secular north.
6
@MN Student It's strange how many on the Far Left think Republicans want a theocracy despite repeatedly rejecting such a notion. At the same time the Left are increasingly embracing Marxist candidates and history shows Marxist states are theocracies. Is it that the Left object to the possibility of rivals for absolute power? Perhaps a North-South divide will occur, but it won't be theocracy v secular, more like freedom v tyranny.
2
It's very upsetting that 2 of the Supreme Court justices who would likely decide against reproductive rights are men who have been publicly accused of sexual misconduct. I'm all about due process and innocent until proven guilty but the dots are aligning in a very disturbing way in this case. Women do not have equal representation in the US government. Plus there's the fact that Kavanaugh is in a stolen seat and should never have been in this position in the first place. McConnell blocked the supreme court nomination of Obama, a President elected by a generous majority of the American people, and made way for the nominee of a president who was beaten in the popular vote. I feel like ultra conservatives are trying to strong arm and bully America to bend to their will. If these are the sort of abusive laws we will be saddled with I would prefer not to let that happen.
Fight & Vote.
17
@Emma Many groups feel similarly aggrieved, and diametrically opposed to your views. Not sure what you mean by ultra-conservatives trying to bend America to their will since it looks to me as if it's the Far Left trying to bend America to their will. Those who fail to kowtow are threatened, attacked, taken to court, even physically abused.
I agree that citizens need to fight back, and vote. America cannot afford to follow states such as California or New York into darkness.
1
So if Alabama is going to punish rape and incest victims why don't they pass legislation that would castrate any man convicted of rape and/ or incest? Let's play fair. I will never step foot in Alabama ever.
25
Just when you think Alabama couldn't possibly be more backwards...
15
If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one. But don't force your personal beliefs on my ovaries and uterus or reproductive decisions. An embryo is not a fetus. A fetus is not a viable child until roughly 7 months into the pregnancy. Any fetus born before that time will either die or need intensive (translate that into extremely expensive) technological intervention to survive. And most will suffer from all sorts of problems throughout their lives whether or not society acknowledges that fact or not.
Life is valuable. However what is more valuable to society: a family that loses a parent because the mother decides to have an illegal abortion when the family cannot support another mouth to feed, or the parents don't want another child for whatever reason? When they start to provide funding for every family to raise children the way they need to be raised, for real sex education, not advice to abstain or else, for high quality day care for all children regardless of income then they can move on to ban abortion with exceptions for rape and incest and the life of the mother.
Let's not forget about unwanted children who are abused because they weren't wanted. Will they provide funds for therapy to help these children? Will they take these children and love them as their own?
This is about is punishing women for having sex. It's not about the sacredness of life or abortion at all.
5/15/2019 11:30pm
21
@hen3ry If you don't want to be pregnant then don't do anything to get pregnant. Pro-abortion laws are about executing children for their parents' mistakes.
1
@John Smythe
Many women become pregnant from having sex against their will.
4
@John Smythe really? If you were raped and didn't want the child is that your fault? If the fetus is found to have a defect incompatible with life or dies in utero do you expect the woman to carry it to term? An embryo is not a child. A fetus is not a child. And you and others have no business telling women how to run their lives no matter how you feel about abortion.
4
Exodus 21:22
22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
According to exodus the termination of a fetus is not murder
I guess the Governor doesn't read her Bible.
9
@c p Reread the chapter. An early birth is punishable by a fine. If mischief occurs - death of a child, then a fine is insufficient.
1
The Alabama Governor claims all life is precious except if you wind up in the Alabama Jils which are cruel and unusual.
7
There are 25 white men, all Republican who voted for this. Call them, email them, send them letters, every day, it should be the first thing you do every morning. Then include the Governor, a white woman, none the less. I have a postcard ready to go out tomorrow. And then vote.
6
Pretty clear that Harris' bourgeois, self-serving thesis--"Let us all agree that women's healthcare is under attack and we will not stand for it."--rings hollow, shrill, and empty in the face of the fact that science has proved beyond a doubt that the fetus is more than chattel to be done away with at will. That is, egg ownership and fetus right to "healthcare" are at odds.
3
@Alice's Restaurant Science has nothing to do with your forced-birth ideology. ‘Chattel” is a social label, not a scientific one. Rights are bestowed by society, not by nature that could not care a hoot if all the fetuses in Alabama were aborted tomorrow. or if every woman of reproductive age in that state was forcibly impregnated. Both scenarios would be perfectly natural. What science shows is that a fetus does not have the neural connections to be aware of itself and therefore cannot be seen as a human person. Every human culture since the beginning of history assigned personhood either at birth or at some later age. Not even the Bible considers a fetus to be a legal person. So stop prostituting science to argue for what is essentially a political position based on misogyny.
2
Now you know why the republicans let Trump do whatever he wants, because the republicans are adding all kinds of judges.giving the republicans another five years to stack the lower courts.
Trump wins next year, that is a very real possibility.
The Supreme Court could go 7/2.
Ginsburg hanging on by her fingernails hoping for a Democrat win next year.
2
Colorado took a step in the right direction: universal long duration implanted birth control. This has has the most significant and humane reduction in abortion by far.
Unfortunately, in a binary, polarized political and cultural battleground, all that may fall on deaf ears. Are we doomed?
7
Kavanaugh is sneaky and will wait until after the 2020 election to overrule it and try to save Collins who is a fraud. Roberts I think has a modicum of decency but he like all the recent right wing justices all lied about defending precedent. Only Collins believed them despite yesterday’s decision stepping on precedent.
2
Suggestion for Alabama legislators and all the other states wanting to save actual lives: all male children either at birth or a time period before puberty receive a vasectomy. When the time is ready for him to procreate, he seeks spiritual guidance, watches a video on the reversal procedure, gains parental consent, then waits 48 hours prior to the vasectomy reversal procedure, he can have a restructured vas deferens and then attempt to get a female pregnant. This way, no person will suffer adverse effects of a botched abortion, since we all know women who cannot afford to travel to a trained physician will be seeking back alley abortions or attempt themselves. It's a win, win for the "pro life" movement. The males will be with trained doctors having the vas deferens reversal and suffer no ill effects. No abortions, because only boys/men with intact vas deferens will be able to impregnate a female and we all know that would never happen. That would cut down on the need for abortions and keep everyone safe and alive.
5
As an abortion rights supporter, I would like to understand why is it acceptable to allow abortion in cases of rape but not in cases of consensual sex? If you believe that abortion is the murder of innocent life, isn't life resulting from rape just as innocent as life resulting from consensual sex? This inconsistency is never raised and discussed. Everyone seems to be outraged by the absence of the rape exception. I would like someone to explain this inconsistency.
Furthermore, why is the woman spared punishment? She is, after all, willfully the one seeking the abortion.
2
For decades the idealogical left has been chipping away at centuries of tradition in a diet of 'rights' with no responsibility. What happened to women's responsibility to engage in behaviour that prevents her from getting pregnant? Understand mitigating circumstances but the wheel is turning now on push back has begun. I grew up at Sydney University in the 90s with this selfish idealogical position thrust down my throat and now realise how shallow and self obsessed it all is.
3
What happened to holding men accountable? It takes two, FYI.
22
The right to privacy on which Roe v Wade was built on a previous case finding a right to contraception under the Constitution. Those who say there is no right to privacy in abortion in the Constitution would not find it there for contraception either, so if states outlawed contraception too, so much for responsible sex.
Speaking of sex, what about a man's responsibility for pregnancy?
6
It can't be all responsibility and no rights either.
2
A females right to terminate her own pregnancy is between her concious, her God, and her doctor. Forcing a "no choice" position is forcing a woman into slavery. I don't doubt that's next on Alabama's agenda.
15
@S A Johnson
As history has shown, forcing people against their will seems to be a Southern thing.
8
@S A Johnson
"A females right to terminate her own pregnancy is between her concious (sic), her God, and her doctor."
No, that is false on 2 counts. First, your statement is incorrect about her doctor. Her doctor has no right to determine whether or not she has a right to abort a fetus (except to determine whether the fetus is medically threatening her life)....he has only a right to determine whether he is willing to assist her to do so.
Second, the pregnant woman should have the right to abort a fetus only if the fetus is merely a part of her body and not a separate human life. But if the fetus is a separate human life, then the woman should have no more right to kill it than she would to kill her own children.
3
@Errol It is between her and her doctor to discuss what is best for her health. It is never, nor did I write that it is the doctor's "right" to decide. If she believes in God or another higher spiritual power and thinks it's a sin, it is between her and her God to make it right according to her faith. With or without a belief in God, her conscious is where she will ultimately decide, and for the rest of her life that choice is hers and she will live with it, whatever that choice is. And whatever she decides, it is not a choice that you or I can or should make for her.
3
The legal issue of abortion is really extremely simple but it all revolves around how a single question is answered, and the answer to that question is a philosophical conundrum.
The crucial question is whether a fetus is a separate human life or is merely a part of the body of a pregnant woman.
If a fetus is not a separate human life, then each pregnant woman should have full right to do with it as she pleases, including aborting it. Also, no other person should be criminally liable for killing the fetus. That would protect doctors who perform abortions or persons who otherwise assist a pregnant woman to get an abortion It should also protect persons who commit crimes against the pregnant woman....the current laws which impose extra crimes and extra punishment upon someone who kills a fetus should be declared unconstitutional, the only criminal liability permitted should be for the harm the assailant does to the woman, but not to the fetus since it is not a separate life.
However, if the fetus is determined to be a separate human life, then the pregnant woman should have no right whatsoever to harm it or abort it, except in order to save her own life (then it would be similar to the laws regarding self-defense). Also, anyone who performs an abortion or assists a pregnant woman to get one should be criminally prosecuted.
Now, if only someone could come up with a clear, cogent, philosophical basis to answer the question: is a fetus is a separate human life, or not?
3
@Errol This question has been answered many times: a fetus is not a human person and has no rights of personhood. But even if you don’t accept this clear answer, consider that my right to self-defense is not limited to situations in which I am threatened with murder. In case of home invasion, I am allowed to kill the intruder without inquiring whether he wants to murder me, rape me or “only” steal my money. An unwanted fetus is an intruder in my body. It undermines my health (even if the pregnancy is normal) and costs me a lot money, whether I decide to keep the resulting child or not. It is estimated that bringing up a child can cost up to 200,000 USD minimum, not counting the emotional and physical damage, loss of earnings etc. If somebody showed up in your home and demanded you cash out a quarter of a million or else, wouldn’t you consider that killing him is a just and proper response? I am not even talking about the fact that an unwanted pregnancy is like a rape that lasts for 9 months. So yes, abortion is an act of self-defense.
2
@Mor
Every detriment that you mention (the kinds that do not threaten your life) are also imposed upon you by any living children you have. Yet, it is absolutely a homicide crime if you intentionally kill one of your children. Surely, you would not contend that you have a right to murder your own children.
As for the right to kill an intruder in your home, you do not have a correct understanding of the law. The law presumes a threat to the lives of the occupants of a home by every intruder. It is that presumed threat that gives the occupants a right to defend their lives by killing an intruder. But there is no presumption of threat to life for intruders of space that is not a person's home. For example, you have no right to kill someone merely because they are an intruder into your office, or even if they are an intruder into a detached garage of your home.....in those cases there must be a perceived actual threat to human life before you have the right to kill in self defense.
@Errol I chose to have my children and once they are born, I have to accept the consequences of my choice. Freedom implies responsibility. But if I don’t have a choice, yes, I believe I have the right to assert my autonomy and human dignity in any way possible, including killing the newborn. Infanticide was widespread in the Victorian age, for example, when neither effective contraception nor abortion were available. The British law eventually decided to treat these actions as manslaughter. If women are forced to become brood animals, many will kill their brood. Get ready for babies in dumpsters. As for self-defense: have you heard of “stand your ground” laws? In any case, since pregnancy is dangerous by definition, there is a potential threat to my life in having to suffer through nine months of pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure, inability to work, etc. Unless I choose to do it, nobody has the right to demand this from me. The difference between wanted and unwanted pregnancy is the difference between lovemaking and rape. The process is identical. It is my mindset that turns it into an expression of affection or a hideous crime against my humanity.
2
A woman has the right to have control of her body, PERIOD! But since we're on the subject of constitutional laws, there is one law that sorely needs amending if not outright repealed--yes, gun enthusiasts--the right to keep and bear arms. Mexico and Guatemala are the only other countries that have a constitutional right to bear arms but access to firearms in both countries are much more restrictive than in the U.S. For example, there is only one shop in Mexico to buy guns which is located in a heavily guarded army base in Mexico City.
4
@Mike K
I don't think you can come down on the morality of allowing free access to firearms with known results of child deaths and be pro-life.
3
Reporter Mr. Liptak is engaged in wishful thinking, What does he think the Trump Supreme Court nominees were all about?
Even the best case of "chipping away' at ROE rights is outrageous.
Trump has let lose the dogs of White Power - White Supremacy and the American Taliban.
Those same right wing views will also dismantle New Deal protections and the "administrative state" ) according to WH Chief Counsel's McGahn's own words).
WAKE UP!
It's well past time the news reports these facts.
3
Roberts, Alioto, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Will they stand up for the rights of American women. or will they side with the misogynistic demands of the American Taliban?
7
@Joe Miksis
Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Will they stand up for the rights of unborn children, or will they side with the murderous demands of the American left?
See how that works both ways?
1
It's truly amazing that over half of white American women voted for Mr. Right-to-Life, Donald Trump, to rig out entire court system, from SCOTUS on down, to deny a woman's right to choose. What's wrong with most white women, anyway? After sixty years of very, very loud noises from feminists trying to get women to stand up for themselves against brutish sexists like the men in the Alabama legislature, it's time for white women to join the huge majority of black women. who wisely voted against Trump in order to drive this nightmarishly anti-woman president, and the whole party he has now molded in his grotesquely sexist image, into the political sea. If white women continue to support Trump, they will truly deserve the terrible world for women he and his party will create for them.
9
The question being asked could be: Should a governing body ban abortions and does this same governing body have the right to ban the medical procedure in order to stop the abortion and then to make it a crime? Or does the court outlaw both?... setting a precarious precedent. If you do not outlaw the procedure, how can you outlaw the result?
1
When did republicans become the party of comic-book-worthy super villains?
6
What might be necessary is re-examining the tenure of Supreme Court Justices.
We have seen so many decisions that invariably come down on the side of the powerful and moneyed with a disingenuous nod to Constitutional principles such as free speech (Citizens United) the second amendment (District of Columbia vs. Heller) and so on.
So-called "originalism" is anything but a dodge to rationalize the increasingly authoritarian impulses of the right.
4
@Mark I believe that term limits should apply to court justices too. May be no more than 10 years with an option for 10 more years to be decided by a referendum.
I think there's another scenario here.
What if the district courts in Alabama and Georgia enjoin the new statutes and then take their time to write an opinion explaining the reasoning? The states could ask for permission to appeal the injunctions ahead of the opinions, but the district courts could say "no."
In that situation, it would be a while before appeals in the Alabama and Georgia cases come before the Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits.
The district courts could also say "yes" to a quick appeal, and the conservative-leaning appellate courts in the south could issue panel decisions that either uphold or overturn the injunction (probably the former), but then a party could ask for en banc review (review by all judges on the appeals court).
With all of that going on, and an election next year, what if a Democrat is elected President in November 2020 and then, after she takes office in January 2021, a conservative justice leaves the court? Thomas is in his 70s and Alito is in his 60s. They aren't young men!
1
@CastleMan
There is also a chance Ruth Bader Ginsberg will be the first to leave.
Thank you for a very clear explanation of how this case will develop. I specially benefited from the video. I hope legal precedent trumps ("Trumps") politics.
1
The not so Supreme Court of the United States.
What one should expect from a real Supreme Court is that they would take care of all Americans from all religions or non religious.
Instead this Supreme Court has been manufactured, manipulated to ultimately only please Christians, Catholics and denounce separation of church and state.
The Republican party has for decades catered to Christianity, as they knew that ultimately they might become their core constituents with their need for power and greed, their love for authoritarian leadership, which of course they were used to have for centuries.
It wasn’t that long ago that Americans were aggressively responding to extremist religious muslim leaders, how quickly things have changed, the extremists can now be found in our own country and most of them are white and male and where is American opposition to religious search in power now?
We are still dealing in horror to the thousands and thousands cases of sexual abuse by Christian, Catholic leaders and still nothing has changed.
Religion can and should never be trusted, their ‘power’ over who goes to heaven or hell has only lead to complete moral corruption.
And now the Supreme Court filled with a majority of extremist judges will determine what Americans can do or not do?
American justice has become the laughingstock in the judicial world, they are as bad now as they are in Russia, China and all other authoritarian lead countries.
9
@Johan Debont
Religion is the bane of humanity.
12
Is in vitro fertilisation still legal? This procedure routinely destroys embryos. If life begins at Concepcion, then this too should be illegal.
7
Every pro-life / evangelical I have spoken with have all used birth control.
But for some reason, they don't want to help poor women get birth control.
Then poor women get pregnant and have babies and end up on welfare.
And there is a good chance that those children will end up on welfare or in prison.
But I came to understand long ago, it is not about logic, it is about the fight.
12
The hypocrisy of the right-to-lifers is truly sickening. Force a woman to have a baby she doesn't want because of the "sanctity" of life, but if the unwanted babies have an awful childhood and turn into adults who act out and break the law, throw the sanctity of life out the window. Imprison them for life or even put them to death.
13
Whatever one's opinion on "abortion" per se or a right to unimpeded access to all medical treatment, there is a very fundamental question going unseen, or at least without comment. Our system of tripartite government depends upon a representative legislative branch to make laws in the public interest or occasionally opine upon matters of public and social concern, an executive to administer those laws and to enforce them as well as the interpretations of the laws as provided by the Judiciary as needed. Alabama and other States are now not merely making laws in response to public need, they are specifically making law with the intent of creating legal controversy and challenge; this is NOT the role of the legislative branch. They are deliberately making BAD law, law which the legislators themselves concede to be too outre, for a political effect. This is not only wrong and contrary to the intent of our Founders, it smacks -- no it is! -- malfeasance in office,
11
My day dream is that the Confederate states once again ask to secede.
This time we let them.
And they take the rest of the Red States with them.
I would have to move but it would be worth it.
22
Make abortion illegal again and re-institute a dormant industry-
backdoor abortions. How evangelical to totally ignore women in their decision making; America is not a theocracy despite what the "religious right asserts.
9
What's so sad about this is it men had the babies, there would be an abortion clinic on every corner.
16
@tlogan
In every Starbucks and McDonald’s.
4
I never have really cared much about abortion rights because I’m a man and it doesn’t affect me that much. Thinking about it though, it takes a lot of gall for a man to insist that a pregnant woman shouldn’t be allowed to get an abortion. How can these people pretend to care about fetuses when they don’t care about the rights of females? This is a theological issue and should remain in that domain.
13
Alabama's right to "life" does not extend to their incarcerated human beings.
Despicable.
14
Supposedly educated men thinking they have the right to demand a woman use their bodies as these men see fit is outrageous. I expect our Supreme Court Justices to state very clearly that neither the federal government nor the state has no right to infringe on the right of a woman to control her own body.
Educated women who do not support pro-choice are absolutely impossible for me to process.
9
@MLE53
Prepare to be sorely disappointed. The worst $COTU$ in more than 130 years is primed to overrule Roe v Wade.
If I ruled the world there would be exorbitant fines placed on anyone who has already equalled or exceeded zero population growth with their existing offspring and was planning to have still more.
Abortion should be a last resort--but it should be provided free and safely to anyone who requests one.
The last thing this planet needs right now is more babies. Especially babies born to Deep South evangelicals.
"God" help us.
13
Perhaps the only decent conservative in modern times will likely prevent the Republicans from digging their ditch any bigger than it already is. Chief Justice John Roberts is the absolutely only thing standing in the way of Republicans rolling back the rights of women to the 1950's and beyond. Who's rights will be in the balance next? Who's access, liberty and freedoms will be teetering on the brink next? We're going in the wrong direction folks.
7
There was a time in Afghanistan when women worked outside the home and did not need to be accompanied by a relative and did not have to wear a burqa. Point being the rights of women can go backward and it seems they are about to in North America. All that women have fought for is now being debated and potentially trampled.
If a person is outspoken and against a woman's right to choose then they had better be just as vocal and righteous about deaths caused by guns, wars and death that has and will result from climate change. (More than sixty people died from heat waves in Montreal alone last summer and I don't see right wing fundamentalist religious groups slightly bothered by this.) In other words, for goodness sakes, if a person refers to themselves as pro-life then they better be "for life" in every aspect.
Don't be fooled. This obsession with a woman's right to choose is a game play by Republican politicians because they know it's the neon light that will get right wing fundamentalist religious voters to vote for them and this attack on women is misogyny at its ugliest.
17
Can there be companion legislation making illegal the sale of Viagra and other generics for male ED? How about no coverage for Prostate diseases that affect males?
I foresee an exodus of OB/GYNs from these red states which will affect all women in these states irrespective of their age and religious persuasion.
5
@Jerseyite
Good and better !
As a man, I can never know what it means physically, emotionally, or psychologically to have an abortion. I believe it is always wrong to criminalize or curtail the exercise of free choice of any group of people when a direct threat to society cannot be established. Women have a right to choose.
That being said, with rights come responsibilities. I firmly believe that in all cases where legal abortion is readily available and sex is consensual that the resulting birth of a child should be legally presumed the entire responsibility of the mother UNLESS there is a specific, enforceable agreement between the man and the woman, including marriage, partnership, or some implied contract by situation. As a practical matter, it allows a woman, rightly in control of her body, the ability to make a more fully informed choice when making a decision of this magnitude. In the scenario that provides for legal abortion on demand, it is difficult to intellectually justify that men, appropriately without the right to make a decision on the woman’s behalf as to the birth of a child or terminating a pregnancy, should be held to account. To say that women have the right to terminate a pregnancy at will (or not), and a man, without a mutual prior agreement with a woman, must accept the legal consequences of a decision they have no part in is as one-sided as it is for a law criminalizing abortion.
1
@On the Contrary
As men, neither you nor I have any rights to tell women what to do with their bodies.
8
@On the Contrary
When you get pregnant then see if that changes what you think.
5
Hearing this issue every political season is getting really old. What happens when the dog catches the car. I had a dog that could not be trained to stop chasing cars. She’s dead.
1
Make no mistake, this is about keeping power in male hands. They will chip away women’s rights that we’ve fought so hard to gain. We’re turning the clocks back.
473
@Jessica
I am a man and I strenuously oppose the many recent efforts by Republicans to ensure electoral victories through voter suppression. However, there is one form of voting restriction I would wholeheartedly support: No male would be permitted to vote on any issue, whether at the polls or in a legislature, that deals with women's reproductive health.
