Ms. Greenhouse,
As usual you write as if the "Right to Abortion" was
explicitly found in the Constitution.
And, as usual, when writing about Abortion,
you do not mention all the babies killed in the womb
via abortions.
Those who may respond: They human offspring in the womb
is not a person until they are born, should wonder what would
become of humanity if every non-person was aborted in the womb - after 100 years of 100% abortions.
I am in favor of Free Pre/Post Natal Care.
Paid Maternity/Paternity Care
Free Child Care
Adoptions whenever possible rather than Abortions.
1
Do oral surgeons also need admitting privileges?
8
Whereas I oppose abortion I vehemently support the woman involved to make up her own mind.
I wish that all politicians who oppose abortion get a clue that by witholding money for women and families with children thru whatever agency they dislike most that they are playing g-d with the lives of the same kids they keep from being aborted. By not helping poor families feed clothe and supply medical aid when needed.
4
Nothing about the Lawyers who represented? Or the Center for Reproductive Rights who were spearheaded BOTH of the cases you cited? Once again, NYT you have run a story/podcast without citing the individuals who have worked so tirelessly to ensure that all women continue to have access to their bodily autonomy. Honestly, shame on you.
2
While some groups here and abroad like to make the abortion debate about religious disagreements, make no mistake it's about controlling women for use as little better than breeding machines needed to produce cannon fodder and cheap workers. Until the human race evolves beyond the place where one half of the species seeks to control the biological choices of the other half, this will never change, overpopulation will continue, and climate change will get worse.
44
Well this is what happens when people don’t vote. These judges didn’t just magically appear they were appointed by people elected to office duh.
Just like voter suppression legislation was passed again by people elected to office witness the bigoted Tea Party movement in 2010 - voter turnout was pathetic and here’s where we end up.
5
Your argument would be more persuasive if instead of citing “only four patients needed hospitalization” from the Hope clinic, you included broader state and national statistics about hospitalizations and serious injuries due to abortion procedures. Also, it could be mentioned that even RBG, although she agreed with the outcome of Roe v Wade, has asserted that it was a mistake to hear the case at that time as it would have been less of a divisive issue if the question continued to be last to the states.
2
From the piece: "At the time he ruled in 2017, only four patients of the Shreveport-based Hope Clinic, which brought the case on behalf of its doctors and patients, had needed hospitalization during the 23 years the clinic had been providing some 3,000 abortions a year."
Perhaps the doctors who performed abortions in this clinic are skilled practitioners. What about incidences of hospitalization in the rest of the state? Perhaps those numbers are high, and could have provided the impetus for the law.
3
I fully expect this most ideological of bodies, staffed by justices specifically selected and appointed for their ideological purity, to decide such matters in the only way they can (accompanied, of course, by the smugness inherent in men convinced of their wisdom and rightness of view).
Surely, this can come as no surprise (notwithstanding Senator Collins's confidence in the then nominee Kavanaugh's glib answer that Roe v. Wade was a decided law) . . .
2
We continue to see abortion framed as “women’s health.” That is an attempt to downplay the implications of abortion. Now, I don’t think anyone should tell a woman what to do with her body, but at the same time we have to respect the rights of the yet to be born. Somewhere there is an acceptable position, such as no abortions after the first trimester, or something like that. But abortion is not a women’s health issue. Uterine cancer, cervical cancet, and so forth are women’s health issue. Let’s keep it straight.
5
@T Smith
"Now, I don’t think anyone should tell a woman what to do with her body,"
Cool. Stop there.
"...but at the same time we have to respect the rights of the yet to be born"
What rights?
The right to use my body? Nope. No one has that right.
"But abortion is not a women’s health issue."
Yes it is. Pregnancy impacts women's health. The ability to safely end a pregnancy directly impacts women's health.
You being upset about The Unborn(R) doesn't change that fact. Keep it straight.