Supported by the right wing members of the SCOTUS, the oppressive movement to control women's reproductive health has been led by men. Making matters worse, these men are religious zealots (see Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas) who believe in religious patriarchy and seek to have their religious beliefs become the law of the land. Nothing could be more offensive to the spirit of the Constitution's prohibition of a state religion.
No Supreme Court nominee has been more dishonest (i.e., perjured himself more blatantly) than Neil Gorsuch in claiming that there are no Republican judges or "Democrat" [sic] judges, only (nonpartisan) judges. And no judge, with the possible exception of Justice Thomas, is more partisan than Gorsuch.
46
@Jessica for some it has nothing to do with women’s rights but everything to do with holding life as sacred. Some people believe that ripping the head off a 22-week old fetus is exactly the same as ripping the head off a 2 year old. Both are Murder. Is it okay to defend the life of a 2 year old? Why is it wrong to defend the life of a 22-week old?
4
Joe: What about the life of the woman carrying the fetus? Does her financial, emotional, physical well-being matter at all? Teens should be forced to carry and give birth to and care for their dad or their brother's baby?
62
Trump never agreed with any of his own intelligent community findings right from Russian interference, North Korean bluff to Saudi government's involvement in Kashoggi's killing. I wonder from whom he got the intelligence this time.
6
I don't understand the pride others take in being pro-choice. It conveys a celebratory attitude towards killing a life-form and holds zero sympathies to the mystery of life.
Abortion should be the exception NOT the rule.
4
@sentientinseattle No pro-choice people celebrate killing, and to state as much is unnecessarily inflammatory and obscures the nuances involved in this issue. The choice to end a pregnancy is a difficult one--and should be made only by the person who is pregnant. That is how we keep abortion safe, legal, and rare. Not by legislating away people's ability to make choices about their own reproductive freedom. (The latter, for the record, is how we force women into unsafe, illegal, and frankly dangerous situations where they end their pregnancies on their own or in the care of unregulated, underground providers.)
78
@sentientinseattle It's not pride, it's a feeling people have in wanting to control their own lives. I don't know if you're a man or woman, but if I told you you HAD to have a vasectomy and could not get it reversed unless you had parental consent, watched a video of the procedure, and waited two days for the reversal, would that upset you a bit? If I you were ordered to do something that was against your beliefs, wouldn't you be outraged? Try to see it from a different perspective.
You last comment is true: abortions should be the exception but we live in reality where birth control fails, is not taken correctly, or not at all. We choose to side on the rights of the living and not a clump of cells. We choose to side on the rights of all women to decide what is best for her and her family.
74
@sentientinseattle
Really ?
We are humans and a life worth living is a major investment. That the state does not give out for free
We are not livestock that you just throw food at.
28
The people (men and, incredibly, women) who pass and support these laws will send their wives, mistresses and daughters to places where it is legal to have abortions when the need arises. They'll be okay with whispers and innuendo and remain the cowards and hypocrites they are.
13
aside from the pro or con arguments. Roe was decided 40 years ago. Technology was part of the decision based on the development and survive-ability of the child being carried. Times change. Maybe a new look is needed. This law will give the court a blank slate.
1
When one of my employees has their period - not a miscarriage, but a period, which could be due to failure to implant - should I grant 3d bereavement leave?
8
I think the abortion issue is not as simple as “this is my body and I should have the right to do what I please with it”.
It involves another two human beings who have a right to a say. Just because the fetus is not a wholly formed person it doesn’t mean it’s a piece of inconvenient tissue.
To abort a pregnancy is to carry the burden of having terminated the life of your child. This guilt will accompany you to the grave. No one tells you that, no one warns you. Every now and then, when you see someone of the same age as what your child would have been, had you let it live, you will feel the weight of what it can’t be because of an immature, unthinking decision you took so many years ago. All that much worse, when you later try to conceive and you fail, ending up childless and facing your older years alone, and forever grieving.
So, no, abortion should not be easy or on demand. You can take steps not to get pregnant, including abstinence. You can chose to place the child for adoption. Only the danger to a mother’s life should be reason to abort.
2
@Pat
If YOU don’t want to have an abortion then don’t have an abortion. What a woman does with her own body is none of your business.
14
I would like to know how women legislators voted for this Alabama abortion law. NYT, please report on this.
Misogynistic men are a huge problem. But I cannot understand how women could vote for this kind of law, if any at all. If so, where is sympathy or empathy for women who are raped? Where is the sisterhood to support women with each other against oppressive men? We should do better to move the society forward and make it an easier place to live for women.
4
The conservatives on the Supreme Court better tread very lightly on this topic.
Precedence and rule of law has been thrown out the window by this administration, and two can play at that game.
Americans just may decide to impeach Gorsuch (illegitimate), and Kavanaugh (unworthy), of sitting on the bench.
And give them the heave-ho they deserve.
12
Forget about BDS. We need to focus on injustice at home.
It is time for all educated people in all professions to boycott meetings, conferences, and conventions in Alabama, Georgia, and Kentucky.
More importantly, contact your professional organization and ask them to move already planned meetings in those states, and do not plan any in the future.
Also let Indiana, Ohio, Mississippi, and North Carolina know they are being monitored on this issue.
No self-respecting feminist, man or woman, should be giving financial support to these states.
15
With regard to Kavanaugh's restraint, that will disappear the moment he gets the chance to do what he was put there to do. It is more likely to involve Wall St. and the extension of Republican power than the elimination of a woman's right to choose. Republicans have had many legislative opportunities to write and pass a proper bill that would please their activist evangelical base, but there would be consequences. Better to boil the frog slowly on social issues. A challenge to "Citizens United" on the other hand will quickly lay bare the real agenda of the gang of five.
4
Why don't this women hating men mind their own business and let women chose how to take care of their bodies. Perhaps these men would be better off declaring the end of wars and getting trump the heck out of the WH. This is bullying behavior and the Supreme Court already said abortion is a womens right. Next maybe they will want to take away womens right to vote. Our Democracy is on its final leg.
8
I have been raped and gotten pregnant. I had an abortion to save MY OWN LIFE. Is it wrong for me to say, "I hope all of you anti choice people get raped and pregnant, and then have to raise that kid just so you know what it would feel like"??? Seems like a hateful thing to me! How could I ever wish that, a life determined by a thing that was not my fault but by the anatomy I was born with, upon my worst enemy? I couldn't.
And that is what separates us.
20
I'm curious how all of those Democrats who either sat out 2016 or voted third party because Hillary wasn't progressive enough feel right now.
12
@Octavia
I'll be honest... I've never met one. I think there are very few, and blaming them is falling for a Russian meme created to divide Democrats.
I would add that I only met one person handing out literature for a third party candidate. The guy seemed intellectually challenged, maybe an addict or former addict with a vulnerability for conspiracy theories.
My guess is either Republicans or Russians were paying for people like that, in effect it was a disinformation campaign to peel off a few uneducated voters.
2
You’d be surprised how many women long to be their mens’ bootlickers, and idealize the era when they were relegated to their kitchen appliances, washing out collar stains from the white collars of their providers and masters; they get misty-eyed longing to make the beds and iron the family clothes as the lasagna bakes in the oven, all the while watching daytime soaps and then rushing to prepare a martini, pipe and slippers when they hear their master’s keys unlocking the front door of their self-appointed prisons.
2
@priceofcivilization
Jill Stein got almost 1.5 million votes in 2016. Her campaign "explicitly courted disenchanted Democrats and Bernie supporters" according to a CNN article.
Whom do you think voted for her? (I'm genuinely asking.) And, yes, I do believe the Russian troll farm encouraged voters to support her or stay home.
1
Maybe we should stop saying “abortion rights are at risk” and instead say “women’s healthcare rights are at risk.”
21
Bret Kavanaugh is not to be trusted.
He lied repeatedly during his confirmation hearing.
This was obvious to millions of us who watched.
8
@fast/furious
The Swetnick issue must have cut close to the bone because that's when they went after Avanatti. Her me too moment consisted of not being listened to. Dr Ford's accusation was never investigated either. Something more than Brett's Beery Breath (BBB) stinks like a dead skunk in the middle of the highway... to high heaven. That book by his best buddy was just ignored. Why did BK make the grovelling speech about it all being about Clinton if he were not partisan? He needs a good impeachment. Swetnick being criminally accused for making a carefully stated allegation is the stuff of a dictatorship... a real me too moment like the one Trumps' multiple accusers got. Zilch Now the old white male fossils are going after women's reproductive rights. Those virtuous paragons of good sexual conduct I am sure..
2
And for lying to Congress under oath he should be impeached.
2
It's interesting that the people who claim to support such laws based on the sanctity of life are often the very same people who fight tooth and nail against gun restrictions when school children are shot to death in their classrooms.
25
keep it up republicans. you will alienate so many people and you will lose the white house and the senate.
then we will crush you like bugs under our feet.
7
Roe was a good compromise between no choice and only the woman's choice for the entire 9 months. It should have been settled law. First trimester is woman's choice, second trimester is doctor's and state's, and third is illegal except to save the life of the mother.
Beautifully thought out.
But Casey in 1992 was the beginning of the chipping away at the beautiful compromise by uncompromising religious extremists.
I can see Alabama being used as a wedge, to say we haven't banned abortions as the extremists want... while continuing to limit women's rights.
To see the issue clearly, one cannot start with the false premise that Roe was an extreme position.
6
According to Andersen (Fantasyland), there have always been strains of religious fanaticism in this country starting with the Puritan Pilgrims, who came here for religious freedom. Unfortunately, we have never escaped the chains of their (and others like them) religious beliefs.
3
The radical right is doing the same with LGBT equality (including same-sex marriage) and won’t stop whittling away until these logs are toothpicks and SCOTUS decisions are meaningless.
*This* is a national emergency we should be worrying about.
7
This could be good news for China to counterattack criticisms of the US against its human right violation.
5
So Thomas didn't like dried Scott because it said slaves were property. Now he wants women to be property of the government.
6
And this surprises you? The man who lied under oath at his own SCOTUS nomination hearings regarding his relentless sexual harassment of Anita Hill? We’re talking about the same man, correct?
1
No one is being forced to have an abortion in this country. No women, and certainly no men.
2
It’s very simple; You don’t like it? VOTE!
9
O.K. Seems fair that in Alabama it should also be a felon to have sex without the intent to procreate, right?
6
I think Robert's afforded Roe precedent latitude by joining the majority in the stay. Had he voted otherwise, the "liberal" Justices would have a valid complaint as such a vote could only be justified by a world without Roe. Roberts does respect precedent and his recent vote can be explained in that context. It is not a predictive read. His vote postpones the decision on the merits.
2
It's never been about some moral imperative or value for life; it's always been about the Republicans' complete control over women's rights. We know that Republican policies do not reflect one tiny bit of compassion to care for human beings once the baby is born.
17
If you gave me 20 acres and a nine bedroom house in Georgia or Alabama I'd turn down your offer. Who am I, living here in the FIFTH largest economy in the WORLD, to judge what the people of Georgia and Alabama want for themselves? More babies from people who don't want them/can't afford them/are too young to care for them? That doesn't sound like a winning strategy for improving the prospects of your dying states. No matter though, the ministers still get rich, and the politicians will stay rich and anyone with the chance of mobility (read, NOT the dirt poor) will move to another state. Have at it. We have room for the educated progressives of GA and AL.
10
@N8t
Alabama, where I live, has a large and diverse population. Every one of the many Alabamians with whom I have discussed this legislation strongly opposes it, but none of us has any desire to move elsewhere. I previously lived for many years in midtown Manhattan and before that in the San Francisco and Boston areas, and I prefer to stay here, where I have a satisfying career and friends, neighbors, and colleagues who are just as progressive as any I could meet anywhere else in the United States. I am sorry for the women who are adversely affected by this legislation, but the legislation has no impact on me personally, and my moving would not help them. There is much about the government and culture of this state that annoys me, but every state has its problems and deficiencies. Wouldn't you prefer that I and like minded persons remain here and do what we can to move the state forward?
3
A fetus is no more a conscious and aware human being than the semen it came from. It doesn't even know if it's alive. If it's terminated it will have no idea whatsoever that it happened. And if it's the result of a rape or incest it needs to be terminated. Period. Forcing a woman, or a child, to bear it to full term is the epitome of cruel and unusual punishment. In fact, it's somewhat sadistic.
19
@Alex Vine
If abortion is wrong because it takes the life of a human, the means of conception should have no bearing on the matter. If someone is pro-life, they cannot be pro-life for just some lives and not others.
2
No, you are wrong. My sister and my daughter each carried severely deformed babies. Just stop!
1
The USA is slowly turning itself into a theocracy.
13
It's particularly rich that Alabama which is so sanctimonious about "life" and "personhood" was lynching African Americans for absolutely no reason until relatively recently.
I guess "personhood" didn't belong to those folks.
32
“I guess personhood didn’t belong to those folks”
And it still doesn’t in many ways and deeds.
4
Religious fundametalists running a government. This is happening in other parts of the world but in the US?
9
We really need more religious nones in office. Especially in the Supreme Court, upholding and interpreting Constitutional law should not be based on ones religious ideals.
8
I plan to protest this law and other's like it when I step into the voting booth in November. But as I don't live in Alabama I will also protest with my pocketbook. I will not visit or purchase anything made in Alabama if I can help it.
Finally, I find it AMAZING how people will work to stop a woman from aborting an unborn child but do NOTHING for the ones that are already here and suffering.
11
I am sickened by a law that would force girls and women to bear a child conceived from rape. In a backwater state, the begetters of these children will get off scott-free, with no criminal or financial liability forced on them. Meanwhile, the mothers must bear mental, physical, and financial consequences which will last a lifetime.
15
Could you imagine if one if these politicians daughter became pregnant due to rape? I think we all know what the outcome would be. Hypocrits.
16
Here is Joe Biden, our 2020 Dem nominee:
"When Joe Biden Voted to Let States Overturn Roe v. Wade"
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/us/politics/biden-abortion-rights.html
He’s not the 2020 Dem nominee
7
And if Joe Biden can beat Donald Trump then you should “eat your peas” and pull the lever for Biden.
I don’t care if the candidate is a house cat. Trump and this Conservative party has to be voted out.
3
The rest of the world looks on in amazement. What's next, the reintroduction of slavery and public hangings?
Some parts of the United States are beginning to look more like Afghanistan, Brunei or Saudi Arabia than Australia, Belgium or Sweden.
16
A female governor. Tragic.
10
I fail to understand why abortion is a political issue. It is a personal decision for a woman to make depending on her circumstances. This is a right that has long been established in Western Europe. Ireland recently had a national referendum on abortion after a woman died of sepsis because the doctors could not perform the necessary D&C following an incomplete miscarriage. The Irish overwhelmingly voted to support the right of choice. Why is the United States so backward?
21
Religion.
9
because Republicans only care about small government when it fits their narrow, "religious" world view.
5
Alabama, and Trump, might win in the short term but they will fail in the long term. I can't think of another issue that will galvanize women to vote in 2020 more than abortion rights. It won't be pretty for the GOP and they may lose both the White House and the Senate; they deserve to.
18
@CJ
I hope you’re right . I hope you’re right .
8
@KarenE
Me too. With the White House we have to worry about the Electoral College but not so with the Senate-we really do have a chance to take the Senate back-and boot McConnell to the curb. State houses and governor-ships may also go to more Democrats.
1
I do not think the Federal or State government should regulate or address abortion. Let it go. Who cares if someone wants and abortion or not? I don't. However, if an abortion is botched and the baby is born alive and viable I think the baby is now human and should not be killed.
1
How ironic that the same party that supposedly champions small government is now trying to directly control women's bodies in the most invasive way possible. The same party that ceaselessly (and erroneously) whines that their precious gun rights are at risk whenever anyone proposes commonsense regulations to reduce mass shootings. The same party that has the gall to insinuate their religious freedoms are threatened by the legality of gay marriage. But while the irony remains profound as ever, it is not the least bit surprising. The GOP is committed to eliminating any human rights that do not directly benefit rich white Christian men.
Unfortunately for them, their base of support is effectively dying out with the Baby Boomer generation. Americans are increasingly supportive of abortion rights as they become increasingly educated, and even if Roe v. Wade is somehow overturned, there will be 50 state legislatures deciding the legality of abortions, many of which are highly likely to uphold abortion rights. If abortion were somehow banned in all 50 states, people would simply perform their own unsafe abortions or travel to another country and do it there. The war on women's rights by a group of old men is as futile as the Prohibition, and sooner or later the GOP is going to have to give it up.
11
For our first child, my wife, who has over 20 years of education, did not know she was pregnant until the 4th month. Why? Because she always had highly irregular periods, typically only a few a year. Under these new rules, if the doctors had shown that our baby would not live long past birth due to terrible diseases and abnormalities, my wife and I would have been forced to either act as criminals to get an abortion or go through a terrible trauma of bearing a baby that we would soon bury.
I find pro life people to be so hypocritical -- they profess to be pro life, yet how many have adopted orphans or fostered children or did anything AT ALLto help the LIVING children who desperately need a home or at least some love???
22
@mk I would like to see these pro-lifers adopt three children and raise them. They are happy to oppose abortion and women’s right to choice but I certainly don’t hear about scores of them adopting the children that these mothers were forced to have when it wasn’t their time or choice.
3
How many of the politicians voting for these restrictive laws themselves got women pregnant who chose to have abortions? It’s not zero.
9
The anti-choice people are pro-backyard terminations. Under Obama, reproductive health was properly funded therefore reducing unwanted pregnancies and promoting contraceptives. Abortions went down under Obama.
This extreme action in Alabama is to provide a Supreme Court course to get rid of Roe V Wade.
It is political suicide for the GOP unless of course you know the Russians are helping you rig it.
Its not pro-life it is anti choice and pro illegal terminations- because that is what is going to happen.
12
By all means! If they want to give personhood to zygotes, then pluck them out of the uterus and drop them in a Petrie dish. Oh wait, they can’t survive without a host? Then implant them in cows who not only have ample wombs, but can offer milk too! And as an added bonus, they won’t talk back.
8
Time and time again, these states vote for republicans who want to turn back the clock and reverse all the progress we have achieved. Stop fighting it.. let them have their backwards ways and maybe, just maybe, they will smarten up and kick these radical reactionaries out for good one day
3
It is very odd. Personal choices are those which one decides for oneself, yet somehow there has been the ability by others to go beyond their own personal choices and impose them on others. There has not been one story of happiness in making the personal decision to decide that a pregnancy could not be carried to full term. There has not been one story where the decisionmaker in such a scenario was thrilled to come to the decision of terminating a pregnancy. Let's give privacy back to those who have had such a degree of sadness come into their lives.
6
These people should join the anti vaccine meAsles group. Stupidity loves stupidity. Don’t worry millions of women hate 25 old white men telling them what to do with there bodies. Women need to start telling old white men to use birth control and they should be monitored who they are having sex with.
To bad the GOP have no interest in curing all forms of cancer, reducing the cost of prescription drugs, eliminating poverty, racism, illiteracy, domestic abusers, incest, child molesters. Putting children in cages. The list of hate is never ending.
So please explain why these white people would ever care about the unborn. So much like male supremacy with a woman giving them cover
These GOP have a special seat alongside Judas. God sees ugly and they have a great deal to explain to /St.Peter
5
The United States -1.
Let Alabama go.
6
It's not abortion that's the real issue here. As the women who joined the abolition movement against slavery in the 19th century soon came to realize, women, too, were second class citizens who were slaves to men. That is what the issue is all about. Will white men and their religious followers essentially keep women in sexual servitude? The Alabama law violates the basic Constitution prohibition of religious freedom where Christians impose their morality on all women. They also violate the 14th amendment which essentially banned slavery. And, of course, it seeks to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Alabama bill is just what you'd expect from the "heart of Dixie" where the old Confederacy till flourishes in its bigotry and misogyny. Women are not sexual slaves to men and this law is an abomination both to the principle of religious tolerance as well as to gender equality. The belief that all the white Catholic males on the Supreme Court would approve it is a statement about the lack of equal justice for women as it was for those of color in the Civil War. This is the 2nd Civil War that Donald Trump has unleashed and whether or not we will have a Union or the white male patriarchy of Gilead is the truly terrifying situation he has brought upon us.
9
There are over three hundred months in a woman’s life when she can become pregnant. She can have a limited number of children. When and how she takes on the responsibility of raising children is her business.
11
Why is this only presented as woman's right issue? What about the right of the biological father to have a voice in whether his child should be aborted?
When scientist develop a way to safely extract the fetus, place it a synthetic uterus and the male agrees to wave all child support, you can have it or when you can get genetically/surgical procedure to carry a child, you will have say. As at that point it will be your body or synthetic womb.
10
If the people of Alabama sincerely cherished the right to life, they would also ban the sale of assault rifles in their NRA loving state!
14
The far right is playing with fire. Year on year 2% more people realize there is no vengeful old man in the sky. Support for abortion is at 70% today, as religion loses its base that will climb.
Laws follow public opinion, if not you get revolution. They are gonna get their butts kicked, and when that pendulum swings back it’s gonna be vicious. Expect to see progressive business to abandon Alabama, drug out of that Stone Age state by women.
Idiots, religion is just dumb.
9
Make no mistake! Anti-abortion theology is not about being pro-life but saving white babies while passing out hysterectomies to black women like candy. Not to mention the fact that if these pro-lifers are interested in life, as a God given right, where are these same people when our young men sacrifice themselves for wars inspired by fifteenth century thinking in the nuclear age?
The Force that makes for every heartbeat on the planet is the same Force that makes for everything else in the Uni--verse! So why do we keep cherry picking between life and death in a Universe that is life eternal?
8
Even the headline and first sentence of this article do exactly what many accuse the right of doing: suggesting there is some deep state with an agenda.
If there are members of the court that think states should have more rights on an issue like abortion then that may the case, but I firmly believe that those who serve in the Supreme Court and pledge to serve our country’s best interests do not have an agenda, especially with regard to politically sensitive issues.
Suggesting the SC is a political organization is exactly what Russia and others love to see: a false sense that our country’s tripartite balancing of power doesn’t work. Imperfect, yes, but the envy of the world and ultimately empowered by the will of the people.
2
Just. Do. It. Outlaw it, it's a joke to forever go through this will they/won't they game. Better to have them - the conservative justices - accountable for their actions, as well as have the rest of America see what it really means to jail doctors, imprison women, and force young girls and women to bear a child of rape or incest.
4
This is freedom of christian religion in all it's glory ... ... in the name of jesus ... amen ...
@Steve of Albany
I think you mean oppression.
5
This election, in many ways, is shaping up to be a divide between the sexes.
Remember the size of the women's marches.
Remember Merrick Garland.
"The first recorded evidence of induced abortion is from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BC. The first record of abortion law is listed in wikipedia as having taken place in Assyria in 1075 BC. Abortion has always been, and will always be, with us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion
Anyone who wishes to limit abortion needs to work on universal, free birth control, humane sex education, safe and accessible adoption, and economic equality.
The choice is not abortion or no abortion.
The choice is safe abortion or unsafe abortion.
I would never feel comfortable making this decision for someone else.
12
Oh no. They don't believe in birth control either. They call it (get ready) personal responsibility. So that means men too, right?
3
To everyone who said the elections don't matter, and that Hillary and trump were equally corrupt, I ask you how different the Supreme Court would be had she won. Just let that sink in.
22
If Alabama wants to criminalize all forms of abortion, including for cases of incest and rape, then let's see them penalize the rapists and relatives to force them to assume financial responsibility for the pregnancy they caused.
OT law is clear: a seducer must pay a sizable fine to the father of the girl whom he seduced.
Also since rape is punished by death in the OT one could argue that the rapist's progeny unwanted and forced on his victim also should die.
This just proves that there is nothing more dangerous than bible thumpers who cite scripture in a self servingly selective way.
6
Hey. Why the father of the girl. Why not the person he raped. Not “seduced”
2
@Mary M Sorry I wasn't clear. Seduction is mutually consensual, such as incest and mandates a fine.
Rape carries no fine but rather the death penalty for the rapist.
uh is there any lack of humans anywhere? have we been good stewards of the planet? why do all the "lesser" animals than us run or fly away from us? how do they know?!
4
Turns out we'd have been better off if the South had won the Civil War and had their own country. Instead we have to shore them up economically and live under the tyranny of the minority.
18
Totally, Abraham Lincoln had it all wrong. The more divided the house the stronger it is.
More like the house is stronger without the rotten parts.
The need for the Judiciary to fulfill its Constitutional role is more important now then at any time in American history. The Third Branch was meant to be a check on the other branches of government from overstepping their authority. The time for the Judiciary to enforce the Constitution is upon us. The two matters that trouble me are the Court's members beliefs in more power for the Second Branch than the First, and the apparent rejection of the doctrine of stare decisis. If what was settled law is no longer, and can be changed at the whim of a radical group of justices, how long can our government stand?
6
It would be nice to broaden the terms of this "debate." Let's start talking about the right to bodily integrity and self determination that is a right of all humans and is now threatened for the majority of the population - women. Science does not declare when a fetus is a legal person so extreme laws are based on forcing everyone to follow one specific set of religious beliefs. Isn't forced religious belief counter to American ideals? Let's stop talking about "the woman" as if these conceptions are all spontaneous and talk about "the man" who starts pregnancies by unprotected sex "for convenience." Shouldn't we have DNA tests for every forced birth and see that proper parental and monetary responsibility is assigned? (Men could not object to having a DNA test done if there is no right to bodily integrity.) I wish I could think of a way that might establish empathy and respect for women and their intimate partners in these complex situations but that may be a road too far.
4
Roberts has been vocal in stating that the court is independent of political influences. If he is to be believed he will not view the GOP's denial of abortion rights as anything but a political ploy to bait right wingers to the polls in 2020. Ditto for the rest of the court excepting the two screwballs, Thomas and Kavanaugh.
I have lost faith in our governmental institutions and system of due process under the current GOP regime, however, 2020 is not too far away and we will have a fresh start in rescuing our nation and its citizens from the clutches of fascism and the Republican authoritarian regime.
Elections have consequences and our nation has learned a hard lesson with the GOP in control.
6
Just can not believe it that governed being a woman will pass this pathetic law. In this day and age we are moving backwards
And snatching the rights of our daughters granddaughters and other future generation to come. Women are more fierce now so we take away their right other way, pure politics, religious believes are colliding with politics. Are women in Alabama and other states spineless to accept harsh laws like this. I encourage all women of those states stand up and let your voice heard, you and only can decide what to do with your body and no one else wake up for you and your daughters Alabamians. Don’t let politicians
decide.
2
The media and everyone else should stop using the term "pro-life" to refer to those who want abortion illegalized. We hear next to nothing from these groups in support of increased availability of contraception and fact-based sex education, which are the only realistic ways to reduce unplanned pregnancies. Instead, these groups stand silently by the GOP, voting for them year after year. The GOP, who legislates for zero gun control (and deaths by gun violence far exceeding those of other countries with gun control), the death penalty, black lives not mattering, migrant childrens' lives not mattering, and maternal lives not mattering (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/magazine/black-mothers-babies-death-maternal-mortality.html, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/27/world/europe/savita-halappanavar-ireland-abortion.html).
5
Forget about King’s Landing—send Daenerys to Alabama!
4
Ladies, let us thank American white women the majority of whom voted for the GOP and Trump. Stupidity is to vote against your own well being and wear a make America great hat while insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results, the perfect metaphor for GOP women.
9
I swear will never vote for a Republican candidate for the rest of my life. The GOP is simply a party of liars, cheaters, and woman haters.
12
Looks like we have plenty of religious fundamentalism and ignorant populism fueling America's trip back in time. Who ever said that time travel was impossible?
#Make America Backward Again.
7
Sixty percent of white women voted for Trump. Soccer moms enjoy!
6
Eric,
Only 46% of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2016 election. So it's misleading to say that 60% of women voted for Trump.
Believe me, women DO NOT like Donald Trump. And we'll prove it in 2020.
8
Unfortunately, I agree. My people (white women) keep voting against their own self interest. I used to be one but fortunately I figured it out in college. Many have not realized it yet. It’s important to get out and talk to other white women or it will happen again. Talk with neighbors unify people under policies and not parties. We cannot be lax.
1
White women from the south and Midwest
They can all stay in Alabama
1
In my opinion, the right of a woman to have an abortion will be upheld by the courts. There are just to many secular reasons a woman should have this right, and no secular reasons for her not to be able to. This is a personal freedom that transcends States rights.
7
US News & World Report released today a new ranking of the best and worst states. How did Alabama fair, you ask? 49th overall, 45th in economy, 45th in opportunity for residents, 45th in crime and corrections, 46th in healthcare and finished dead last in education. Alabama is in no position to interfere with anyone's rights until it's able to attend to its own affairs, which is sadly and most probably NEVER.
6
@Mike K
So, if Washington, the "best state" according to USNWR, decided to outlaw abortion, that would be OK with you?
What Stare was last...Mississippi. Break up the country. It is time.
Mississippi And Alabama can state with Arkansas and Oklahoma. No same person wants to live there anyway
Women— get to California while you are still allowed to drive
@GMooG
I don't know what point you're trying to make but Washington state is strongly pro-choice. A sudden reversal is highly unlikely. But Utah, Nebraska and Virginia, clearly anti-abortion states, also ranked in the top ten. So my answer is no. Of course it wouldn't be OK with me regardless where the state ranks. However, it's very interesting to note that the best state, Washington, is a beacon of protecting women's reproductive rights and the second worst state, Alabama, wants to strip the "constitutional" right for a woman to have an abortion.
1
The Roe decision does have problems, and those of us who read it at the time saw those problems clearly. The law sets viability as the magical moment, then establishes trimesters? Please consider: Viability time is going to vary with advances in technology.
Both sides fall into such emotionalism that it's hard to even discuss rationally. The pro-choice people speak of women's rights and the misery and hardships an unwanted child will entail. Abortions will go underground, they say. And the anti-abortion folks speak of "right to life." Many men like this tactic because the "right to life" movement gives them the impression that they are equally as justified in protecting the rights of the unborn as whites are in protecting the rights of minorities.
Too bad Alabama did not also pass a law dictating that any citizen, male or female, can be summarily drafted to stay in a hospital hooked up via a multitude of tubes to a patient who will die unless s/he receives rare nutrients and life-stuff to keep said patient alive. Oh, and the donor will be needed 24 hours a day for, say, six months. Up to nine?
In that imaginary law, anyway, the real issue in abortion would become clear. Even if the fetus has a right to life, that right is tempered by the flow of blood, nutrients, and nourishment from the woman. No one should be able to demand that of anyone. If a woman chooses to do it, fine. If not, detractors should get a hobby that does not involve meddling.
5
Women, hopefully, will remember this in 2020 and take stock of their own system of beliefs to ensure that we have no further repeat performances of Republicans governing by religious dogma.
7
Why is the left always on the defense when it comes to social liberties such as this? Because we've been led by complacent third way liberals like Biden for generations. The inverse of "MAGA" is liberals resignation AKA "We Are Already Great". Where are supreme court challenges to the 2nd amendment? Or citizens united?
4
Interestingly, the people who want to ban abortions at the state level oppose constitutional change that would permit gun bans at the state level. Religion is invoked to legitimize it all: sacred gun rights, sacred right to life. And the holy man who makes it possible for them? Blessed Donald Trump!
5
People who do not support sensible gun control cannot possibly call themselves pro-life. To do so is to openly admit their hypocrisy.
8
"If a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death." (courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog)
The dirty Republican secret: Roe v. Wade holds their party together. Republicans can be “pro-life”, never having to take an impactful vote. Without Roe, we would see a combat shred the GOP. Ergo, no Republican president will ever appoint a SCOTUS justice leading to its overturn. John Roberts can count to five.
2
These are hateful people whose favored mode of hate today is on women who dare have sex and/or dare to be of limited means.
This is because there is an element of will involved in getting pregnant so it’s okay to openly hate and harm them vs, say people born with different skin color, who receive more covert forms of hate.
I’m tired of these “cute” comments pointing out their hypocrisies. Of course they are hypocrites. Their goal is to hurt the people they want to be hurting. There’s no coherent policy position or compassion behind this at the end of the day. Just hate.
2
I keep asking myself.....Why do Republicans hate women so much?? They would have to hate us to impose such impossible limits on our health decisions based on distorted religious beliefs.....or just pure misogyny. I don't see any laws passed to restrict men's health care in any way. Nor do I see any laws that would put the sperm donor in any jeopardy. It's simple....if you don't like abortion, don't get one!
2
The same day the Gov. of Alabama stated & I paraphrase, all life matters regardless of the cost associated with it, the CBS Evening news expose over 1700 inmates held in Alabama's State Prisons who don't.
Instead of injecting Alabama's Ruling Class' so called morality & sense of religion, maybe they ought to focus on some main tenants of Jesus' Ministry: Faith, Forgiveness, Mercy, Charity & Redemption.
A 26 year old man serving 6 months for Statuary Rape commits suicide with days away from release because Alabama will not or cannot provide basic mental health services to their prison population.
Spare us your rightness indignation & moral judgement Alabama, look to yourselves for the hypocrisy that drips not only from the healthcare provider treatment rooms but also from the walls of your State Prisions.
Shame on you!
5
It looks like Alabama needs to
1) ban the little blue pill.
2) require a tax on all Alabama men to fund quality childcare and support for the children of that backwards, misogynist and cruel state.
3) require all men who do not support their existing children they already have to get vasectomies.
5
a simple boycott of "all things alabama" is called for
4
The Alabama law may be a gift in disguise -- a reverse Trojan horse. It is so extreme that the Court may well flinch before overturning Roe all at once in one decision offering only a yes or a no. If the Court decides to hear the case (which it needn't) it can hold that the Alabama law is unconstitutional without either expanding Roe or explaining it. That would leave Roe where it is right now. Not a bad outcome since it would send a message to the states that Not-Roe is not an option.
2
Moment of conception to viability, when is human life? There is always, life, in this question. Would the word, "human" be determinant, somehow?
I'm really groping here.
A cancer, removed, is still living. Is life.
But, we want that life out. Our body's pain, would give that an emphasis.
A baby is life society wants. A cancer is life society does not want.
Is the whole thing, as cultural, as it is scientific?
Humans are the makers of culture.
It could be argued, an individual, is not the maker of the fact of their individual existence, or do we even own it?
As I say, I'm taking a risk. I'm trying to ask.
3
I long for the day when JFK promised a nervous nation that he would not take instruction from the pope if he were elected president. He kept his promise.
In 2019, the pope is winning. He controls the US Supreme Court, when it come to women's rights, particularly reproductive rights, although those five men are all too willing to "vote Republican" when it comes to death penalty cases.
There are five practicing Catholics on the court. Four are so-called traditional Catholics who clearly believe that the government has the right to tell women what they can do with their bodies. The fifth conservative justice grew up Catholic but is now a member of a fundamentalist Protestant church. Not surprisingly, the fifth practicing Catholic is Justice Sotomayor who, whatever her personal convictions, understands that this is not a Catholic country, and abortion is a personal matter that may be informed by a woman's own faith or moral beliefs.
Both the Catholic Church, and the fundamentalist Protestant churches that have joined with it, to oppose reproductive rights for women, reserve the right to interpret the Bible to men. Every state legislature, Congress, and SCOTUS, bodies that seek to limit abortion rights, are overwhelmingly male.
A woman's right to choose if or when to become a parent impacts every part of a woman's life. By allowing men to make that decision for women, men and women, allow those few men to keep women second-class citizens. That violates our Constitution.
1
@Marlowe
NEWSFLASH- It's not just Catholics that are opposed to abortion.
Many Republicans and rational conservatives don’t like abortion, but don’t really care that much one way or the other. They are willing privately to concede that abortion is advisable in more situations than their party platform allows, and certainly in the cases of rape and incest. Abortion is a political tool to them, not much more. Opposition to abortion is the the means of gaining the Evangelical and Catholic vote. Evangelicals care really about nothing else but banning abortion. (Catholics at least are on the right side of the immigration, gun and war debates, which Evangelicals are not).
The rhetoric you hear from the right on abortion, therefore, is a play for power, and has little or nothing to do with unborn children.
3
Such a serious affront to women. Criminalizing the right to choose. Politicians determining birth. Physicians treated like outlaws. Rove v. Wade endangered. Male senators taking control of women's lives. This is radical.
In 2016, Donald Trump said on MSNBC that women should be punished for having an abortion, and men have no liability.
The pro-life movement lacks respect for the individual person, her life, her health, her body, her private and personal choices. It's an outrage. Women as second class citizens. The law violates current precedent.
3
@One More Realist in the Age of Trump
I can't agree more, it's not that I need or will have an abortion it's the point that I should have the choice, not some religious zealot that I don't even know. Maybe they should keep to their lives and the rest of us can keep to ours. Maybe we should start fighting back by trying to regulate how often they can go to church or how much money than can contribute to their church, something they care about that isn't any of my business. Stay out of other peoples business!
2
So if abortion is the murder of a person, regardless of when the pregnancy was terminated, and there is no statute of limitations on murder, does this mean that EVERY woman alive, who has EVER had an abortion is a murderer and should be tried in a court of law, sent to prison or given the death penalty for murder? Does this mean that all medical records of any woman from the beginning of menarche to menopause should be given to the police or the state looking for evidence of murder? Does this mean that any medical professionals having ANYTHING to do with a woman seeking and obtaining an abortion should be brought before the law as accomplices to murder? Does this mean that anyone that knew that a woman seeking or obtaining an abortion and did not alert the authorities should be tried in court for aiding and abetting a known murderer by failing to report a murder and allowing the woman to be a fugitive from justice?
I am not a lawyer but the logical conclusion to "Abortion is the murder of a person" is that the person seeking the abortion, performing the abortion and knowing that the pregnant person was going to have an abortion are all culpable for murder and should be tried for murder.
Alabama has one of the WORST maternal and infant mortality rates for black women in the nation-wouldn't it seem that Alabama would lead the nation on maternal and infant outcomes?
Or, as America gets browner, is this all about forcing more (white) women to have babies?
2
I modestly offer my opinion on what should be every American's No. 1 concern and devotion: How do we deny and defeat our pathological president's delusion that he is our monarch and we, his subjects?
2
The fix to bad laws is not SCOTUS ... it's not voting for pandering politicians and RECALLING amoral opportunists wasting MILLION$ of our tax dollars pandering to the religious fringe.
Being "pro-life" is a CHOICE... why do some claim that right for themselves and then work so hard to deny it to others.
The problem is not abortion rights, the problem is the vindictive hypocrisy in people who should be working for all of us, not just the fringe who they believe vote for them.
2
Sometimes these columns sound like “roadmaps” to instruct the court or other governmental officials, how to effectively do whatever it is. They seem like “news” but seem more like quiet “how tos” for the super conservative ideologues to follow.
@Frea
Disagree. There is nothing in these articles that a reasonably intelligent High School freshman wouldn't think of.
2
Please, politicians and government have no business interfering with the rights of women to take care of their personal health. And to the folks who comment that - “oh, joy, now more babies can be born” - read your history. More women will die from unsafe abortions. By the thousands. I lived through those years before Roe v. Wade became the law of the land. Women who are desperate will find a way, and have done so throughout history. And the rich will continue to have safe abortions.
“I once snorted at my desk while skimming a complaint from a gentleman annoyed that menstruating women felt the need to waste money on sanitary products. Why didn’t they just learn to ‘hold it,’ he suggested, the way men kept themselves from urinating?“ From “What we don’t know about the uterus can harm us” by Monica Hesse, WaPo, May 13:
I would refer to these men who pass these misogynistic laws as Neanderthals, but I would prefer not to insult ancient people. When the tribe grew too big to feed the elders probably knew which herbs to use.
2
Weird, I thought they were for small government?
3
PSA: Abortion is still legal in all 50 states.
It’s true that states have passed laws trying to make abortion a crime, but we will sue in court to make sure none of those laws ever go into effect. - ACLU
2
The only reason that Roe v. Wade matters is that Congress has avoided passing legislation regarding abortion rights. It is a total cop out by the legislative branch and they have been shirking this duty for generations.
7
The number of anti-abortion challenges since the Republican's crammed through 2 Supreme Court Justices proves the lie that the Judges are not political.
7
What's next Alabama? Slavery?
32
Passing laws forcing girls/women to carry to term IS slavery
5
There is a special place in Hell for all the pro life people running around in this country who refuse to pass laws to help babies. A special place for people who destroy democratic safety nets and force women to have babies they can not afford. A special place for women and men who have this desire to tell other people how to live while corporate America ships employement opportunities overseas so elite white men can make more money for their greedy shareholders.
There is a special Hell for mike Pence who never respected a woman along with con man outside of his Christian wife . His standing up walking out of a football game because minorities have the GOD given right to protect their lives from racist police officers. An administration who puts children in cages and going to tell people they love the unborn. God give us prayer to deal with abusive white women and men who care for no one but themselves. White Plantation days are OVER and white men need to wake up, women own their own bodies
There are many poor women in Alabama and there are corporations, we will boycott there services and goods because GOP only understand money.
Real women stand up and tell those 25 old white men to step back because We are not going to tolerate any more sexual stupidity anymore ,
Men use your own birth control and leave women alone
16
Boycott Alabama.
Vote!
21
@Sly4Alan
I so much agree with that, no visits as tourists to spend our money in their states, organizations not to plan on having their events in these states, don't support them at all.
2
Let's be clear: this law is not at all about abortion or protecting life, it is about controlling women. This line from Newsweek nails exactly why:
"[The Alabama Senate] refused to consider amendments that would provide healthcare for mothers denied abortion."
Cons don't care about mothers, babies, or lives. They want to punish women for having sex.
38
RvW will be overturned. What Democrats and their supporters need to focus on is keeping the House at a minimum. The next time the Republicans get a united government, they may try to pass a nationwide ban on abortion.
Don’t get distracted in 2020. Vote for the person who can best WIN. We are not a far enough developed society that can dream for more than maintaining basic civil rights.
4
All those anti-choicers, how would you like to be forced to donate organs or participate in medical research, "for the greater good" ???
How about removing testicles from older white men to research that sort of cancer? For the greater good!
Forced testing of invasive male contraception and sterilization methods would be beneficial to society, as well.
Stomach removal to do bariatric research, limited diets (enforced by jaw wiring) to study diabetes, and other important medical missions -- we need laws to FORCE citizens to abandon bodily autonomy and do as they are told when it comes to scientific research.
Right? If women are to be forced to jeopardize their health, risk their lives, alter their futures irrevocably, endure pain and emotional distress -- all for a higher purpose -- then I propose that every lawmaker who votes FOR an anti-choice law of any sort be enrolled -- involuntarily if need be -- in forced organ donation and medical experiement rosters. Forget human-subject rules and laws when it comes to this cohort -- anythng goes!
8
Hey Middle America, kindly get your religion out of our government. This isn’t a theocracy.
And while you’re at it, how about also outlawing things that kill people, like guns? You’re a “culture of life”, right? Right? Right?
18
Why don’t you take care of your homeless and quit broad brushing an entire section of the country.
@BrainThink
Bravo to your comment. SO many in the U.S. believe it was founded on Christianity. That's not the case. Government/Politics, Medicine, Science should never have any religion involved. The sooner figures in positions of power adopt this mindset, the better off this entire country will be.
1
The abortion issue here is similar to Trump's non-existent plan for Healthcare had he succeeded in killing the ACA. These states are willing to remove a woman's right to choose because the life of the possible baby is so "precious" BUT there's absolutely NO PLAN to support these "precious" people. People seek an abortion when they know they can't support a child for one reason or another. This one-sided punishment will have effects that ripple throughout our country. Poor people will become more poor and more desperate and social services will be taxed even further as these "precious" babies enter "the system", maybe for the rest of their "precious" lives.
7
Something I never really understood in this whole abortion debate is the cost. I couldn’t figure out why some seemed so caring about unborn children, but didn’t give a hoot after they were born if they starved for food, housing, and education. Stupid me to believe they cared. They don’t. And they don’t want to pay the enormous cost for your stupidity. With more than a million plus abortions per year at a cost of “I don’t what”, you are talking some money. (I didn’t look up specific facts) But for those who can’t understand their love, and then the abandonment, there was never love for some on that side. They don’t want to pay for your stupidity. It’s always about money!
4
Ronald Reagan had it right.
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Hey Alabama, stop trying to help! Why don't you just mind your own business!
8
The ones most agitated by this seem to have forgotten you didn't vote for Hillary, as direct cause of this.
2
Calling an amalgamation of cells a baby is like wanting to believe the sun goes around the earth. It not based on science or fact, calling that zygote, embryoblast, protoembryo or embryo a baby is method to create a false impression in the uneducated. That idea that a loose collection of cells is a baby is religious doctrine not a description of the real world.
I am completely fine if anyone wants to believe that at conception those cells now have a soul, that is the great thing about this country you are free to believe these things. What is unamerican is to force your religion doctrine down the throats of those who have different beliefs. We should have freedom from religion as much as we are free to practice religion. We should not make laws based on the beliefs of one religious group. It should be left up to the individual to decide what is best for themselves and not some big government making your decision about your family.