24
On the issue of absolute bodily autonomy, “No one has a right to tell me what I can do with my body”, aren’t we all, men and women alike, legally constrained to some degree on what we can do with our bodies? I’m thinking illegal drugs, or drugs that need prescriptions, the illegality of prostitution, the practice of selling body parts, etc.
1
@Tom Smith.
Uterine and cervical cancer are not just women issues they impact society and families. Abortion is not just a female issue. It impact society and families
So why interfere with one and not another
How to we help cervical and uterine cancer. We find treatment, we develop vaccines, we invest in health care and research. We have insurance policies that can pay for care , lost wages
So how do we prevent abortions. We put anyone who performs, pays for, gives comfort to someone who wants an abortion IN JAIL. So how important is it to society. For those who want to decrease abortions help young people prevent pregnancy, feel as if they have hope of a present and a future. I guess that’s too much work. Must not be that important
Democratic administrations——->fewer abortions. There is a reason. Taking away rights is not the answer. The government should have no rights without responsibilities
There is a road to fewer abortions. Hate and oppression are not necessary. Valuing the mother first is important.
3
Opponents of Gorsuch and particularly Kavanaugh warned of their carefully crafted answers on Roe both respected the precedent established in the landmark case. The fear then as now undermining Roe via the paper cut route. Susan Collins grilled both came away convinced women's rights in safe hands.
I am not scapegoating Collins she focused the light on herself. She faces a stern challenge for another six years. Women might reconsider the wisdom of electing women unwed to their concerns.
3
The sooner that Americans accept that the Supreme Court is a partisan institution and that its GOP judges have no intention of even pretending to be neutral deciders of the law, the better.
We can fix this problem by limiting partisan pressures. The Senate should confirm some justices and the court itself should choose some of its members. The law should dictate that partisan affiliations (Republican and Democrat) of the judges are equal and, if there's an odd number of judges, the remaining judges are unaffiliated voters.
We need to expand the court's membership to 13. That would mean we'd have one justice for each federal appeals court (1st-11th and DC Circuits, Federal Circuit/Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces) instead of having some of the 9 justices covering more than one circuit as circuit justice. It also would recognize the growth in cases in the lower federal courts.
Justices should take senior status at age 70. This is not a breach of the Constitution's guarantee of life tenure because senior status is not retirement or forced resignation. The justices would retain their positions on the court but would be replaced in active service by a judge who is not in senior status, just as happens now on lower federal courts.
State court judges are often required to retire altogether at age 70, by the way.
Justices should be made to follow a code of ethics that Congress writes, just as other federal judges must.
And can we please have court sessions televised?
3
The rule requiring admitting privileges is completely unnecessary. The CMS recently got rid of a regulation that required surgeons practicing at ambulatory service centers to have admitting privileges at hospitals. In comments to the change in regulations, it was noted that EMTALA would require emergency admissions of patients from an ASC. The same reasoning applies to abortion clinics. Note that the change in CMS regulations is all part of the Trump administration’s desire for deregulation.
8
The only way to actually enforce an abortion ban would be to turn the US into a police state, on the order of Ceaușescu's Romania.
32
@Cal Sort of. But if you're not rich enough to travel several states away to get an abortion you want or, God forbid, need, a restriction is as good as a ban.
3
I recently learned that the history of abortion rights becoming a topic for the Christian Right is that they wanted to keep their tax free status as Christian Organizations and were seeking a topic that would generate controversy. I was sickened to hear this and pray to my spiritual guidance that the Christian $$$$$$$$$$$ people who initiated this waste are themselves wasted.
6
Greehouse is correct to suggest that we should not welcome any stance of "moderation" from the Justices on this or any case involving abortion. What we should hope for is that the Court will eventually overturn Roe because it rests on reading rights into the Constitution that are nowhere to be found in it. Instead of moderation let us see the Court act for truth and justice and do whatever it can to put up obstacles to abortion. Abortion is one of the great evils of our time, and any restriction to it should be celebrated.