The part I find ironic is those complain about government interfering in their practice of religion have no qualms about using big government to interfere with the beliefs of others.
This is a excellent example of the tyranny of religion.
10
It doesn’t seem that these anti- abortion people care about the woman or the fetus. Life is hard enough without being born into the world unwanted or in precarious situations that will likely make life even more difficult. Pregnancy takes a big toll on a woman, I don’t understand how a woman could be forced to make that sacrifice unwillingly. Forced pregnancy seems like a form of slavery, and that was abolished during the Civil War. It seems to me that women aren’t being afforded equal protection under the law if this is going to be allowed. Men can’t be forced to stay pregnant, so why should women be?
11
This is not about man vs woman, Alabama’s governor is a woman and if she does not veto the law then does that mean all women are okay with it?
Most people are pro life (we all want to live, don’t we) but would want the final decision to be by the mother to be. If you are worried about how SC would react to this then the time to think about that was on November 8, 2016. Looks like the Evangelicals outsmarted the Bernie Bros.
3
You never know what’s going to happen next in life and, as such, Republicans don’t know that if the supreme court overturns Roe it will cost them elections for generations; women will realize that elections have consequences and the Republican Party will lose right center Republican women. But they don’t know that yet.
5
In general the states where these laws are being proposed tend to register at the bottom of the scales for societal well-being: education, health, infant mortality, longevity, etc.
It occurs to me that the characteristic amongst the disadvantaged that is relevant is the desire to make other people as miserable as themselves.
If you don't have it, there are two choices: make yourself better or diminish those that make you feel vulnerable. Envy is not deadly to the envious, it is deadly to those envied. Why is it that diminishing appears to be apparently the preferred strategy for the disadvantaged?
Of course it is lack of the means of improvement, which is the goal of most of the ruling class in these communities. Cut off education and health care; force these people to have babies that they cannot love or support.
It is all ugly and cruel.
3
@HT The unfortunately fact is those "bottom of the scales" don't vote. It's pretty hard to help you if you don't help yourself.
All of the so-called Pro lifers are so eager to fight for fetuses, but their interest in the mothers and babies after the births are nil. Pro lifers are tackling the symptom, not the problem of unwanted pregnancies.
Banning abortion is NEVER going to stop abortions. Women are smart and they have more power than ever before. So pass all the laws you can dream up, because the more encroachment on women’s rights , the faster it’s going to Backfire.
The new reversible vasectomy mandated before puberty would reduce abortions way more than demonizing pregnant women. That comes with a required permit to produce semen during sex or the male goes to jail. Crazy? You bet. But no more so than legislating women’s bodies.
6
As liberal as I am, I hope the conservative justices overturn Roe. When the first white middle class woman dies after a back-alley abortion, the Republican party will be officially finished. It's the old "be careful what you wish for."
2
No it won’t. The woman who dies will be “venerated” and the prayers and well-wishes will pour in from conservatives everywhere as a nod to sacrifice.
Women in these states set themselves back 50 years. Over time, the impact to the development of independent girls and women will be chilling and starkly different from the rest of the country / western world.
@Realist
Don't spend much time out of Santa Monica, do you? Let me guess: everyone you know voted for Hillary, right?
1
It is odd that abortion can be restricted at all -at any time of a pregnancy- in a secular society. In the US, the first amendment prohibits the government from passing religious and sharia laws, or favoring a particular religion. Yet the only argument for banning abortion is "Thou shalt not murder," which is the 5th, 6th, or 7th commandment (depending on your version of the Bible).
Laws in a secular society are put in place to prevent one person from causing harm to another. The harm from murder is the grief caused to those who knew the victim, and that's why murder is illegal in a secular society. If you think about it, murder is not direct harm to the victim (you won't know if you have died), although of course there are related crimes (threats, assault, torture, rape, etc.) that are harm to the victim, and we make those illegal, too.
No one (except possibly the mother herself) knows a fetus, so killing it is no harm to anyone. The mother can and should decide for herself if she thinks she will experience any grief, and if she's fine with that. And of course she can also consider her own religious beliefs. But please let's not have the state impose my or your religion on her.
Interestingly, the author of the Old Testament seems to have understood that human life only begins when you draw your first breath: "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." (Genesis 2:7)
3
Elections have consequences.
When the extreme left here are still picking Biden the same way they were picking on Hillary, get this - if you again sit out or vote for whomever not on the ballot, you are the cause of this and more.
5
DJT had blanket news coverage for 2 years, every minute of every day on every news outlet guaranteeing abortion would be banned if he was elected. He was guaranteed 2 judges; he may end up with 4. Roe is great law, but it is also judicial activism, so his win was a guarantee that abortion would be banned. So not only the 25M women who voted for DJT, but also the 47M women eligible to vote, but who did not, endorsed this development. By that metric, 2/3 of women approve of criminalization of the woman and Dr. for abortion. If women don’t care, why should anyone else? If women had rights, they certainly did everything in their power to waive them. This issue was decided Nov 2016; its just old news. You can’t fix stupid.
1
Don't take the bait.
Why do women get abortions?
"The REASONS [emphasis added] most frequently cited were that having a child would interfere with a woman's education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%); that she could not afford a baby now (73%); and that she did not want to be a single mother or was having relationship problems (48%). Nearly four in 10 women said they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third were not ready to have a child. Fewer than 1% said their parents' or partners' desire for them to have an abortion was the most important reason. Younger women often reported that they were unprepared for the transition to motherhood, while older women regularly cited their responsibility to dependents."
-From the Guttmacher Institute; report: https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/article_files/3711005.pdf
Don't these sound like excuses?
7
Excuses? No, they're called CHOICES. Choices that are more likely than NOT made on a whim. Why people act like girls/women make the decision to have an abortion so easily escapes me. In actuality, if it's not your body, it's not your choice. The government needs to stay out of what each girl and woman does with her own body. Simply put, if you don't believe in abortion, then don't have one. At the same time, don't force your beliefs onto others by enacting highly restrictive and dangerous laws.
11
@WorkingGuy
Yup. Sounds like poor excuses alright.....poor excuses of men who got them pregnant and failed to provide financial support, of family not being there for them.....
4
@WorkingGuy
From the men or from the women?
4
60+ year old white Southern Christians are no longer in the gene pool, and won't be in the voting pool much longer. Long game...this will be a historic footnote in 20 years.
2
At this point the whole bloody South should just secede. Enough of it.
24
If you get an abortion out of state can you still be liable in the state that outlaws abortion?
1
Christian dominionists like the MEN passing this bill in Alabama and Vice President Mike Pence have declared a war on the civil rights of the women of the United States of America. This war will not end well for these vile old men.
Regardless of what the manipulated Supreme Court of the United States rules, WOMEN WILL STILL GET ABORTIONS! We will not acquiesce! We will not tolerate this assault on our reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy. We will not recognize any laws forcing us into unwilling childbirth. We will burn this country to the ground before we will submit to being forced to give birth against our will.
12
Boy can we have such drastic legal differences between states? Pretty soon, California will try to refuse extradition to Alabama. It's almost like the slave laws, and the Dredd Scott decision ... will an abortion provider on the run from Alabama find sanctuary in Illinois? Will the Court go this direction with gay marriage? What if the sodomy laws are reimposed at state level? This seems like a recipe for divisiveness. There will be more boycotts.
7
Any thing our government can do to chip away at citizens' civil rights in the name of Jesus Christ is OK by me. After all, we're a theocracy.
2
We will soon become aware, once again, why Roman Catholics were not allow to get anywhere near the Supreme Court for most of our American History.
8
The cult of irresponsibility and death is being challenged.
There is no constitutional right to abortion.
@True Believer There used to be no constitutional right to women or anybody not white either. And it was VERY specific, until progressives changed it. Shame.
7
Human rights for unborn human beings in the womb!
Why is it so difficult to understand that abortion entails dehumanization of the unborn human person.
Ours is a culture of death.
1
It should be about choice. No one is denying that deciding to abort is a painful event but who are you to impose your religious beliefs upon others?
8
@Tzazu
Who are you to decide that another living being has to die for your "choice"?
1
I guess we are all our own constitutional lawyers.
Clarence Thomas see Roe v. Wade and Dred Scott as the two most notoriously incorrect decisions." I can understand Dred Scott, and even understand his logic on Roe. But I can't understand, how, if he is against what he feels are activist decisions like Roe, he doesn't add Citizens United, which made corporations people, and Heller, which gave us an interpretation of our founding fathers who wanted everyone in the nation to have a rapid fire rifles with supersonic rounds of imploding ammo that rip people to shreds as a basic right. And Glocks.
Thomas's support of both Heller and Citizens United demonstrate clearly that his antiabortion stance is personal and not a result of an abhorrence of judicial activism.
6
Dear people from Maine,
Please remember how Susan Collins voted to not protect you and allow Kavanaugh "what goes around comes around" to become a Supreme Court Justice. If this is overturned, look directly into her face and vote for her opponent. The country will never stand for this intrusion of religion. She will not stand for you. Vote her out.
9
Small states with less than 20% of US population. A reflection of US in general where 60%+ of Americans favor legal abortion.
It will make for tough times for poor women, mostly those of color, in those small states as the GOP white women will keep paying for legal abortions out of state of illegal abortions in state.
3
Another unintended consequence for which we have to thank the tens of thousands of Jill Stein/Green Party voters who tipped the balance to Trump in key states. As usual, women who aren't in the 1% will feel the worst effects.
8
@jerseyjazz
Blaming Jill Stein is a bit roundabout. Blame Hillary
Trump should change his slogan to Make Canada Great Again! Since taking office, our universities have had a 70% increase in applicants from foreign student(UofT75%). We are getting the best of the best. In addition, immigration(which pays for boomer pensions) is also offering us the best of the best to help build our aging society. Keep up the good work Mr. President. To our friends, the American people who are suffering, we love you and hope your world returns to democracy in the near future!
11
@Bosox rule
American students are happy to take advantage of cheap Canadian tuition. But Canada's problem is that it lets them in without any requirement that the students stay in Canada after they graduate. So unless they want to be fur-trappers, goalies, or back-bacon salesmen, they will have to come back to the states. So thank you.
Trump plays the religious card and this is how he'll get in at the next election - just look at the nations most of those people come from and the state those nations are in - don't forget people from third world nations get to vote. You can change your nation from a Democracy to a Religious Theocracy without even noticing it is happening.
My nation is a Secular Democracy and we have more human rights and civic rights than any Religious Theocracy or just a Democracy. All laws are made by central government and apply to all of New Zealand, apart from a few by laws that local government make. I can never understand the USA being called the UNITED State of America when the central government is not the law making legislature.
2
Prior to the past decade or so, I had never considered just how stark the contrast might be among various State Bar Associations.
After watching some of the political theater over the past few years, I feel like there should probably be some kind of justiciary handicap.
And then there’s Kim Kardashian, whose apparent interest in becoming an attorney seems to be a direct result of her father helping OJ Simpson get away with murder.
America is the greatest.
Roe vs Wade will be overturned one way or another. Women will become chattel again, for the reproductive use of men, even rapists, and no legal protection. Women will be treated differently than men under the law, which does nothing to force THEM to take responsibility for those pregnancies. It certainly does not force them to carry a criminal's child!
It will be the reproductive Dark Ages again, if we can't stop them.
4
My hope is that this will show voters - especially women - that their most basic rights are truly under attack. Republicans dismissed women’s fears and soothed that Roe v. Wade is “settled law.” So many foolishly believed.
Complacency is our biggest mistake (and I’m talking to you, too, Susan Collins!). Vote for your own rights!
2
It's probably a consequence of mass immigration from Religious Theocracy nations and it shows which way the USA is heading.
China is ahead of you in quality over quantity in technology. The Trump government are taking an isolationist policy and those States are heading the same way as the third world nations that most of the people that are shown in the demographics of that State, come from. A religious backwater lacking in human rights just like Saudi Arabia and the nations those immigrants in those States came from.
Immigration has to be thoroughly thought out with the view that your Democracy doesn't get changed to a Religious Theocracy and you lose your democratic rights as a nation, over time.
2
The Alabama Senators in this clip https://youtu.be/3rLVyiI-8sk make some startling points.
Coleman-Madison makes the point that the bill in AL becomes law, and by extension when the test case gets to SCOTUS the USA, wants to dictate what a woman does with the non-human personal property which is hers and hers alone. Got me thinking. She asserts that the current law giving her absolute dominion over the chattel in her womb is hers to do with as she please. She can dispose of it (abortion), sell it (be a surrogate mother), give it away (adoption), or keep it (raise a child).
She is a POC, and a woman, arguing in the Deep South for a form of slave-owner rights. Slaves were chattel and masters did as they saw fit with them.
Then Figures puts amendments into the law to make a man who gets, or is just seeking, a vasectomy, a felon. She evidences her misandry (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misandry) clearly. The bill she is amending makes DOCTORS felons for doing the abortion procedures, not the women who get them or seek them. Flowers wants to make felons out of those men seeking or getting treatment.
Maybe it is just implicit bias on her part.
1
I can't believe how these politicians who are so very ignorant about women's bodies even got elected.People need to get out and vote these politicians out. If men had to serve jail sentences for impregnating women,I'm sure these interfering politicians would be in an uproar. All women should protest the control of our bodies by men!
5
Also: mandatory vasectomies for each and every legislator who supports these bills, regardless of age.
7
"Since the Supreme Court controls its own docket, it can simply deny review after lower courts strike down laws squarely at odds with Roe."
The writer forgets that it only takes the consent of four justices for the SCOTUS to agree to hear a case.
So it's really up to the liberals on the court to decide whether to take the risk.
2
According to Pew Research Center in 2014 (https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/compare/views-about-abortion/by/state/), 58% of Alabamans think abortion should be illegal in all/most cases.
This bill represents the majority of Alabama. A few other states (including Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and West Virginia) are also firmly anti-choice. The majority of America is pro-choice but opinion varies by state.
From the viewpoint of a federated republic, Roe v Wade is wrong because it imposes a minority view on states like Alabama without following the legislative process. There is enough disagreement by state about abortion that relying on a judicial ruling feels undemocratic to me.
This issue needs to be resolved with a constitutional amendment. Even if some states don't agree with the result, they can at least see the legislative process was followed and they had their say.
1
@Chris
That poll is from five years ago.
I wonder what Alabamians think today.
The affirmation of constitutional rights by the Supreme Court is in keeping with the same purpose as constitutional amendments.
Rights cannot be infringed by local referenda. Residents of the individual states are first of all residents of the United States.
5
@Chris
How does Roe force a minority view? No one is forced to get an abortion. There is nothing forced about it.
On the other hand, if a woman is forced to give birth to a child she doesn’t want, what would you call that? I’d say THAT is a forced view.
With a legal choice, everyone gets to do what is right for them. The anti-choice side wants to impose their views onto others, plain and simple.
2
Do different abortion laws in various states however constrain the right of privacy and liberty (bodily integrity) of certain citizens of the US be others and does that not violate the equal protection under the law provision of the Constitution?
1
I can think of few other issues to drive progressive voter turnout.
6
The law that is awaiting Kay Ivey's signature in Alabama was written strictly as a direct challenge to Roe vs Wade. The law is beyond authoritarian. Entailed in that law is an amendment that states (to paraphrase) that if a woman accuses a man of rape and he is found innocent, then she could face prison time for giving false testimony. Imagine being raped, becoming pregnant as a result, accusing the man of rape, then going to prison because he was found innocent. Difficult to wrap my mind around it.
IMHO, SCOTUS is signaling that it is becoming less incremental in overturning precedent. They did so two days ago. While Roberts does sometimes surprise, most often he is a reliable conservative vote. With the upcoming 2020 election, if Roe vs Wade is overturned, the Republicans will carry all the Red states without a problem no matter the tariffs hurting the farmers in those states.
The election in 2016 resulted in this country starting to do a 180° turn in the social progress it had achieved. SCOTUS was the prize in that election.
Even if Democrats somehow sweep the 2020 election, the balance in SCOTUS cannot be altered anytime in the near future, and the decisions made by the Court will affect generations to come. The Republicans by default will still be in control through SCOTUS, and the lower courts which they have crammed full of conservative judges.
We now know the true power of the vote. Never stay home again because of an imperfect candidate. Vote. There is still hope.
9
If the Democrats did sweep they could pass a law changing the number of Justices on the SCOTUS. It’s been done several times before, just not recently.
1
@Diana
If the Democrats control all three branches of government, they can expand the Supreme Court to eleven, install two liberal justices, and have a majority of six to five.
1
This has already been said in other posts but I will say it again.
We can all vent our frustrations on line because it makes us feel better (including me) but there is only one real solution.
We need to go find our kids and every other young person and beg them to put down their video games, social media and Game of Thrones long enough to go vote every two years. That's all that's needed to turn this around.
If they had done that in the recent past we wouldn't have had the Senate blocking Merrick Garland and we wouldn't have Trump.
Its going to take time to undo all the damage that's been done but it's the only way.
13
@Bob Surely your argument works both ways, for both Parties, no?
Trump is a response to 8 yrs of Obama. It is precisely because many Americans wanted Obama's damage to the country reversed that someone like Trump was needed.
Concerning abortion.....wouldn't it be nice if both sides could find a compromise where both sides were genuinely happy. Unfortunately that seems like a distant dream these days.
@kojak
Trump is a man who has logged in thousands of lies to the American People, been court-ordered to repay students in his fake school to the tune of millions, who is unbothered by election tampering by a hostile government and who has no real answers to immigration has nothing to do with President Obama. He is a pitiful daily reminder of the degradation of our office of the Presidency.
5
@kojak
Anti-abortion people won't be happy unless they can control us. Pro-choice people are fine with people who don't want an abortion or people who do. We are already at the compromise point.
3
I'm not so sure the Republicans really want Roe v. Wade overturned. They get too much political capital from the abortion issue and they would lose many of the people who are one-issue voters.
I am not only pro-choice, but I think abortion should be beyond the long arm of the law. Abortions were performed almost from the dawn of time and were considered a necessary procedure for many women. Sometime during the Victorian Era certain puritanical people decided it should be illegal. I would like to think we could overcome that narrow and patriarchal thinking all these years later.
7
Actually I think this is the one issue that will be the opposite for republicans. This will make old white men who see women as property happy but will be the nail in the coffin for most other people. Blue states will become so blue the republicans will go extinct.
Based on the race war, bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, race crimes, shootings, violence, kkk rallies etc in broad day light we are at war. The only way the republicans will maintain power after this is through dictatorship. They have said anyone not of their party and for the bigotry is the enemy and doesn’t belong in the USA.
If we can still vote and it counts republicans are signing their death wish.
3
@Carole A. Dunn Beyond the long arm of the law? What a horrifying thought. Someone other than the mother has to be able to give a voice to the unborn.
The fact that at one point in time it wasn't illegal has little bearing in today's world, at one time it wasn't illegal to buy, sell, & use heroin, thankfully we are now much wiser.
Justice Thomas thinks that the Dred Scott case was wrongly decided? Before the passage of the Civil War amendments? How in the world does he reconcile that with his ludicrous Originalism? Clearly, many, if not most, of the "Founders" would have disagreed.
3
And at the other end of that chart, conveniently left out, infanticide.
3
Any woman with integrity living in this archaic intellectually compromised state should move out. We welcome you up north!
12
@Piece man - Lots of women can't leave, for a whole variety of reasons - finances, family responsibilities, jobs, etc. As someone living in a red state I'd have loved to leave decades ago, I suggest that women in those states stay put and FIGHT.
1
Activist judges, indeed.
3
Just think, if Hillary would have ran a better campaign and won the election, Liberals would not have this problem.
@Dr. John
Not necessarily. She likely would still have had a Republican Senate, which would constrain her SCOTUS choices greatly. Also, had she won, it it doubtful that Kennedy would have retired when he did.
1
So...are Democrats yet willing to concede ANYTHING to make this issue go away?
Say...replicate France's laws where free and clear abortions are perfectly legal in all circumstances during the first trimester only?
Same as Germany's laws and most of Europe's?
Kind of hard to be a Science Denier by saying that thing growing inside the womb isn't a human being when every woman that opts to give birth starts calling it a baby the moment they became pregnant.
Besides..it's scientifically proven that it's not a clump of dead cells for we all know that dead things don't grow; as a fetus and baby do during the gestation period.
Compromise is hard, yet necessary to lower the temperature in society.
Best do it on your own terms instead of having it mandated from someone like the Supreme Court, where 9 white men decided during Roe V. Wade that abortion should be legal.
1
@Erica Smythe
People routinely cal what grows in the womb a "baby." That's popular parlance. But it is not reality. A fetus does not have the ability to survive outside the womb, and so is not a baby.
No one has called an embryo or a fetus a clump of "dead" cells, but simply "a clump of cells." And far from denying that that clump alive, we pro-choicers have maintained that all cells are alive, and that life is a continuum rather than beginning at conception.
"Compromise" would mean that a woman would give up the freedom to control her own body. Roe is already a compromise, enslaving a woman during the last third of pregnancy.
Those "nine white men" made the right decision in favor of the rights of women. I applaud them.
6
Republicans don’t compromise. Ask Mitch.
4
"Departures from precedent, he wrote, require very good reasons."
Very good reasons - not "well, because we've changed our mind and don't like what our predecessors ruled in a 7-2 opinion."
3
The fatal error of Roe/Wade was it intruded upon state rights - and abortion is a state issue.
That might finally be corrected.
@Dr. John The US States are just inanimate corporations that happen to be run by real estate developers and their lawyers. All they are is make-work for lawyers
1
@Dr. John - Human rights shouldn't depend on an accident of geography.
5
No. Abortion is a woman’s personal decision, to be made with guidance from her doctor.
2
The powers that be in Alabama are still trying to produce an endless supply of slaves to work for slave labour. There are many ways that the powers that be want an endless supply of slave labour and making this anti abortion law is one of them.
6
I cannot believe my eyes and ears! 21st century, in America, abortion legislation in one state may be harsher than the strict abortion legislation enforced in communist Romania by Ceausescu regime. Even the Decree 770/1967, enforced in Romania from 1967 until the end of the communist dictatorship( end 1989), allowed abortion in the case of pregnancies resulting from rape.
Please, do not allow America to become the territory of practices disrespectful of the human rights! This discussion should not be about race, minority, majority, feminism. It should be about the limits of state interference in very personal and very private, individual choices.
15
People need to understand, Roe v. Wade is toast. Done. Gone. Kiss it goodbye. It's only a matter of time. And anyone without a bilateral labotomy could have seen this coming a mile away in 2016. But leave it to liberals to ignore the obvious. Now, thanks to Bernie Sanders supporters (and Ralph Nader supporters before them), abortion rights are GONE. The Supreme Court overturned precedent again two days ago. Anyone who doesn't think Roe is as good as gone is clueless.
Next step: Trump wins in 2020 and Republicans take the House. Republicans kill the legislative filibuster in the Senate, and ban abortion entirely by a simple majority in both houses. Trump signs it, and abortions are banned in the United States.
All because of liberals.
1
Looks like republicans are doing most of that.
2
@Mike
You mean the liberals who gave Clinton three million more votes than Trump?
And will sweep the next elections?
3
@Jerry Engelbach No, I mean the liberals who gave Trump Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and thus the election. And who will do it again in a year.
The undue burden ruling in Casey reminds me of an argument I read by Judith Jarvis Thomson.
Thomson argues that abortion laws are unjust because they treat men and women in different ways. Abortion laws require women to be good Samaritans in bearing and raising children, but there is no equivalent law for men.
In America at least, the law can't force people to be altruists.
1
If presumed pro-life people are sincere, why are there nearly half a million children in foster care, many in need of permanent families? They tout adoption as a viable alternative, yet they haven't all stepped up to do their part? (I'm sure some have. But there should be no one in need of adoption at this moment if they really believe in the sanctity of life.)
15
I think it's interesting how many men are weighing in on which women are "worthy" of an abortion and which aren't. An embryo/fetus is not morally equivalent to a baby and I can prove it.
Two points:
(1) Where was the "pro-life" protestors when over 4,000 "unborn souls" were destroyed in fertility clinics across the country? Where were the calls for criminal charges, the boycotts, the cuts to funding for research, the elimination of fertility programs from insurance plans? NOWHERE.
Because the truth is, everyone knows an embryo is not the same as a viable fetus. So quit pretending they are morally equivalent. This is about controlling women and what they do.
(2) Even *if* a fetus were granted personhood rights, they wouldn't supersede those of a woman. A woman has the right to bodily autonomy. Just as you cannot force a person to donate blood to save the life of another developed, independent human being and just as you cannot force a person to donate a kidney to save the life of another developed, independent human being, you cannot force a woman to risk her life to gestate against her will. To do so violates a person's bodily autonomy, which is inherent even in a corpse. Bodily autonomy is a natural, inalienable right and a bedrock tenant of medical ethics.
So quit pretending your compassion for potential humans outweighs rights of already-born women. Because it doesn't.
20
I understand what you are saying, but this argument suffers from many flaws. Scientific studies has shown that an unborn being feels pain and develops sentience at least by 24 weeks, and that is a conservative estimate. As a woman I think it’s either a completely flippant or insincere argument to say that your decision whether or not you want to give birth to a child you conceived (assuming it resulted from consensual sex) supersedes a beings right not to suffer pain and death (at whatever point in the pregnancy this capacity emerges). If something can feel pain acutely and die, I really don’t think my 4-month in choice not to have it should trump the interests of an unborn person not to feel pain.
I’m an atheist woman I want our policies to be grounded in evidence and compassion, not feelings and knee-jerk ideological responses. I am more than frustrated with both sides painting this as a simple with us or against us argument, leaving no room for compromise.
1
@A
"Scientific studies has shown that an unborn being feels pain and develops sentience at least by 24 weeks."
No, there are no such studies. Although I invite you to provide a link to one if you can.
In fact, a fetus is not well enough developed to feel pain until 30 weeks. Notice that that just means that the physical means to experience pain are in place, not that the fetus actually feels pain.
5
@A - The earliest a fetus develops the neural connections to feel pain is around 27 weeks. Some scientists say it's closer to 30 weeks. Newborns in NICUs all over the country undergo painful tests and treatments without anesthesia, and pediatricians in the NICU will point out that newborns don't react to pain the way older babies do.
Maybe it's time to think of the 2-3 women who die a day in childbirth in the US, and the hundreds and sometimes thousands of women who suffer complications that leave them with lifelong health problems and disabilities. And after you're done thinking about them, think about the unwanted children born to women who will resent them, neglect them, abuse them, and sometimes torture and kill them. The best we can do in this country is to do our best to make sure every child is a wanted child, born to families that want them and have the emotional and material resources to nurture and care for them.
3
Amazing that in the developing world, organizations are working to give women and girls more school and career opportunities and encouraging them to get married and/or have children later in life because it's a key to getting out of or staying out of poverty. I don't want to hear one more word about what a great country this is. The people who should be demanding better healthcare, education, jobs--all of it leading to a better life--are shooting themselves in the foot with their crackpot views of the world. Frankly I don't feel sorry for them one bit, except that they're undermining opportunities and advancement for the rest of us.
10
I don't think the Supreme Court should reverse Roe, period, but this "risk" is overstated by a commenter:
"Have you ... noticed that some of these fascist laws make abortion illegal wherever it occurs?"
If the Supreme Court does reverse Roe (which, again, it should not -- for better or worse, Roe has been around a long time, and it should be left in effect), the Court almost certainly would declare any such state law to be unConstitutional. A state is allowed to define "crimes" in its own state, but not in other states. Imposing some official penalty on a pregnant woman who travels out of state for an abortion would infringe on her Constitutional "right to travel" by penalizing her if she returns.
That won't happen. Roe may be reversed (though I'd oppose that), but the Court won't also allow a state to declare either that (1) its "no abortions" law applies to other states as well; or (2) that a women who travels out of state for an abortion may be penalized in some way when she returns.
2
Are pregnant women to be viewed not as fully human but as slaves to the State? As unequal as "means for the ends" of others? Either a woman is a person and fully equal as an end in and of herself and not simply the means for the ends of the reproductive agenda and priorities of the government or she is baby making machine with as much right to decide what and when she will produce a human product as a meat processing plant spewing hotdogs. Is using women as slaves to produce children so ingrained in our culture than we relish doing this to her again? It's not about abortion: it's about using the law to reduce everybody's rights so the government can make us do what they want us to do, like cars, computers, and government owned human chattel. And in a democracy, that means we are all owners of the pregnant woman and that's just sick.
10
The science of the Alabama statute and other fetal heartbeat measures is wrong. The supposed morality of it is wrong, too; why is a woman supposedly incapable of making an informed choice about her own body, but a man is fine with choosing not just for himself but for all women as well? This disgraceful legislation is just another reason that a high wall of separation between church and state is imperative if our multi-faceted democracy is to survive, especially in these troubled times.
In the meanwhile, until we can next cast a ballot to cast these emotional and political religionists out of office, take individual action. Write to newspapers; write to congresspeople; boycott the states that promote this religionist blackmail. Actively stand for American values and against false piety. Every vote and every individual action counts; we may be but one grain of sand, but taken together we're an entire beach!
11
Over 70% of Americans are pro-choice. And we're not going to move backwards.
It's un-American for the state to force women to give birth against their will. No-choice right-wing extremists don't even believe in birth control.
Keep it up Republicans. You'll not only lose the presidency and both houses of Congress, but every state house in the country for generations.
12
@L - When LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, he said he'd just lost the South for a generation. Unfortunately, it was lost for multiple generations. We can only hope the same is true for the Republican party when it overturns or eviscerates Roe.
1
The US states exist solely to perpetuate unequal protection of law.
3
@Steve Bolger
Please explain.
I’m curious how ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, which has passed in 37 states and needs 38 to go forward, would affect a woman’s right to choose and whether it would render the Supreme Court decision less relevant.
4
How can Sen. Chambliss defend omitting the amendment adding rape and incest to the proposal by stating, "When God creates the miracle of life inside a woman's womb, it is not our place as human beings to extinguish that life." Does he actually believe that God would approve of a person raping someone and bless the result of a horrible crime like that? I simply can not understand any logic in this thinking....that is because it is insanity!!
14
Great - just to hasten climate change. A ton of unwanted babies and - to quote the GOP - welfare queens. What an incredibly dumb idea.
8
This is not about abortion, this is about women. This is about subjugating and silencing women. This is about taking back that control which was unwillingly shared in August 1920. This is about white male privilege claiming back its divinely given right to rule over anyone and anything. This is about the end of society as we know it.
Disobey. Go onto the streets. Make yourself heard. Protest. Resist.
Please.
We will be by your side, we will fight with you and for you, we will not let you down.
14
@Non Radical Sleeper No, it's not, actually. It may be hard for you to believe, but there are millions of Americans who are against abortion because they think killing an innocent human life is wrong. Especially when that life is willfully created by the woman trying to kill it.
2
Millions of Americans do not think that killing an innocent human life is wrong. Millions of Americans believe that killing an innocent human life is wrong. And believing and thinking are two incompatible activities. Whoever believes that a foetus is an innocent human life does not think. As a foetus is neither innocent nor guilty, and certainly is not a human life. As I suggested, millions of Americans believe that it is time to demand that millions of Americans give up on thinking.
4
@Citizen
They are against abortion because they refuse to recognize that a developing fetus is not yet a human life.
And they care not a wit for the already existing human life of the woman.
2
The Supreme Court should start chipping away at abortion rights and if they chip away enough there will be no more abortion rights that will be able to terminate a baby in the womb. Oh what a pleasant thought and would be such a positive thing for our precious babies.
1
@KMW
I know you won't answer this because you don't care, but ...
What about the life of the woman?
What about all the illegal abortions and needless deaths of women that will occur if abortion is outlawed?
4
They'll change the law? Over how many women's dead bodies?.
8
@Lee M As many as it takes? Likely not as many as there have been aborted human lives' bodies.
@Citizen
"As many as it takes"?
Well, at least you're honest about placing no value on the lives of women.
5
We all know that neither Gorsuch nor Kavanaugh can overcome their anti-female so-called religious brainwashing as children and are chomping at the bit to control female bodies, so "risk" is a poor wording choice. Pretty soon females will be reinstated as breeding stock and little more. So much for making American Great...oh, wait, that is only for rich, white, males.
4
Perhaps it’s just time to let Alabama and the red states just go & be their own country, where they can happily impose state sanctioned religious beliefs on their increasingly poor & uneducated populations. The historical trend is for countries to break up. And blue states can stop subsidizing them with federal dollars.
15
This time we’ll let them leave.
2
@Richard Drandoff We should pay them to leave! It would save us money in the long run.
I think that it is important to notice which states are in the forefront of this position. All rank at the bottom or near it in almost every measure of social well-being. Health, education, life expectancy.
It is extraordinary the degree to which the poor and ignorant want to remain poor and ignorant. Perhaps the telling demographic is that the poor and ignorant do not vote. It is the wolves, the predators, the parasites of the world that want to maintain the poor and ignorant as poor and ignorant that vote and control the government.
The wolves need sheep to survive.
4
The Handmaiden's Tale is not supposed to be prophetic, it's supposed to be a dystopian nightmare written for a novel that you find in the fiction section.
BOYCOTT ALABAMA.
14
I always find it so interesting that the people who are SO concerned about the unborn quickly and entirely lose interest once the child is actually born. They don't care about the child's needs. No instead they will label them 'takers' and bemoan the fact that those welfare people are taking money out of their pockets. They are the epitome of ignorance and hypocrisy.
So it is fitting that the red/confederate states which statistically rank lowest in the nation in health and education outcomes, will further overwhelm their states coffers (already running in the red) with children and families that are unable or unwilling to adequately provide for these kids. These states already take more out of the national resources than they contribute.
So once again the red/confederate reactionary states will lead us backward into the dark recesses of our country's failed past.
Bravo rural conservatives, if it weren't so tragic it would be fun to watch you suffer from your continued habit of voting for people and policies that are your own undoing. The 'liberals' in blue states you despise so much won't suffer if Roe is overturned but you will.
6
Well, my knuckle dragging Republican friends, 2020 like 2018 is going to be a sobering experience. As proven in 2018 21st century women are the winning voting majority and they didn't and aren't voting 19th century Republican. Now that Republicans have given women their Alabama problem women have even more reason than just typical Trump/Republican misogynist tendencies and dismissal, but the Trump sycophantic Republican Party collapse like a wet tissue to fall inline with Trumps outlaw ,non American, and family values agenda. Republicans watch in dismay at smart capable women once again rising in protest and listen to their 2020 ballot box victory roar.
5
From the vote to the gun to the clinic, conservative jurisprudence is nothing more than the codification of the subjective political preferences of the ruling class. The Golden Rule in America, as always, is that he with the gold makes the rules.
This cannot be overstated: Not one of the conservative justices has the right to sit where he does. Roberts received his robe as *quid pro quo* for his role as senior advisor to Jeb Bush in 2000. He brought along Alito, an alacritous acolyte of Robert Bork. (In addition to founding the Federalist Society and firing the Watergate special prosecutor, Bork opposed female suffrage and the integration of lunch counters.) Gorsuch was the direct application of force by a Senate tyrant. Thomas and Kavanaugh are sexual predators: Anita Hill and Christine Ford were telling the truth, and we all know it. And if Clarence Thomas's resume had been any thinner, we would have needed a magnifying glass to read it.
10
But her emails. But she isn’t far left enough. But she is a ”corporate” democrat.
To who wrote Bernie in, who sat 2016 out, who didn’t feel energized enough to push our candidate and yet are disgusted by this outcome, elections matter. Though this is abhorrent, we would never fear for Roe had a Dem President appointed two justices. To all Dems on the spectrum, please remember this before being destructive to the 2020 primary and election. We. Must. Win.
12
I think I understand what the terms Pro-Choice and Anti-Abortion mean, but I find Pro-Life confusing. People who call themselves Pro-Life and Anti-abortion are generally lumped together and I don't understand why. If one is Pro-Life wouldn't they also be Anti-War? But I have never seen that when I talk to people who claim to be Pro-Life.
7
I don't think the Supreme Court should reverse Roe, but some commenters are overstating the risk:
"Don't fool yourself into thinking this right is safe in New York. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade and establishes that a fetus has a right to life, federal law preempts state law."
That could happen, but it's extremely unlikely and I don't know that it's ever been predicted. If Roe is reversed, chances are 99.9% that the Court will simply declare that the US Constitution is irrelevant. That will leave it up to each state. Some states will pass laws (or constitutional provisions) declaring that abortion is an inalienable right. Other states will pass laws that declare just the opposite.
1
@Commenter
You are correct in your facts.
But it's not overstating the case to be alarmed at the erosion of the rights of women in the red states.
They are already on the verge of experiencing a disaster.
2
@Commenter - I've been saying that within a couple of years, SCOTUS will return the decision to the states. That means a woman's civil rights will be determined by an accident of geography, just as is the case now for LGBT rights.
1
Let’s his these vile men where they feel it: Alabama football. Protest at every game. Boycott ESPN until they drop their SEC contracts.
7
There is no way people will permanently resolve this conflict. Although the SCOTUS should arguably respect choice, the theological and political arguments over when human life begins are a perpetual quagmire.
We can only get a theological/political decision. The SCOTUS does not have much scientific status to decide the issue: they never will. This fits the old saying implying they are right because they are final--but even that does not hold.
The underlying issues are intractable and emotional, and will not be resolved by any singular logic--no matter how asserted.
@JSK: This stalemate is ideal to perpetuate fundraising. The whole US political system is a paralyzed fundraising scam.
2
@JSK
I fail to see how the civil rights of women is at all a complex issue.
It's a moral issue, an ethical issue, an issue that divides a free country from an authoritarian one.
What is not a moral issue is abortion. That's a medical issue. Using it as a moral issue to deprive a woman of the right to control her own body is an affront to morality.
2
@Jerry Engelbach
I am in favor of choice and do not personally disagree with what you say--as a matter of preference. But your post is also an example of what I mentioned originally. The views are intractable.
It is a sad day for women in America. Why do Republican care so much for unborn children and then care so little for them once they are born?
20
@john g - They don't care for unborn children either. When is the last time you heard a Republican talk about funding pre-natal care?
14
More to the point, why do they not care about the woman, who is already a member of the community?
7
john g,
Many of these Republican men have had mistresses and make them get abortions if they get pregnant.
Like Trump, they simply want (and need ) the votes from the religious right.
3
Here they go again.
The rightwing/GOP has never given up their racist and sexist ideology of controlling men and women - they controlled African American bodies with slavery, and they are trying now to control women's bodies by abolishing a women's right to choose and define her own body.
13
The Alabama law will bring rapists into the state looking for rich girls of child bearing age to impregnate.
Average sentence for rape is 9.5 years. They will get out of prison ,explain the 9.5 year sacrificed for them to grow up in a affluent home. The child's inheritance will be enough to support them both.
Imagine a man's reaction if the government told him that he couldn't have a say in the removal of something from his body, that was the result of a criminal attack upon him.
Alabama "raped" all women when it took control of their bodies and their lives.
19
Don't fool yourself into thinking this right is safe in New York. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade and establishes that a fetus has a right to life, federal law preempts state law.
8
Will states issue conception certificates?
Will Social Security issue a SSN to the fetus?
Will you be able to claim the fetus as a dependent on your taxes from the time of conception? Will the IRS require the conception certificate to make sure that you are not claiming a child that was conceived after the new year?
Will your age for official purposes be counted as from the moment of conception?
Will the fetus be counted as a person on your town census and the upcoming federal census in 2020?
Why does the Genesis (the start of all life), since the Bible seems to be the standard for our laws now, describe the first breath of life and birth as the start of life? "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Gen 2:7"
8
@Marie, I like your thinking. I guess that also means that a pregnant woman can vote twice! One vote for her and one vote for the fetus too. Republicans would be gone for sure.
2
I don’t believe that a moral leper like Trump should have any input on the issue of abortion. Yet he has, by appointing right wing religious zealots to the court, for political gain only
8
Why on the planet would you think Roberts cares about “institutional legitimacy”. There isn’t any. Ever since Bush vs Gore only an extremely naive person would think the SC is anything but a partisan institution, it’s long been clear that the court is in the pocket of big business, and with the appointment of a second sexual predator to the court whatever pretender remained has been stripped. This court will overturn Roe, unless a massive revolt against the forced birth movement begins now and employs method sufficiently radical to make these men afraid to do so.
4
Has President Trump ever paid for or otherwise secured an abortion?
Have any of our current crop of conservative Republican politicians, Supreme Court Justices and Fox News commentators ever done so?
Inquiring minds would like to know.
9
Centrist Judge Merrick Garland should be sitting on the Supreme Court instead of a Gorsuch or a Kavanaugh—
As a bulwark against the erosion of abortion rights and a woman’s integrity and control of her own body.
But he is not.
It is difficult to overstate the catastrophe of losing the Senate in the 2014 midterms. Especially in this “nuclear option” era.
A physician MD
9
Democrats don’t vote! But they love marching and stomping their feet.
Maybe Jill Stein can do something about this
Rich women and rich men who impregnate women will always have access to safe abortions (and most likely without judgment that is usually reserved for the poor in this country). I'm willing to bet my house that the men who passed this bill have forced at least one of their mistresses to have an abortion.
12
Yet another example of tyranny of the minority over the majority.
7
It is sad and disgusting and frightening to watch the value system of the United States descend into the stone age with morally and mentally deficient leaders at the helm.
The brilliant Tom Lehrer, a math instructor at Harvard, many years ago wrote a wonderful and very pointed series of lyrics and songs, one of which, "Whose Next," was about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and ended with the frightening thought of what will someday happen when Alabama gets the bomb,
Someday is now.
3
It isnt a war on women, it is a war on what is perceived to be murder.
From the conaervative POV, its not about men telling women what they can do - it is telling women that murder is illegal and just because the murder victim is inside their body doesnt change the fact that it is, at a certain point, still murder.
Of course it is a war on women, nothing more and nothing less.
11
It absolutely is about telling women what to do because the so-called conservative mind does not trust and fears women. The rest is rationalization and justification.
7
I believe statistically, it is White, upper middle class women who are the largest purveyors of abortion. Quite frankly, I believe limiting, or banning abortions, are thus just a ploy by white conservatives to boost the birth rates for their declining populations. Radical thought? Look deeply at the most divisive issues confronting us right now...immigration, travel bans, affirmative action. The tighter controls are clearly aimed at benefiting the soon-to-be 'white minority'.
5
This simply isn’t true. You can literally just google the statistics. Abortion statistics are by their nature somewhat unreliable, but it tends to be low income people and non-white people who get abortions at the highest rates.
2
Tell me anything worse than forcing a newborn into a family or into a single mom's care (mom age 14 and up) who DOES NOT WANT the child.
Carrying to term an baby not out of love and joy but out of inability to afford an abortion or inability to get to a state with more woman-friendly laws.
Or a baby to term out of fear of criminal prosecution if the Radical Republicans have their way.
That's as cruel as it gets for the parent(s) and the baby.
But, I say good.
The radicals are over reaching on this one badly. Blinded by their inbred thinking, fostered by their echo chamber and the mutation of gerrymandered districts, they have have abandoned any sense of reality
They do so at their peril.
Good!
Can you imagine how much PR hay and rage can be ginned up by this draconian path they are on?
In an age where personal accounts about other Americans are as close as your cell phone, the horror stories will be rife and the scare will be felt firmly even in people who are normally passive. The radicals will be radicalizing their opposition.
Good!
LGBTQ rights picked up speed as people came out and everyone got to see the humanity of friends, family, neighbors. It changed hearts.
Same here.
Come out.
Tell your stories.
About unwanted pregnancy and the circumstances and how grateful you are that you were not forced to bear a child you didn't want or couldn't care for.
Tell your story.
It's powerful.
It's reality the radicals ignore.
3
Both sides—pro-life and pro-choice activists—overwhelmingly tend to be feelings based and not evidence based. We should listen to what science tells us about the emergence of sentience and the capacity to feel pain and when it emerges, not just argue based on what we feel is the right answer (some wrong answers: “god says life begins at conception!” “A fetus can’t feel pain!”) Then we can move forward and think about how that stacks up against women’s ability to terminate a pregnancy at different trimesters. Balancing those two interests we can come up with a better solution, maybe putting restrictions on second and third trimester abortions if the in utero being can feel pain. We should be able to rationally draw lines and not make this complicated issue into a black and white mess (pro life v anti life, feminist v anti feminist). As an atheist, I’m more than sick of seeing Bible verses quoted and religious dogmas masquerading for an argument (from both sides).
4
Until the right starts caring for kids after they are born I do not want to spend 2 seconds listening to what they have to say. Kids are getting shot at school and they do nothing. Kids are getting put in cages and they do nothing. Kids will not have a future because they refuse to acknowledge that climate change is a real and mankind is the culprit. They refuse to properly fund public education. The refuse to enable all Americans access to good healthcare regardless of income. They are in no position to be telling anyone what to do.
13
Nice to see these state senators will lovingly accept their sons and daughters having incest. They apparently are okay with having inbred grandkids. Bless their hearts and praise the Lord!
5
I can't help but notice that the states promoting these restrictive laws have the lowest SAT scores in the country. Coincidence?