3
@D We the People, authors of the Constitution, have the right to do everything that is not specifically prohibited. The writer incorrectly claims the reverse - that We the People have only the rights that are specifically enumerated, i.e., the writer is "reading *restrictions* into the Constitution that are nowhere to be found in it."
9
@emmemmkay Why, then, is the stated basis for Roe the "right to privacy" and not the more expansive principle that you mention, namely that we "have the right to do everything that is not specifically prohibited"? Do I have a Constitutional right to drive on whatever side of the road that I want to?
1
@emmemmkay ...
The Tenth Amendment specifically reserves those rights not enumerated to the States and The People, in that order.
The question really is when the States have a legitimate interest in the issue.
The States certainly have an interest in the taking of lives: Murder is illegal.
The Supreme Court in Roe has established that abortion is legal. But they chose, in their infinite wisdom, no to establish where the line between the private interest of the mother and the public interest of the State change places in the order of things.
Another commenter argued that the byproduct of a miscarriage is a fetus. But what if the fetus manages to live for a week? Is she still a fetus? Does she not deserve the protection of society?
Come now, let's get to the heart of the argument instead of flogging the emotional dog-whistling.
Making abortion illegal in a state or country restricts those who cannot go elsewhere to get one, to a place where they are not illegal or the law is not enforced. It just raises the price in money and time of an abortion, which does not stop or restrain those who have the money and time.
Removing the right of privacy in the case of abortion would restrain some of the people who can afford it; this could be done by refusing to prosecute or punish hackers who discover and reveal names, or permit lawsuits against them by private individuals. Pro-life hackers could then get to work, and their efforts would reduce not only abortion but also hypocrisy.
Most anti-abortion people want the ability to buy exceptions for themselves, their wives, offspring, or mistresses, and also to buy privacy about what they have bought so they can preserve their standing in their communities. So an attack on the privacy of abortions obtained anywhere has not arisen and will not arise.
Making poor people miserable and their lives more difficult is always popular and makes the non-poor feel virtuous.
6
Dear NYT:
Ms. Greenhouse has displayed her progressive bona fides in every aspect of her legal "analysis," and her extreme take on abortion rights is no surprise.
However, she is simply wrong that there is no "middle ground on abortion."
Indeed, Roe v Wade itself is a compromise, middle-ground landmark ruling that attempts to use a scientific viability standard to draw the most appropriate line between a woman's untrammeled right to control her own body, and the right of the State to intercede to protect the life of a viable fetus.
A very tough call, yes, but one that the vast majority of Americans support to this day.
Greenhouse pretends that conservative judges are the only folks out of touch (this includes extremists on both sides), but she ignores the philosophical underpinnings of our democratic experiment.
The notion of a sphere of privacy and autonomy, within which the individual's choices prevail, is not a new concept -- this is basic John Stuart Mill (a proto-feminist).
Roe is based in more than an "emanation," and the Constitution's silence on this modern medical procedure, based on a scientific assessment, should not be read to mean the Founders would approve or disapprove.
Greenhouse's repeated attempts to shame sitting justices on so many issues is a bit smarmy.
3
I thought the country was pretty much split evenly on the question of abortion. Thus the 40 year controversy.
Ms. Greenhouse complains that one of the judges has a " visceral dislike of abortion clinics and his deep suspicion of doctors who work in them." She doesn't acknowledge that millions of voters have the same attitude. She thinks they should have no say in the matter. But they do, and they vote for politicians who are willing to take on the abortion industry. That's why those laws were passed in Texas and Lousiana. It's called democracy, a word that appeared nowhere in her article.
23
@Charlesbalpha: Choice is a feature in democracy. If a person's belief is against abortion, that is fine, but do not block those who do not share that belief. This is, and has always been a personal decision. Let's keep it that way.