18
I do believe this is the beginning of the end of progressive democracy.
Wish I did not bring my child into this world.
1
SCOTUS and federal courts have been stacked with gestation slavery advocates who see women as "vessels" for fetuses and who want to force women to gestate and birth the children of rape, incest, and misfortune.
They fail to understand or care that the human species is extinguishing the biosphere, that women have a right to be liberated from reproductive slavery, and that nobody has the right to tell a woman what to do with her own body.
Anti-abortion laws and rulings punish women, children and society. The men who create the pregnancies are never punished or held accountable.
Anti-abortion people are also against clean air and water, maternal leave, Medicare for All, a healthy environment, and other services for the new humans their ideology seeks to create.
Our country is moving backwards, led by sick characters already predicted in The Handmaid's Tale.
11
If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, which clearly many religious conservatives want, the success will be akin to the dog finally catching the car. Practically, little will change. Blue states will keep abortion legal, and Red states will do what most have nearly done already: ban abortion. But by removing abortion from the GOP rallying cry, the coalition that has won them many presidential elections in the past two generations will splinter.
1
I just hope and pray that every woman out there of voting age will keep this in mind when 2020 gets here. Treating women as second class by denying them control over their own bodies is a REPUBLICAN thing. Republicans have always had a disregard for women, considering them to be inferior and as I've heard many a Republican say in casual conversation, women belong in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.
11
Women, minorities, environmentalists etc.etc are easy to distract and confuse.
Conservatives, for all their nonsense, are always on message about exactly what they want and what they stand for.
Leave it to Beaver and My 3 Sons. Gone With the Wind.
Remember a lot of women didn't like Hillary. I wonder how the issues they care about are being handled (health, environment, education).
2
Remember a lot of women didn't like Hillary. I wonder how the issues they care about are being handled (health, environment, education).
1
The abortion issue should not come under state or federal laws. It's in the rightful and exclusive domain of the women concerned and is a medically connected subject.
However, it's perhaps understandable from a historical view of human nature in that, since the beginning of recorded history, some humans have always chosen themselves to tell other humans what to do, how to do it, when to do it, etc. Self-righteousness wasn't invented by the courts but perhaps courts were developed by self-righteous people, not always a bad thing but sometimes carried too far.
3
What scares me here is that misinformation tends to be the victor in the abortion argument; turning to the route of identity politics vs rational and ethical thinking.
Fetuses/embryos that are comprised of human genetic material, are human. There is no denying that fact. And what's more tragic is we are literally saying that a human's life is no more or less important than 'a woman's right to choose'.
I believe there should be an overhaul in the abortion system, and that abortion should be limited to the 1st trimester and to medical necessity only (this would include rape and incest cases). This abortion on demand thing seems to be the real issue with abortion practices in the US.
But at the same time I do not believe abortion should be outright banned. This is due to the idea of humans suffering for the benefit of another also being unethical.
Abortion on demand? Are you kidding me? Women don’t choose abortions as if it’s on demand cable option. It’s a serious decision that women make based on their circumstances and ability to care for their offspring.
5
@Jacob Basically you are saying that killing the unborn is okay if the woman got pregnant through no fault of her own. Either you believe the fetus is a full human being or you don't. In reality that fetus is nothing without a woman's body. If it is a human we will have to keep every fetus in every infertility lab alive forever, because to kill them is to kill a human. You know that is ridiculous. So it isn't human in a lab but is human in another human's body. Speaking as a woman and a mother I say, stay out of my body. It is none of your business.
3
@Jacob: All that you are that really matter to others, you learned from living after birth. The software component of humanity is more important and enduring than the hardware component.
2
What nobody mentions is that Congress could codify legalized abortion by passing a law. That would be the correct way to handle the issue. Most countries legalized abortion through their Parliament, not their court system. Of course, Congress might not do so because of opposition from their consituents. But whatever they decided, it would at least come close to representing the will of the people and would be a much more fair, democratic process than allowing 9 unelected judges to decide.
2
@Samuel Russell: Congress does absolutely nothing to settle emotional issues that can be used to raise money. That is why the US is a perpetual madhouse.
2
"WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court decided Monday that one state cannot unwillingly be sued in the courts of another, overruling a 40-year precedent and perhaps, foreshadowing an argument over the viability of other high court decisions."
The above recent Supreme Court ruling paves the way and sets the precedent for overruling the principle of stare decisis. It wouldn't be a chipping away /piecemeal process for Roe vs Wade. It will be wiped out in one fell swoop. Just watch!
What about the consequences for the man if women have their "choices" taken away? Men should as well, and in the case of an unwanted pregnancy that is being forced forward, it should be JAIL TIME for ALL men who don't pay for pre-natal care and who don't PAY for care of the child once it's born and for the rest of its childhood. Men need an equal consequence.
9
Stepping back for a moment, and looking very big picture, and globally...... wasn't it just last week that the UN released their global warming report? Many of the comments focused on the need to reduce the size of the human population.
Then today, we learned that the birthrate in the US has fallen to 1.7 children per woman. At that birthrate, the US population would shrink about 20% (omitting immigration) in one generation.
What if this were to happen globally? What if humanity saw that shrinking our population to a sustainable size was better than millions (billions?) starving, or their homes sink under the sea?
What if governments began to mandate family size, and .. irony of ironies.. in some future time NOT having an abortion was the crime?
146
@ImagineMoments
Might be more productive to imagine a world in which sex education and easy access to birth control globally reduced need and desire for abortion to near extinction.
The same result could be acheived.
31
@ImagineMoments: China did this with its one child policy. It economic modernization would not have happened otherwise.
11
@ImagineMoments
You are advocating killing people to reduce humanity's impact on the environment. Though I support strong action on global warming, and population control, education and contraception should be our tools, not genocide.
2
I can understand the actions of all Presidents who pay special attention to the needs and desires of their core constituents.
What is hard for me to fathom are the actions of a President who pays little but scant lip service to the needs and desires of the majority of the American people, while in practice virtually ignoring them.
5
United States has more women than men, yet it allows men to decide what women should do.
Why is that 19th amendment not empower women enough and 2nd amendment remain so strong?
2
@SridharC
Hmm, well, women have the right to vote, which means women determine our leaders who determine our Supreme Court justices and our laws. Women have just as much voice in this as men, and actually more, since there are more than them.
1
So what does this mean for medical decisions made between a doctor and a patient? Will the government now decide to intervene in other medical decisions? While conservatives like to talk about smaller government this seems to point to increased government interventions in personal decisions.
9
Well it is already illegal for a doctor to help his patient commit suicide so this doesnt seem to be breaking any new ground in that area. All these other Doctor-Patient decisions youre worried about probably wont be affected.
In the end, it is about preventing or criminalizing murder - at least from the Conservative viewpoint.
@Randy Harris
"Will the government now decide to intervene in other medical decisions?"
Only if those decisions involve killing others.
@Randy Harris
The pro-life movement has tried to intervene in end-of-life decisions before. Don't be surprised if dictating treatment for brain-dead people in long term comas is next on their agenda.
3
I am no constitutional scholar but here are my thoughts, the criminalization of abortion is discriminatory on its face. It only applies to women. If Alabama were to say that fathers of the aborted fetus can and will be held criminally liable and liability is strict where there is no need to find intent, then these laws would pass the equal protection clause. If a women had an abortion the father would be equally culpable period.
So even a casual one night stand ended in an abortion then the male would be liable as the female even if the male never saw or heard from the female again, Even if they were married, even if they were in relationship and it ended. He wouldn't have to consent, or know of the abortion to be liable. Just the plain fact he was the biological father he would be liable.
I believe it would force every male to use 100% foolproof birth control. That would be the only way to be sure that he wouldn't be a criminal. It takes to tango, both should pay, if that is what the people of Alabama want.
23
@Harry
I'm pretty sure that the same men in Alabama who are legislating this as a crime are just going to have their mistresses get an abortion in another state where it's legal.
If the mistresses of Republican leaders find themselves unable to terminate a pregnancy, there will be a heck of a lot more paternity lawsuits - same with Trump who, according to the porn star he was having an affair with, had unprotected sex with her.
7
It only applies to women because only women can get pregnant. If men could get pregnant, it would apply to them too.
Also, a man murdering a pregnant woman Will get extra penalties and time for the murder of the unborn child. Men are still held accountable for their actions when it comes to unborn children.
So, this new law isn't discriminatory.
@Harry excellent!
This is not a surprise. This is but the first step in a concerted campaign by the Right to take away civil liberties they don't like. The courts have been packed for years just for the express purpose of enabling decisions like the repeal of Roe vs. Wade .
If you voted Republican in the last couple of elections you are getting exactly what you voted for. You have no right to complain.
299
@manuscriptman,
if you don't like any of these policies or they are going to damage your life and you did NOT vote for the other side, you also get what you deserve and have no right to complain.
18
@manuscriptman frankly, if you were a Bernie supporter who trashed Clinton and didn't vote, you are also to blame...
29
@JA
Where did I say that I did not vote in the last election.
7
If Roe is reversed (and Alabama's new law certainly tees up the issue well):
Some states will pass laws (even amend state constitutions) to protect abortion rights. Other states will outlaw abortion. We all know which states will fall into which category. Amounts that now are donated to support Roe will be donated instead to "travel funds" that subsidize the cost of a pregnant woman's travel to a state where abortion is allowed.
BUT we can't ignore the likelihood that women who travel out of state to have an abortion will be penalized in some way when they return. I expect the courts won't allow official penalties (probably based on the long-recognized Constitutional "right to travel" from state to state) but there probably would be umpteen "unofficial" penalties imposed by neighbors, etc.
Roberts and the other Justices can't prevent such "unofficial" penalties, but they should keep in mind the likelihood that they would be imposed on many pregnant women who travel out of state to end pregnancies. Roe has been around since 1973, and one of the key factors laid out in Planned Parenthood v. Casey was the longevity of the Supreme Court decision involved. I don't disagree that Roe was wrongly decided, but it WAS decided, a long time ago, and many women (and men) have planned their lives accordingly. That should count for a very great deal.
2
um, there is no constitutional right to an abortion, abortion is not mentioned in the constitution
3
Um, incorrect. The 14th Amendment prohibits states from depriving a person of liberty without due process of law. A woman is a person (despite the GOP thought otherwise) and has a right to end a pregnancy without government interference because this liberty includes the right to make decisions about one’s family and the right to bodily integrity.
Roe v Wade was not decided on the privacy provisions of the Griswold contraception case in 1965 which was based on the privacy provisions in the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 9th amendments. In Roe the court specifically referenced the privacy provisions inherent in the 14th Amendment’s right to liberty.
In Casey v Planned Parenthood privacy provisions are not mentioned at all but “The controlling word in the cases before us is ‘liberty’”. It was already settled law prior to Roe that the right to liberty is inclusive of the rights to make family decisions and the right to physical autonomy.
10
You and I have the right to do a lot of things that are not mentioned in the Constitution.
5
Um, that’s not the basis of the Roe ruling. Read a book, take notes.
5
Trump and his GOP minions are trying to bring us back to the 1700's. I'd say they are doing a pretty good job so far, especially given the mental capacity of our so called President.
8
@Character Counts - back to the 1700's.
1775 to be precise. When we were still under the rule of a king and aristocracy.
2
I don't think a single person in the GOP cares about abortion. What they care about is having any moral high ground they can claim, not matter how ridiculous. They are, in some cases, actively enabling mass murders but instead of addressing that they go and use their favorite rhetorical tool, false equivalency, to say how Dems are the killing by allowing women the right to chose what to do with their body.
I don't think it is the direct goal to damage women's rights, but it is certainly a byproduct with which the right is more than happy.
4
Why are the choicers so hysterical? Even if Roe v. Wade is overturned in its entirety, states would still be free to permit abortion, and about half the states would do so. It takes a state law to make it illegal.
So abortion would never be more than a short plane ride, or a long bus ride, away from anywhere in the 48 states (and probably would be legal in Alaska and Hawaii). Naral or some similar organization would be willing to pay the transportation costs of a woman from wherever it became illegal.
The choicers aren't satisfied with the practical availability of abortion. They demand conformity.
3
Have you ever been to Texas, say? Are you capable of reading a map? Have you, for that matter, noticed that some of these fascist laws make abortion illegal wherever it occurs?
5
Some of these laws criminally charge pregnant women who leave the state for an abortion as well as anyone who helps them.
8
Federal case law and federal statutes “win” over state statues, so...no. Once the Supremes have decided, states cannot go back set up their own rules. Hence, the importance of Roe. Kavanaugh agreed Roe was the law of the land, right?
2
We should have gone with a constitutional amendment upholding the right to abortion back in 1973. That would have avoided this whole ugly controversy.
Roe v. Wade is going to be, and should be, overruled, because it is constitutionally illegitimate. Neither Article III nor Marbury v. Madison gives the Supreme Court the power to write new provisions into the Constitution. Only the people can do that.
3
Abortion, or intentionally termination of a pregnancy is actually sanctioned in the Bible in the book of Numbers (Chapter 5:11-31). In this case it is in certain circumstances (to test the unfaithfulness of a wife, the priest basically makes her drink the “bitter water” that then induces a miscarriage). If this is sanctioned how is this really any different than allowing for willful termination if a woman desires it? How is the bitter water any different than RU-486 and the priest any different than a doctor in the modern context? Nowhere in the Bible is abortion addressed other than this sanctioning. In Exodus Ch 21 a woman’s life is held up above the termination of the potential life of a fetus. I know some Biblical scholars try to twist themselves into logic pretzels to try to change the clear meaning of these passages. Those who are from a Judeo-Christian moral tradition and oppose abortion on those grounds, yet believe every word of the Bible need to go back and read their own book.
A fetus is a potential life (much like a sperm or an egg) that within 6 months has no independent viability without machine medical assistance. Actions need to be taken to turn this potential life into an actual life (an independently viable organism). The actual life and bodily autonomy of women outweigh any potential life. If actions to terminate are illegal, how far away are we from prosecuting pregnant women’s action/inactions that cause miscarriages in the state? How very 1984.
9
*in the state’s eyes
Did not intend that to read that any action or inaction on a woman’s part causes a miscarriage- rather that the state could define such things if we continue down this path.
1
@Smith - The bible also sanctions human sacrifice and stoning. The bible isn't relevant. We have separation of Church and State.
2
Exactly and I agree with you. My point was that those that use religion to justify their position on abortion are unfamiliar with their own book, and cannot use it as justification of abortion provisions as such (or a ban on capital punishment either).
Barefoot and pregnant days, again. Most people have no money or resources to care for unplanned children.
Are you conservatives prepared to adopt all of these kids? Raise them right? Send them to college?
How about those of minories, mixed race. What happens when you discover one may be gay?
Will you chain him to a fence or go with conversion therapy?
You conservatives have a lot to think about now.
7
@Dorothy
Right, Conservatives should have to raise YOUR kid because you couldn't be bothered to use birth control. That's the thanks they get for having compassion towards an unborn baby.
I believe Clyde and Kay have personally agreed to incur the costs of raising all these children! Not to mention all those Republicans who voted in favor of this legislation. Make THEM be personally responsible, not the taxpayers. I cannot fathom that their vote was actually the will of their constituents.
I would be making arrangements for my daughters to leave immediately, if I lived there.
1
@Samuel Russell - Birth control fails. You might know that if you didn't perpetually strike out.
Isn't it interesting how little compassion you show towards babies once they're born?
3
Abortion is this country is NOT about protecting the unborn. What utter nonsense! Abortion in America is about what it has always been about, its about POWER, its about CONTROL! If men were the one's who gave birth they would be getting abortions while getting their oil changed!
10
Exactly! If abortion was truly the issue, let’s talk about other meaningful ways of avoiding it. Male contraception should be required...perhaps a mandatory reversible vasectomy at age 13?
1
I wonder if the Alabama lawmakers also decided to increase food stamps and welfare payments to help all these these families? Or is this is mainly about controlling female sexual behavior?
14
Boycott Hangout Fest in Alabama this weekend.
9
Let's stop calling the GOP "pro-life". They are NOT. They are pro-birth. Once birth has occurred, the GOP care nothing for these children. If they did, they would support family assistance programs, health care, paid maternity leave, child care assistance, free/reduced price school lunches, public school education, etc. Since they seem to be staunchly opposed to these programs, it is laughable that they think they should be able to call themselves "pro-life."
20
@kim The GOP is pro-votes. This is how they mobilize a significant portion of their base to get to the polls and how they are still able to win elections — along with gerrymandering of course.
2
@Kim
Forced Birth. Forced Pregnancy.
Forced Birth not pro birth to be precise.
3
I'm thinking that most women who didn't vote in 2016, or 2018, are definitely going to vote in 2020 (and bring their partners with them). And, I'm thinking most of them, if not all of them, are going to vote blue. After all, we know the anti-abortion group already has very high turnout rates, so it's hard to improve their numbers. Silver lining: thanks GOP for waking up many voters who sit on the sidelines and say "they are all the same, so why should I vote?!" No, they are NOT!
7
@Character Counts The horses moved out decades ago, the rats moved in, and for years the structure has housed a massive colony of plague-borne fleas. So prodigal "voters" will finally show up to close the barn doors after Roe is overturned? Some silver lining.
I think part of the conservative backlash we are seeing against abortion was caused by liberals themselves. They keep insisting that “fetuses”’aren’t people, that fetuses don’t feel pain, fighting for things like late term elective abortions for any reason, etc. I wholly support a womans’ right to an abortion in the first trimester, but beyond that unless it’s medically necessary I don’t see the reason and lots and lots of people feel just like I do. This just isn’t a black and white argument about a “woman’s body.” Beyond a certain period of time period there are two bodies involved. A more reasonable approach would benefit everyone. Liberals unreasonable radical stance has provoked a backlash against even early term abortion.
3
@AVR - I absolutely understand how you feel and I won't dispute that liberals are terrible at messaging but do you really believe that any woman is going to go through several months of pregnancy and all the accompanying discomfort and then go through an even more uncomfortable (and very expensive) medical procedure "just because?"
5
@AVR That's just it- who gets to deem it "medically necessary"? Doctors have been put in a secondary position as they must call lawmakers to get permission before performing abortions. It's nuts!
3
Abortion is illegal already after 24-26 weeks in all states when the fetus can exist independently outside a woman’s body. Most women don’t even begin to show until after the first trimester so they may not even suspect they are pregnant. In addition, most medical testing is not done until after the first trimester, because that is the time most doctors think that the pregnancy may last until term and so the medical tests are finally worth doing. Thus if a baby has severe problems, the parents won’t find out until after the first trimester. This is why abortion makes sense until 24-26 weeks.
3
We can all now assume that up next for those wonderful conservatives in Alabama with their rich, unshakable, unlimited support for human life, health and the human condition will become the first state in America to enact Medicare for all - a true Christian-values program if ever one existed.
We can now all assume that Alabamans will now begin to address the unfettered accumulation of wealth and the resultant income inequality which so troubled Jesus.
And knowing God has appointed humankind the stewards of the earth as per Genesis 1-2, Alabama's state government must be hard at work implementing a Green New Deal.
Seniors, the infirm, victims of dire circumstances not of your own making, relax as Alabama has your back!
7
Even with the increased independence and advocacy of women in the nation to enable them to control their own reprodutive health, it seems from this bystander male, that there is far from unanimity. Just as with Trump supporters, there seems to be a core (maybe 40%?) of women who, as "pro-lifers" and evangelicals, support these draconian measures. Unless more voting young women become convinced that allowing old white males to control their destinies, upholding Roe vs. Wade will continue to be futile and become irrelevant.
2
One might consider that this is just a step by conservatives to legislate their world view of the whole issue of morality, which in that case could include making contraceptives illegal because many do not see any difference between abortion and contraception. Certainly, such views are held by the Catholic church.
3
Thanks NYT for the convenient graphics. Helps me identify states not to send my business to. Lot of these states are subcontractors for auto industry - I’ll start avoiding those car companies. Don’t drink bourbon but will look into other commodities from these states that I won’t buy going forward (I’m already off Florida oranges).
5
Why won’t you buy Florida oranges?
Here's a tip if you love your wives, daughters, mothers... or are a woman in Alabama:
MOVE.
Open season on rape and incest in Alabama.
Don't like a woman? Rape her, get her pregnant, and force her to risk her life bearing your child..
Do not visit this state. Don't give them your money.
20
Roe, as modified by P.P. vs Casey, has a built-in sunset provision--fetal viability. In the absence of judicial activism from the left, or congressional action defining a right to abortion, the case law establishing a right to abortion will become gradually more and more irrelevant, as medicine advances.
1
Twenty-five white guys. What do they care about a woman's life, her choices, her finances, her life. Shame on all 25. They should be forbidden to have sex until they're 99.
17
@E. D.
That could be the reason why there are 25 guys involved. They have probably been discouraged from having sex and this is their way of lashing out.
5
Will men ever stop telling Women what they can and cannot do? All Women do not live in the so-called State of Alabama where their womenfolk are kept barefoot, pregnant, ignorant and in the kitchen.
Vote blue at all times or your State could become like Alabama.
14
It's really nice, all the men commenting here.
How many of you stand to lose ANYTHING here?
Freedom? Privacy? The control over your reproductive decisions and health? The ability to enjoy sex without being forced (and shamed) into unwanted pregnancy, bearing a child, raising it, possibly a rapist's child? A violent domestic partner's? A partner you don't want to be with? An adult who raised you? A relative's?
Men, if you want to comment, take some time and reflect.
You are half the sky here. Please don't act like you're none of it on the pregnancy side of things, and all of it when it comes to outlawing it.
15
I think I am concerned as much as you are, but keep in mind quite a few men support a woman's right to choose and quite a few women are opposed to a woman's right to choose. The problem is the same as it ever was: religion.
8
I think I am concerned as much as you are, but keep in mind quite a few men support a woman's right to choose and quite a few women are opposed to a woman's right to choose. The problem is the same as it ever was: religion.
@Ames great, succinct comment. It is everything. Thank you.
1
Evangelicals are motivated by fear of eternal punishment after death for failing to ban abortion and contraception. Can we bear to impose such a hardship on them?
The main hardship borne by evangelicals is their belief system. Only they can relieve themselves of this unnecessary hardship which they impose on themselves and would impose on others.
1
@Steve Bolger With all due respect, I am an evangelical and I have never experienced that fear. Because to be a Christian is to be a follower of Christ, not a militant of certain Republican causes.
Here's an idea: All college bound Alabama females, please go to out of state colleges. All out of state college bound females please avoid Alabama colleges. All females going straight to work, seek employment in woman friendly states.
Leave the men behind so they can know each other in the biblical sense.
32
In Georgia, Republican lawmakers have bragged about adding in tax breaks for fetuses. They get a twofer.
Republican "life" policy is coming down to
1) Save the babies, kill the women. No medical association supports the limits on reproductive healthcare.
2) Guns don't kill people: people with guns kill people.
3) Freedom of religion means men get to force their religion on every woman in the country, even if their religious institution has systematically abused children and women for decades.
Never vote for someone who thought it was a good idea to support a man credibly accused of attempted rape of a young girl whose name begins with K.
Never vote for someone who supports a man boasted about sexually assaulting women whose name begins with T.
Never vote for someone of either gender with the initials GOP after their name.
But do vote.
Women's rights are disappearing overnight. Half the population in some benighted states is now in a world like Argentina where an 11-year-old girl can be forced to have the child of her 60+ year old rapist.
9
GOP: Get the government out of our lives (unless you're a woman).
9
THIS is what happens when you Vote for ANY GOP candidate. They vote in lockstep. Right, Senator Susan Collins ???
Seriously.
19
Conservatives, particularly Republican Conservatives can never allow Roe to be overturned. How would they be able to mobilize Jim Bob and Bobby Sue to the polls if they don't have the abortion horse to flog. Republicans will never allow overturn of Roe.
9
@dtschuck
Don't forget 30% of latinos vote Republican, as do 10% of blacks. Those percentages could be much, much worse for women and for America, given the high percentage of latino Catholics and evangelical blacks now in America and in every state.
Female rights are opposed by religions.
1
Good. Now we can revitalize the secession issue that Republicans often liked to raise in their snarky comments about “liberals.” Hey why don’t they just start their own country. I agree. It’s time to let the red states go. They can have no taxes on the rich, no government regulation, no free education at any level, no health care, no immigrants, and all the back alley abortions their poor women can get their hands on. Wealthy women will just go to other states to get them like they used to. They’ll have high teenage pregnancy rates and high illiteracy rates, which will help their oligarchs remain in power as long as they like. We can trade w each other, visit each other, be on general good terms. But let’s stop being beholden to these people who really prefer science classes that teach the world is 6000 years old, dinosaurs lived when people did, and the sun revolves around the earth. Good luck and good riddance.
16
@Gary Shaffer I agree wholeheartedly. But how do we move toward this? (It's a serious question.)
1
Abortion is wrong God will deal with those people. When the GOP/Trump keep getting us into these weekly wars where women and children are killed that is anti life behavior. Supporting coal use and fossil fuels to further climate pollution and more human deaths that is anti life behavior. Save everyone’s life should be the GOP goal.
Politicians define one's abortion position as either pro-life or pro-choice, but there is really a tremendous amount of grey area in between the two.
There is a staggering amount of public support for restricting third trimester abortions. I was shocked when I saw the number form a Gallup poll... a whopping 81% think 3rd trimester abortions should be illegal, and a whopping 65% think 2nd trimester abortions should be illegal (May 2018 data).
These percentages are not reflected here in the comments section (not surprised - NYT has always been a liberal slanted publication), however, it is very clear to me that the public is dissatisfied with the "life begins at birth" definition. Politicians ought to get together and debate exactly when life begins and when that life has a full set of constitutional rights. This definition ought to be based on science, medical imaging and testing - not emotion (one way or the other).
2
@Jon K Funny that you would think the NYT is "liberal-slanted" because it reports the facts. But, these are the days of Trump, so.
5
@Jon K
Third trimester abortions are extremely rare and almost always because of some terrible medical or other situation. That option should be left open, because it is due to dire circumstances.
7
We are upon middle ages of America. This is the US version of chastity belts and FGM.
11
Forced childbearing is a form of sexual slavery, isn't it? Instead of "pro-choice," we should talking "anti-slavery" and let the old Confederate states secede, peacefully this time. Do the states have to be geographically contiguous to secede is my only question. Maybe Ohio and Utah could be "protectorates" of the Confederate States of America. It's time to put this issue to rest and get it out of our national politics. It is as divisive as slavery was.
12
What boggles my mind is that a group of people think that it is within their purview to step into the breach of a woman's privacy to make decisions about her sovereign right to decide for herself whether to bear children or not. You don't even have to be pro-choice to determine that a woman's privacy takes precedence over someone else's opinion about an issue. But at the bottom of this issue there are a few givens. When 26 white men in Alabama decide to inject themselves into the center a woman's most private area of her existence...well...one can only deduce that they consider women to be subservient, that they should not experience sexual lives without some form of punishment and that they answer to the will of men. Let's not fool ourselves. This is not about the beating heart of a fetus. This is not about viability or living consciousness...this is about controlling women. It is about an antediluvian need for religious men to control the lives of girls and women. It is totally abhorrent and it is totally unacceptable. We are in serious retrograde as a nation. We are in serious trouble as a culture and nation. And when this reaches the streets, I know which side I'll be fighting for.
19
This graph worryingly shows former Confederacy states participants in the Civil war. I only know one person on this earth that would enjoy this () more than anything else.
2
I’m sure it’s been said before that an all-male all-but-1 white Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, and pro-choice people didn’t seem to mind.
I’m in favor of keeping abortion legal during the first 10-12 weeks even though abortion is wrong. My reason is that a woman is the first and only person who knows she’s pregnant, and if abortion is illegal and she does not want what many do not want to call the baby, she will be forced to hide or provoke the abortion, and nobody wants that.
I believe we must start calling things by their names in order to engage in an intelligent and non-partisan debate. A fetus is a definitely a human being, at some time or always a baby, but never a thing, a bundle of tissue or an appendage. Science has shown that. If you terminate the fetus you are killing a human being. Whether that creature in the womb is a person deserving protection under the law will be better deemed once we acknowledge his/her humanity. I therefore believe that at this point in time killing a human being in the womb of a woman during the initial stage of pregnancy for the aforementioned reason should be allowed and therefore legal. I also believe that at all stages medical procedures should be strictly followed pursuant to the decisions of the Supreme Court, and that proper and complete advice should always be given.
I also believe in a future where mankind sees the right to life of the unborn in the same light as the issues of slavery and civil and human rights.
28
@jose
A fetus is NOT a human being. The ability to survive outside the body of another sets a practical, technological limit on defining when a sustainable human life begins.
184
@jose
No one but the woman herself has the right to make any decision about her health.
What if my "belief" system was -- I believe that some men should not receive medical treatment for cancer because they brought it on themselves by smoking. I believe that men should be forced to undergo vasectomies to prevent irresponsibly fathering a child that they don't take care of. I believe that men should't have any treatment for prostate cancer.
Etc.
No one gets to force an entire gender to have babies that for whatever reason they do not want, should not have, or that have complications.
It is no one's business.
Women have a right also. They are fully functional human beings capable of exercising free will and making their own decisions about their bodies.
No. One. Else.
314
@jose Do you believe a woman should be a slave to her unwanted (through rape or incest) fetus?
41
I looked at the little chart with state names and arrows heading, naturally, backwards. Suggestion to the coastal states who foot the bills for most of these Ozzie and Harriet states. Let's stop propping them up. Let them fall down.
10
@Scott Montgomery
25+ states coast to coast have passed some measure of abortion restrictions on girls and women in their state: From Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia to Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Utah and North Dakota...
1
I doubt the Supreme Court will take these cases. John Roberts will not want to use these cases to chip away at the ruling, and he really doesn’t want to alarm pro-choice voters prior to 2020.
This Supreme Court will drag out any action to chip away at abortion rights for a long time. The issue hold the Republican coalition together and provides electoral energy to an otherwise useless and corrupt party.
I wish the court would take these cases, and let the laws stand. That would put the onus back on state legislators and citizens to finally have to grapple with the fantasy that abortion can be banned and everyone will be happy. Maybe a fire will be set on the pro-choice side that will have a huge upside in getting rid of a lot these fascists.
2
The founders Supreme Court justices life term to avoid the court being political. Clearly this has not worked? Might be time for term limits for these clowns.
2
Women in this country made their own bed on this issue. They either vote for Republicans or don’t vote for Democrats.
4
If there truly were a "right to privacy" then all drugs would have to be decriminalized. Why does this "right" only include abortion?
2
Wasn’t part of the Constitution about separation of church and state , or was that some other country.
6
Unfortunately, Alabama conservatives’ concern for the unborn comes to a screeching halt once a child is actually born. It is consistently one of the worst places in the country to be a kid by every metric and since the vast majority of forced births will be among poor women, who can’t afford traveling to a less restrictive place, the law will perpetuate the state’s dismal but well deserved reputation.
16
According to US News and World Report, Alabama’s overall rank is 49th out of 50 based on the following metrics: Health Care, Education (dead last), Economy, Infrastructure, Opportunity, Fiscal Stability, Crime & Corrections and Natural Environment. How can anyone, let alone the Supreme Court, take anything that comes out of Alabama seriously.
13
@William Taylor
I read about the ranking in a story from al.com and then scanned some of the replies. I left the site quickly with my eyebrows stretched up to my hairline. Quite a few respondents ridiculed the number one state — Massachusetts, if I remember correctly — for not having a top college football team.
Bread and circuses, anyone?
1
I don't know why people won't take conservative at face value, including many columnists claiming that the Roberts' Court won't completely overturn Roe v. Wade. Believe them when they say point blank that they want to ban abortion in the United States.
3
The ability to create life is a large responsibility, and not one that should be taken lightly.
As a woman, I have to ask the public, how can I not be "Pro-Choice," when general women's healthcare and access to birth control is limited. Did you know that as healthcare stands right this very moment, a woman can not even get an internal exam except for 1x every THREE years? A lot can happen in 3 years. I can not, in good faith, support subjecting another human to be a mother when they may have been unprepared, or worse, forced to become one against their will.
When we will start offering more services that talk about safe sex? More services that offer birth control over the counter (because we all know how much men love condoms!)? When will we work on increasing the role men play in our society as the other half to creating this life?
Why aren't we talking about boys having a reversible procedure until they want to father a child? Girls are put on birth control for a variety of reasons outside of just reproductive, and now, what? We take that away from a teenage girl who may have her cycle every other week and leave her anemic and unwilling to participate in school???
I just can't understand how we as a nation can say we want to be inclusive of others, how we want to be "the land of the free," but really, we only want to be accepting of those that are just like us and "free" those of like-mind.
8
And so it begins...2019 slowly but surely turning into Orwell's 1984.
No being on this planet has a right to dictate what another person can or can't do to their body.
14
The “government” no longer reflects the will of the majority. Expect the walls to come tumbling down if this keeps up.
8
I would love to know the number of words written about abortion since Roe. v. Wade. In terms of cost in money and time, how much has been devoted to abortion since Roe v. Wade?
If Roe v. Wade had said there is no constitutional right to abortion, would the output in words and expenditure in money and time have been less than what we have had? If yes, the opportunity cost of Roe v. could be high.
But then again, there are those who have argued that if there were no abortion, a significant number of those born could have burdened society. The other side of that argument is some of those born could have made positive contributions.
What medical student or OB/GYN medical resident would ever want to study or practice in a restrictive state like Alabama? Women’s health will also suffer from physicians staying away from states with legislative barriers to total care.
14
@Mark Sadly, there are providers in every state who happily, willingly restrict women's autonomy over healthcare decisions. Pharmacists who hide behind "conscience clauses," for example, so they can refuse women legally proscribed medications, as well as entire (religious-based) hospitals that ban not just procedures but even providing women with accurate information about them so they can make decisions for themselves.
@Mark Medical students and residents who go into medicine to improve women's and babies' health. Pregnant Alabama women need medical care, just like those in blue states.
Precisely. However, if certain procedures are banned by the state, residents will not be able to practice them and will not measure up to their counterparts in non-restricted states. Top candidates for residency programs may stay away from Alabama. That will have a negative effect on women’s health.
What's the deal with people who argue something to the effect of "I'm pro-life, but just for myself". To me that sounds a lot like, pro-choice...
3
Alabama's abortion law is designed to go to the Supreme Court. Otherwise it will have no effect. And, as Mr. Liptak tells us, its chances of making it to the Supreme Court are slim and none. So Alabama has passed what amounts to a symbolic statement that its leaders oppose abortion. That has been true forever. The Alabama law, provocative but ineffectual, leaves the status of abortion unchanged.
The main effect of the Albama law is to put abortion back on the front page for a rehashing of what those who follow already know. Abortion was front page news during the confirmations of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh at the time of the resignation of Kennedy and when Scalia died. And it is front page news whenever: defunding is at issue; Trump or anyone in Congress makes a provocative statement; throughout all state and federal elections; when a new study about abortion comes out; when a celebrity tells her abortion experiences or her opinion, for or against; if a prominent conservative woman has an abortion; whatever the Pope or a cardinal or any high religious official says about abortion; during the Irish vote (for weeks); if there are foreign aid cuts in abortion funding; and if any foreign country changes its abortion laws.
Few issues get more media attention than abortion. It is either because abortion is right up there with the future of democracy or because it is overpublicized, knowing it will always get a rise out of the public. You can probably tell what I think.
I'm surprised to see that the (future) economic costs of banning abortions is not often discussed. The women whom are going to be forced to bear a child are, statistically, going to be from a lower income rank. Being so, there’s a chance that her (or her husband’s/wife’s) job doesn’t provide healthcare or paid leave. So, now these women who don’t have private healthcare are compelled to use taxpayer funded services. This usage of the public healthcare system is just the beginning. Countries like ours (the U.S.), that have low social mobility (and high intergenerational income elasticity), will not afford these women/children the chance to climb economically/socially. This in turn means lower future per capita tax revenue. The lower revenue will lead to (eventual) declines in social and infrastructure programs and will most likely cause other forms of austerity. So, that’s the economic cost. Now the human/social cost: I would be remiss to not also point how surreal the political discourse surrounding this issue is. Politicians treat it like they’re passing a law to lower the speed limit…to save women from harming society. Having an abortion is not a trip around the maypole and it’s not something to shame or be ashamed of. Women taking control of their bodies was the first step of us moving from a society built upon superstition to one governed by science (and this goes back to at least 200 BCE). History is not, nor will it be on the side of the GOP.
310
@Mister B
Send em' on a bus to Mexico, NY or CA where abortions are still legal. Abortion tourism here we come!
2
@Mister B
If I am wrong, the Republican party was the Abolishment party which fought to end slavery practices in the US... in fact that was it's main purpose.
The GOP has been at the center of many civil rights fights and the fact that history seems to have been 'rewritten' by people who don't research history, scares me more than the lack of tolerance towards people based on political affiliation.
1
@Mister B
Not a problem for them. Our maternal mortality rate will just get that much higher. Listen to the way they talk about women. They don't see us as individual human beings, but only as extensions of themselves, or our babies.
18
A commenter at WaPo had this suggestion for reproductive age females and those who love them:
"You can buy levonorgestrel morning-after pills (like Plan B One-Step, Take Action, and My Way) over the counter without a prescription at drugstores and pharmacies.
Plan B One-Step usually costs about $40-$50. Take Action and My Way generally cost less — about $15-$45.
You can also order a generic brand called AfterPill online for $20 + $5 shipping. (AfterPill can’t be shipped quick enough to use if you need a morning-after pill right now, but you can buy it and put it in your medicine cabinet in case you need it in the future.)"
4
Does the abortion ruling apply to a female student in an Alabama educational institution who is impregnated by an Alabama resident?
1
@Practical Thoughts
First of all, it's not a "ruling", it is legislation yet to be signed by the governor. And, as with all state laws it would apply to anyone that resides in or is within the state's boundaries. Given the nature of pregnancy, unlike, say, a moving vehicle violation, it would be unlikely to affect a pregnant non-resident visitor that passes through the state and continues on to have a (legal) abortion in another state.
But you pose an interesting question: would a male Alabama resident be in the position to extend this law beyond the state's borders given they can prove paternity?
2
Not if she goes to New York....
1
All the misogynist anti-woman laws will not stop abortion. Desperate women will find ways to abort unwanted unplanned pregnancies, either with RU-486 or illegal surgical abortions. However, many young women will die, bleeding out or infected from botched illegal abortions. The testimony of doctors about seeing young women die unnecessarily from botched illegal abortions, often leaving their existing children orphaned, is a big reason Roe was decided as it was.
No woman impregnates herself and no woman impregnates another. The anti-woman cabal, funded largely by the pedophilic Catholic Church, wants to end abortion by the force of law, which is the force of guns & prison, and by punishing women and doctors, while the male impregnators face no consequences for causing unwanted unplanned unintended pregnancies.
There is however a method that would absolutely put an end to abortions. Focusing on the fertilized in attempting to eliminate abortion has never and likely will never succeed, as history hasproved. We need instead to focus on the fertilizers, the impregnators.
What would actually stop abortions is this: Make all males get vasectomized or otherwise sterilized at the age of sexual maturity. Their sperm could be frozen for use in a future wanted planned fertilization. Voila, no more fertile men no more pregnancies from rape, no more unwanted unplanned pregnancies, no more abortion. Done.
126
@Earthling : OY - Sounds draconian..
1
Exactly what I said. They’ll go back to back-alley abortion doctors. More live birth babies abandoned.
2
@LI Res : Hold it, but, isn't having an abortion a reasonable thing to do? Even leaders who may wax, on and on, about their own value of life have sent military, who have been killed, into questionable ventures. In US, we punish with death. Just to begin to give voice that our sanctity of life is wavering, at best.
2
It's no coincidence that anti-abortion law is harshest in former slave states. It's not about life, and it's not about God. It's about a subconscious attitude that white men in power inherited from their Grandpappies -- that black women and girls who will be the main victims of these laws are not people, but property.
179
@Sherry the governor or Alabama that signed the bill is a woman. I've been trying to come up with at least a half decent explanation for this all day, but I do not think there is one...
8
@Sherry That's really terrible, but has credence.
2
@Terry You clearly don't know any conservative religious women. The governor is likely one of those holier-than-thou types who judges everything by what she herself would supposedly do--it's a fake form of empathy. I speak from experience of them in my life and they are no friend to other women, that's for sure.
10
Could we please just split up into two countries, soon, before we have a second civil war?
We'll have to find some way to do it via dis-connected cities...
28
Best peaceful outcome one could ever ask for. Happens to be the most radical and fundamental solution to every problem this country has. Will bring amazing harmony and productivity to either sides of the country, blue and red.
3
@Michael Jay Good idea. California is the 6th largest economy in the world....the Northeast is booming..... and so are other progressive states. The progressive states could do just fine without the regressive states. Progressive folks in the regressive states would be free to "vote with their feet" and move.
8
There is no other medical procedure that can be forced upon a human being _by law_ except those that govern if, when and where a woman may decide to end a pregnancy.
The men who are responsible for impregnating the women cannot be forced to give even a pint of blood or a finger-nail pairing to save the life of either the woman or the fetus -- or the child post-birth. He can refuse to help because he has absolute bodily autonomy.
This is wrong, wrong, wrong.
78
@Anne in St. Louis: Insemination is a medical procedure.
At 71 yrs old, I remember staying in a motel and having the motel raided due to an illegal abortion being done. What a dangerous time for women. Can you imagine the women who died from these abortions, or could never have children again. The devices they used were barbaric, like coat hangers. The choice is up to the woman and her conscience. Sister Joan Chittister called is "pro-birth", not "pro-life", as they didn't take care of the child after the child was born.
61
@Dan O Yes, Dan, I can remember the women who died of illegal abortion and also those who could never have children afterwards. I can also remember the extreme guilt, shame and the terror these women felt.
I also remember the young girls who had their lives ruined because they were forced to go through with a birth in their early teens, unmarried. They were shunned by their friends and parents and were not allowed to attend high school while pregnant, although, of course their boy friends were.
I knew these women and young girls personally and all were white, middle class in high school and college. I am a woman, 74.
14
@JB I, too, remember your observations. The additional sad part of all of that were the children who may have never known their birth mother, or are now trying to reconnect with their birth mothers who may have another family. Some people don't know the times we went through, back in our day. Thank you for your comment. Dan
6
This bill is about challenging Roe v. Wade and protecting the lives of the unborn, because an unborn baby is a person who deserves love and protection,” said Representative Terri Collins, a Republican who sponsored the legislation.
I have one question for Representative Collins, , where in this law is there protection for the woman , mother.
42
@Brit And where is the protection for the unwanted child, once born? If states had to pay to raise all unwanted children born of women forced to carry to term and deliver, abortion would be freely available.
For the "pro-life" movement, "life" ends when the umbilical cord has been cut.
6
@Brit: They don't even grasp that their own personhood developed from the experience of interacting with other humans after birth.
2
@Brit
Actual human beings have never been a concern of republicans. Once the umbilical cord it cut, it's pretty much "yer on yer own, squirt", unless we need to send you off to a war to die in...
- They don't want to educate anyone
- Guarantee healthcare for anyone
- Ensure that living ages are achieved for anyone
- Protect anyone from climate change, pollution, environmental degradation
- Protect anyone from abuses of corporations
- Regulate anything
But they sure do loooooooove those babies!
10
If I was a woman living in Alabama I would boycott sex with men until this is turned back.
61
@Matthew Men in Alabama are already used to finding alternatives.
6
@Matthew If I was a woman living in Alabama, I'd hightail it out and move to Illinois.
6
@Matthew Here is another solution. In ancient Greece the 2 great city states, Athens and Sparta, were constantly fighting each other. Women got fed up with their sons and husbands dying, resources destroyed, poverty, etc. So, according to legend, the women of the 2 city states decided on a pact together--- no sex for the men in either city state until they stopped making war. What about this idea ladies?
3
What I'd do is file the unborn child as a deduction on my IRS tax form. Let the IRS make the determination.
12
@Dan O
Uh, yeah, understanding gestation is 10 months that plan may not work out too well.
1
@Dan O : Great, should include "contemplated unborn children" in the count
@Matthew I was talking about the people who don't have children born in the same year, i.e. children born in the 1st have of 2020 would be deducted in 2019. I was just being a smart aleck, as this is a serious concern.
1
The Conservatives have certain objectives. Especially in rural and Southern states. I have always believed the pro-life is more about demographics and traditionalism.
1. This act will increase the amount of white babies born in the state of Alabama.
2. If those babies are healthy and the mother is willing to adopt, this will provide a ready source of healthy children for childless white couples.
3. For those additional white babies born that are not put up for adoption, their numbers will help with getting to demographics.
4. For upwardly mobile white women in college or early in their professional careers, a few of them will get pulled out of the workforce and back in a traditional family setting. Especially in places like Alabama, where that expectation will be reinforced.
5. More marriages of twenty somethings and fewer women in high demanding / high paying professions.
Now, this will also increase the number of black babies in Alabama too. However, these babies will continue to be ignored as they will be entrenched in that deep poverty that Alabama is famous for.
14
@Practical Thoughts. The "pro-life" movement's motivation has nothing to do with demographics. The real reason is their belief that women (especially taxpayer-supported women) should not be able have sex without consequences. How else to explain refusal to fund, or let insurers fund, contraception? As to the men who impregnate women without consequences to them...well, "boys will be boys."
Require a paternity test for every pregnancy and order the fathers to pay child support. We'll see how long abortion & contraception bans last.
9
@Practical Thoughts
As to "This act will increase the amount of white babies born in the state of Alabama" the presumption is economics will afford more white women the ability to travel to a state to get an abortion more often, so your conclusion on this doubtful.
1
The efforts to make access to abortions more difficult or enact total prohibitions strip away women's right. They also as part of this effort are reducing or nearly eliminating access to urgent medical services to women who are unable to afford it elsewhere. Restrict or eliminate abortion at the same time you effectively deny low or no cost family planning resources, genius. What segment of the population will be most effected by these laws? Disenfranchised and poor women, just the demographic we should be most concerned about in a caring society.
18
Just wondering if all the lawmakers who voted for the laws restricting abortion were intentionally infected with a deadly virus and were denied available medical treatment. The medical professionals can invoke their personal and religious beliefs for such denial of treatment.
8
It's a misconception (no pun intended) that a "fetal heartbeat" can be heard as early as 6 weeks post-fertlization (2 weeks after the average menstrual period). At 6 weeks, a fertilized egg is certainly not a fetus, but rather an embryo; and if the ovum is blighted, it may implant but never grow into an embryo. The majority of late periods that don't end in live birth or actual pregnancy are most likely "blighted ova," which the uterus expels spontaneously at the point when viability is no longer possible. But sometimes, the uterus expels only part of the "products of conception," termed a "missed" or "incomplete abortion," which requires removal to avoid a life-threatening uterine infection.
I had two such blighted ova. First time, I had to have a D&C at 10 weeks when I bled but retained the sac. Pathologists couldn't even determine gender from that tissue. Second time I did expel it at 8 weeks--but its healthy twin grew to nearly 9 mos., and is now 34 years old. At 8 weeks, the OB informed me a heartbeat couldn't be detected till 12 weeks--and in fact it took a week into my second trimester to detect one.
What is "heard" at 6 weeks is likely fluid moving through a primitive tube--not yet a heart.
In AL, women would have to rush to get ultrasounds as soon as their periods are a a week late to even determine, much less abort, a pregnancy. This would be a huge drain on medical resources (and by the time an embryo is found, an abortion might not even be scheduled in time)!
41
I'm confused. There seems to be a consensus that a significant number of women will experience an abortion during their lifetime. At the same time, a significant number of women must obviously be voting for these politicians.
The only way I can fit these two facts is; either the women who care about the right to abortion don't vote, or they don't care enough for it to influence their decision on which politicians to vote for.
As I'm observing this entire tragedy from an observer's point of view - I'm not a US voting citizen - I can't help but think this is tragedy of your own doing.
144
@R - What's even more confusing is the number of people who use birth control who vote for the party that makes birth control less accessible and more expensive.
58
@R They are unlike "gun rights" voters, who are single issue voters if one even breathes the words Second Amendment. So, you're right, if women are not going to be single issue voters on this, or at least main issue voters, don't expect the bubbas to back off.
17
@R "There seems to be a consensus" here, there is a consensus here, The Demographic that participates in The New York Times comment section, or even the average poll, does not match American demographics at large.
10
I campaigned for Roe and Wade and support legal abortions.
In my view States, including New York, which have approved late term abortions and their vague descriptions of how living infants would be disposed of, has disgusted many fair minded and caring people. Governor Cuomo and the New York State Assembly, who lighted a building in triumph, have in their extremism and superficial publicity seeking started the end to safe legal and early abortions. It is their fault, they are morally and politically inept.
6
@MA Donovan The "late term abortions" legalized in NYS are done strictly to terminate a pregnancy that would kill or physically harm the mother, or to remove a dead or dying fetus that would be stillborn (or at best, never survive as a conscious person). It is heartbreaking enough for a woman to learn her fetus is dead and would be stillborn; it is unspeakably cruel to force her to continue the pregnancy and then go through the pain of labor or the very real risks of a C-section only to knowingly deliver a dead or about-to-die baby.
11
One thing that is usually overlooked is that there is a lot of money to be made by people on all sides of the abortion debate in this country. It's in their economic interest to keep this battle of the culture wars going on indefinitely, which it certainly will. If it didn't, many of them would end up flipping burgers at Wendy's.
Have a look online at the lists of names of the top dogs and their staffs at National Right to Life and the National Abortion Rights Action League, as well as their counterparts at the state level. Of course you see "Donate" buttons all over these websites. And just imagine the piles of money to be made by attorneys.
These people and organizations have become like the private health insurance industry, really. Their battles have had a life of their own now for generations.
4
In the years 1981-1983 I wrote a 402-page Master's Thesis entitled "An Economic and Sociological Examination of Delayed Fertility Patterns in America." Today, driving to work, a talking head on MSNBC stated that the weakest part of Roe v. Wade is the right to privacy. Oddly enough, I devoted a full chapter to this subject - "Griswold v. State of Connecticut." This is a little-discussed case which has served as the underpinning for Roe v. Wade and a right to "Privacy" in marital matters concerning contraception. When I hear someone say that the weakness of Roe is based on the right to privacy between a woman and her doctor I recognize that eventually, within the time of Trump, some state will go after Griswold as well as Roe v. Wade.
The framework of my thesis was this statement - that unless women are able to fully control their fertility they will never be seen as an equal in the labor market. By this, I meant an employer knows that a man will never get pregnant will make investments in that man which they will not make in a woman.
So this is where the decisions by the southern and midwest states will affect all women except for those women with the economic means to leave the state and obtain an abortion. First, these laws will strip Planned Parenthood of its funding which means 95% of the services they provide to women like pre-term care, contraceptive options, and breast exams will be gone.
We now have an American Sharia Law called the heartbeat bill.
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@Glenn Strachan Yup--first Roe and then Griswold. Welcome to Gilead.
6
My position with respect to abortion is that it is strictly a State, not Federal, issue. (With the obvious exceptions of Washington, D.C. and any US Territories.)
This makes nobody very happy.
I am pro-choice, so it doesn't particularly thrill me, either.
Pro-choice people have accused me of wanting to implement the Handmaid's Tale.
Pro-life people have accused me of aiding and abetting baby killers.
Both sides want the Federal Government to decide this - THEIR WAY.
It's depressing.
The cold truth the left is going to have to accept is that there will always be parts of the country that will constrain civil rights.
The best thing left leaning states can do is lead by example. These conservative ideas lead to regressive and less dynamic societies. Over time, the quality of life and economics diverge to the point where the less dynamic have no choice but to change.
Left leaning and fewer states need to lead. Sometimes you have to let these places do their thing. Even with the real damage done to real people.
4
@DennisG Women shouldn't be free in one state to make their own choices and forced to bear children in another. It didn't work for slaves and it won't work for women. If a country can't agree on the equality of women, it deserves to be split up. This is a fundamental right.
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@DennisG Don't forget, "you cannot be civil;" the only answer is to stop talking to people about politics.
1
Why, in the 21st century, is Alabama putting the rights of religion ahead of an entire class of persons - women?
This rule effectively means that, in Alabama, men have more rights than women.
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@Norman and the baby is what???
@Norman
Men in the U.S. have always had more rights than women, so have boys over girls.
Sorry to wake you from your lifelong slumber.
2
@Craig Well, for starters, not a baby.
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Those of us who support a woman's right to decide on whether or not to continue a pregnancy need to work to get rid of this administation in 2020; we need judges and justices who are not driven by religious zealotry.
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My understanding is that improving access to sex education and contraceptive services is the best way to decrease unplanned pregnancies (i.e., abortion procedures). Yet, these same states mostly rely upon abstinence-only education, which is associated with higher unplanned pregnancy and abortion rates. I guess their preferred policy is "don't have sex, kids, but if you do, we'll make sure your impulsive teenage mistake has profound, life-changing consequences for you, your partner, your offspring, your families, and your community. Enjoy!"
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@Jordan. That "preferred policy" would only apply to girls. Boys will be boys, after all.
It's ALL about resentment that women, especially those on gov't assistance, could be able to have sex without consequence.
4
@Sandy. Good points, Sandy. Indeed, my sense is that it's almost exclusively the girl, her family, and her community, who bear the burden of the unplanned pregnancy, rather than the boy!
Per your second point, I do think that many on the anti-abortion side believe, in good faith, that they're defending "life," however poorly defined, ill-conceived, and indefensible their concept may be.
There should be no other news today. The entirety of American
news should consist of Alabama's actions, and a general call to all doctors, especially, and other thinking professionals in Alabama to leave Alabama immediately until that state comes to its senses. Total Boycott of everything Alabaman, and all Alabamans of sound mind really ought leave immediately. There is no other good choice.
20
@warren - There's plenty of other news going on today. The pro life Republicans are saber rattling and getting ready for another war and the NRA has been caught at being crooks and liars.
1
I called and emailed the Alabama chamber of commerce to let them know they lost my business.
1
The real issue remains the same: At what point does the fetus go from fertilized egg-ownership to a constitution protected species with natural human rights? Seems the window is closing rapidly on Pro-Choice egg-fetus ownership.
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@Alice's Restaurant
The real issue is the same one males everywhere have not been able to contain themselves from meddling with over the last 2000 years: the right of a female to determine what is best her herself and her body.
3
@Alice's Restaurant In fact, I wonder why those states haven't tackled the complete open market of fertility clinics. I suspect the reason is that the pro-life community is very used to compartmentalizing their views. Abortion = Bad. IVF = Good because those rich, white, married couples are trying to "create" life. Defective and unwanted embryos are just collateral damage.
2
@Alice's Restaurant. A fertilized egg isn't even an embryo yet--and many if not most are "blighted ova" without the genetic wherewithal to even become embryos.
4
If only they were as restrictive with gun control as they are with women’s bodies.
Guns have more rights in Alabama.
Let that sink in.
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@Christopher Diggs
Guns are a higher priority, too. No one talks about pre-natal, pre-K, or anything remotely tied to what people actually need to raise healthy children.
13
@Christopher Diggs,
If only abortion was performed with a gun.
Then it would be performed up until the moment of birth, no license would be necessary, our sole allowable action would be to keep every zygote in our "thoughts and prayers", and patriots would continue to work to expand rights beyond the ninth month, say to first and second graders, maybe even to high schoolers.
Whoops! Not to worry about that last one. The NRA already has it covered.
5
Women ONLY shall make their own decision about abortion. It is NONE OF MEN"S BUSINESS !
16
@LouAZ
That is 100% true. As soon as (a) women can have babies without men; and (b) women can guarantee that they will not give birth to male babies.
The wealthy will always be able to access safe abortions, and they will regardless of the local laws.
It is only poor women who are forced to give birth to children they don't want, can't afford, or didn't plan for- or find another way to terminate pregnancies, legal or not.
And men have no need to worry at all, since they always have the option disappear as soon as their part in impregnation is over.
It is therefore no surprise that it is wealthy men who are determined to enact these restrictions on a woman's right to choose.
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@Kate
It keeps the poor poor
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@Kate Bingo. This is, and always has been, the truth at the core of this 'debate'. The wealthy hypocrites who are passing these laws, and their backers/voters, know that they always have an 'out' if their personal situations required the choice of reproductive procedures. At worst, fly or drive to your friendly progressive state to take care of things.
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@Kate
Let me take it up a notch:
by blocking abortion systemically, the GOP are shooting themselves in the foot:
since white women have had better economic opportunities than brown women, white women have far more abortions than brown women.
The GOP's religious and southern laws to hamper abortion have had ONE RESULT ONLY:
more brown babies are born every day than white babies.
it's marvelously hyper-ironic, and the GOP are doing the heavy lifting to erase their racist, right wing species off the planet.
Whooops!
43
This case is also about the right to privacy. Everyone's. Once again the party of freedom is quick to chip away at that freedom. The genius of the GOP is that they have convinced their base that the are for individual freedoms while depriving them.
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@Craig
Is the right to life an American freedom?
2
@Alice's Restaurant
Alabama says absolutely no, it is not, in the case of the death penalty--and to boot, a few weeks ago a non-Christian was just denied the comfort of his religious advisor at the time of his execution.
16
@notfooled
Given that thesis--then state execution for a capital crime is perfectly aligned with Pro-Choice.
I can not express enough how frightened I am over this present paradigm. Do Americans not understand that we are edging closer to a marriage of the Church and State? That it is fundamentally unconstitutional to allow religious fanatics to own another's body? This goes against a higher law than any arbitrary, patriarchal church precept. It goes against a universal moral law that every human being has a right to her/his own personhood. We belong to us, we own us. No one, absolutely no one, can judge us, possess us, rob us from ourselves. We must together push back on this trajectory of destruction of our individuality. Women and men fight this, please.
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@Kathy Lollock
Illogical and so unnecessary, isn't it?
This is precisely the mostly RCC theocracy that Jefferson and Madison feared 240+ years ago. Thus, the brilliance of not just tolerant freedom of religion but freedom FROM religion.
All gone now. America was a grand experiment while it lasted, though this has never been an especially good country for girls and women.
17
@Kathy Lollock
This is about science and its effect on the notion of what constitutes the beginning of human life, i.e., "a marriage of the Church and State" has nothing to do with it at this point.
1
@Kathy Lollock Women, white women specially helped elect the monsters that are not tearing this Nation asunder. White women listened to trump brag about sexually assaulting other women and still voted for him. White women knew that there was a vacancy on the Supreme Court that the religious right wanted trump to fill, and still they voted for him. I feel sorry for the poor women of color that will be forced to live under these archaic laws, but white women, not so much they made this stone-age bed, it will be hard but they will have to sleep in it.
18
Isn't it ironic that if the map displayed was one that listed states aiming to pass restrictions on guns, that it would be an exact opposite ?
The existing interpretations of the constitution allow for gun ownership AND also a woman's right to choose/make decisions about her own body and healthcare. How is it ok to chip away at one, but don't you dare touch the other ?
Hypocrisy at it's worst
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@EBD And you wouldn't have the media up in arms (pun intended) as it is over the Alabama issue; I very much doubt that people like Adam Liptak would call such controls "extreme laws" as he does here.
Here it comes from the SCOTUS:
"We think [...] that [women] are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word[s] "persons" and "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to [persons and] citizens of the United States [other than the 19th Amendment prohibition on discrimination in voting]. On the contrary, they were at that time [of the Constitution's framing, including the 14thA] considered as a subordinate and inferior [and baser and crueler] class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant, [godlike, nobler, and more moral and humane sex], and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them."
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@Colorado Reader
This will possibly be framed in projection.
That is, the "[faux] originalist" SCOTI will project this meaning onto the PA, NJ, DE Framers and Principal Ratifiers (& a millennium of Anglophone constitutional law).
Or they might say that the projected "immorality" of the North-of-Mason-Dixonite and secular humanist colonial PA, NJ, DE women (the "independent women" that Marylander Kavanaugh said in his hearing he scrupulously avoided) was protected against only by the heroics of Mason, Jefferson & Adams [none of whom signed the Const, although that won't be mentioned] preserving a "Divine Right of Man" in state constitutions, such as that of AL.
3
Governor Ivey should concern herself more with Alabama's real ills and faults rather than with this mean, pathetic piece of legislation. Al a vote for this anti-abortion bill will do is to ensure the true believers that they will be saved when the rapture occurs. Meanwhile, their state ranks last, or next to last in such categories as high school graduation numbers, net income, access to affordable healthcare, general quality of life, per capita spending on education, the tax on food---not to mention the state's stubborn refusal to consider ending the death penalty it the midst of its orgy of concern for the sanctity of life.
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@Michael. "Ensure the true believers that they will be saved when the rapture occurs?" Nope--more like "convince" them.
@Michael Too many politicians just don't have the courage to lead, nor the ideas to resolve issues. Instead, they focus on abortion, a topic they exploit as a distraction. The wealthy will always be able to get an abortion. And the elected officials who don't know how to do their jobs, aren't much interested in everyone else.
If only men had ovaries and got pregnant we would not have such anti abortion & actually anti female protestors ,Abortion would be available on demand w/o appointment in every shopping mall dug store.
Lets keep abortion legal and safe ,leave women alone to make this choice freely, & YOU CANNOT DICTATE THAT BY LAW A WOMAN MUST HAVE AN ENFORCED PREGNANCY against her will !
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@Carlyle T. Indeed! If men could get pregnant there would be more abortion clinics than gas stations.
9
What about all the women who vote against abortion rights?
1
@Carlyle T. If only every man who impregnates a woman, or every state that probibits abortions, were statutorily obligated to pay to raise a child born to a mother denied an abortion, there'd be more abortion clinics than Starbucks and cellphone stores combined.
4
Amazing how much conservative Christians who have lost the battle of the pulpit, and now seek government implementation of their beliefs, have passed a law in their state so that it can eventually change the law of all 50 states.
Let's pass a law that states that if you call yourself a Christian, you must only follow the New Testament of the Bible, and cannot use the Jewish bible to apply your views on others.
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@Mike
The 4 Abrahamics are a tangled internecine mess, inseparable from each other.
1
I wonder how Senator Susan Collins is feeling at the moment?
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@Fiona Senior
I heard she's writing a strongly worded letter and is sending directly to her drafts folder.
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@Fiona Senior - I don't think she has ever felt anything beyond her own self interest.
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@Fiona Senior
She is a politician and a wealthy multimillionaire and a Republican. In other words, she does not care. She does not care that young mothers will be left to bleed to death in cheap motel rooms by untrained profiteering abortionists. She does not care that unwanted unplanned children will live in poverty and grow up to be criminals and social problems. She does not care about 15 year old girls whose lives will be ruined by pregnancy caused by rape. Collins has no feeling beyond her love of money and power. A pox on her, a traitor to womankind.
25
People may surprised to learn that there will be a lotr of support, even among Democrats, for the idea of "...chipping away at abortion rights....".
Lots of people are not totally comfortable with the apparent identity of interest between Planned {Parenthood, whatever name NARAL now calls itself and the Democratic party.
3
@Lefthalfbach That support would end if it would affect rich, white couples who deliberately destroy embryos that are genetically defective or are the wrong sex. Let the first brave politician suggest that IVF clinics should allow frozen embryos to be bought.
1
I'm not comfortable with the identity of interests between the Republicans and organized white nationalists, but what are you going to do?
3
John Roberts is ready to declare that American women are property of the state.
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@Gene Eplee
John Roberts is a sane, if somewhat conservative, guy. He does not want to go down in History as the Chief who stood by while American Democracy was dismantled.
4
@Gene Eplee
Property of Big Money evangelicals and Vatican Inc.
All these corporate religious organizations get innumerable tax exemptions because?
3
There would be fewer unwanted pregnancies if the prescription and recreational use of Viagra was restricted.
20
I am so sick of hearing about this issue. I have always, and will always, support a woman’s right to choose. Polls consistently reveal that a solid majority of Americans support the right to choose. But am I wrong in thinking that the people who will be most impacted if abortion becomes illegal, are the ones least likely to exercise their right to vote?
As Noam Chomsky has said better than I can, Republicans lack the votes to support their pro business, pro wealthy policies, so they falsely adopt positions on hot button issues like abortion, gun rights, and immigration to motivate single issue voters to come out en masse and support them.
If you want abortions to remain legal, get out and support candidates who support your position. If you fail to do so, you will have nobody to blame but yourselves if abortion rights are restricted.
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@Kayemtee "Polls consistently reveal that a solid majority of Americans support the right to choose."
Pretending that the polls actually show an accurate representation of American demographics at large, they are always taken out of context when reported on.
If I respond to a poll saying that yes, I'm OK with abortion when the mother's life is in danger, then I immediately get put into the "pro-choice" bucket when the poll gets reported on, when I'm "pro-life" in every other area of the debate.
3
@Kayemtee You have to look at the big picture. This plays out in a backdrop where states gerrymander their legislative districts and suppress people's ability to vote, especially poor people and people of color. The criminal justice system disproportionately impacts poor people and people of color, locking them up for years over marijuana possession or petty theft while white collar criminals get probation.
The common denominator in all these situations is: poor people and people of color will disproportionally suffer. The overlap is no coincidence.
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@Damien
Did you actually just now insult a 90+ years of research in the discipline of polling? Do you actually think poll researchers pay no attention to context? Do you actually think poll researchers pay no attention to wordings? Just how lazy do you think the researchers are to not even consider something so basic?
Here's an example for you: Reuters do their own polling. And if you search their database on abortion, they have 40+ polls on abortion and every single one of them have different wordings and questions, just to find people's general opinion on abortion. https://polling.reuters.com/#!search/abortion
FYI, here is an article from Smithsonian that, unlike what some people may believe, shows the current error rate in polls is at merely 2%: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/polls-are-still-accurate-they-were-75-years-ago-180968467/
31
Let's just petition for a law where all men in these states have to get a vasectomy at puberty. Then we won't have to worry about any woman getting pregnant.
16
Abortion will never be "legislated out of existence." Women that want an abortion will have one whether legal or not. Wire coat hangers - remember those days?
19
Anti-choice laws, along with draconian immigration and border policy, tariffs on imported goods, liberal gun laws, fight over who gets a SCOTUS seat, and the election of Trump as POTUS are all branches springing from the same root - the fight of white men to continue their social and economic dominance over the other 70% of the population.
28
Our country is becoming a sad backwater country. The chipping away of EVERYTHING is not sustainable.
Women are people. We are not incubators.
People who applaud these anti-choice efforts do not care one iota about babies. They just hate women and want to control our sexuality, our bodies, our future, our lives. We will not stand for this.
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@Anne Never forget that Trump's base is 65% Christian. They've exposed themselves as having a lust for power the likes of which we've never seen. Completely abandoning whatever scraps are left of their ethical and moral foundation. This is a gift to them from the least moral and ethical man to ever inhabit the Whitehouse.
9
@Anne
We've been out traveling around the SW, and a tour guide, a very nice older man, actually said out loud, that the biggest group being discriminated against were white, Christian men. I almost choked on my water, but didn't bother to start in.. If he was any indication, some of these guys (certainly not all men!) are utterly, completely, clueless about the world around them in 2019.
13
Lets start a movement to hold every male who impregnates any female who will be forced to carry a fetus against her will to be legally and financially responsible for the fetus and be held accountable for his sperm, even jail .
30
@Karen Rubin Yes, there is DNA available. How unfair to point fingers only at women, the only gender capable of the second half of the fertilization process. Not holding males accountable speaks volumes of their freedom from financial and paternal responsibilities, anatomity, and a get out of jail free card. Stop punishing only half of the unfortunate circumstance of who was present at conception.
1