161
@Charlesbalpha Millions of voters may have the same attitude, but according to Pew Research Center, 6 in 10 Americans--in Congressional proceedings, this is called a "supermajority"--support a woman's right to obtain an abortion in all or most circumstances. As you say, it's called democracy, not tyranny of the minority.
123
@Charlesbalpha ……. Tyranny of the minority is a problem when it comes to abortion. In our republic it is okay for " the millions of voters " to have anti-abortions beliefs. Since Justice is " blind". It is not okay for a SCOTUS Justice to let his personal beliefs affect his decisions.
64
Roe is a policy decision completely unmoored from the text of the constitution. It overrode the democratic process and politicized the Court and the appointment process by usurping the power of the legislature. The Court assumed a policy role without the competence and flexibility needed to accommodate changing science and competing moral principles. Overruling the decision does not end abortion, it returns the issue to the legislatures where it belongs and will de-politicize the Court. A result that is good for us all. The Court is not the proper forum. I will support politicians who want to protect a women's right to choose.
11
@James Moloney: It is always the Conservatives who work hard to limit other people's rights especially if they are women, gays or non-white. By your views, the 13th Amendment is invalid since there was slavery when the Constitution was established.
15
@Jeff ...
It has nothing to do with limiting other peoples's rights.
The Constitution is quite clear that all other rights not specified are reserved to the Several States and to The People themselves.
That is what the Tenth Amendment holds.
It takes a great deal of mental and disingenuous gymnastics to turn the plain language reading of the Tenth, or any other clause in the Constitution to elevate abortion to a "constitutionally recognized" right
1
@The Owl
No gymnastics at all. The Constitution is quite clear that the enumerated rights are not the only ones. Go to the Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
8
Louisiana does not appear to have any problem with infant and maternal death, given their very high maternal mortality rate. They just want to eliminate any woman's choice concerning reproduction. That is really despicable. And this Supreme Court wants to facilitate that attitude.
13
I bought the idea over forty years ago of a woman's right to choose up to twelve weeks. The first trimester. I was also told of the women's right to terminate her pregnancy if her life was endanger because of her pregnancy. Even during birth it's her choice to decide between herself and her child. If she is not conscience, correct me if wrong, the choice goes to her husband or nearest family member.
I won't go along with the Progressives push for a new norm of 22 weeks. Neither will I go along infanticide where a child life is deemed non-viable by science and attending physicians even during birth when the mothers.
This country seems to be more and more not just in the hands of the 1% and their corporations, banks and Super PACS, but of strident minorities, who for religious and any number of harebrained reasons seek to impose their will on the overwhelming majority of Americans who do not agree with their stances on right to abortion, unlimited gun rights and anti-vaccination to name just a few. Unfortunately the Supreme Court now seems headed this way as well. Four more years of Trump and more extreme right wing judges and the tyranny of the minority will be firmly in place.
4
"...four decades of settled law..."
There is no such thing. Any law can be changed, even our Constitution.
6
For far too many Christians this life is far less important than the next.
Christianity, for many, has become a religion of fear and death rather than love and life as espoused by its namesake.
I am pro-life. I strongly support rights and protections for mothers and children, including prenatal children, as well as other vulnerable populations. I want to see the laws of this country protect these people as well. In my view, this makes me pro-life.
3
@HapinOregon
No one has the right to force their personal opinions on pregnant women. No one. That applies especially to men! How would you like it if we passed a law saying you couldn't have a vasectomy without your wife's permission? No one has the right to decide what to do, other than the pregnant woman herself. Not her husband. Not her parents. Not her doctor. ONLY her.
17
@Miss Dovey
Either I misrepresented myself, or you did. I am a firm believer in pro-choice.
What I meant to say was pre-natal care for ALL mothers, rich/poor or whatever, is also as essential as post-natal care.
Life is more than 270 days...
In case "other vulnerable populations" needs clarifying I mean anyone who is not a white Christian male.
3
@HapinOregon
Confusion is all too prominent, especially on fora such as these message boards, where you can't look someone in the eye and share a back and forth. I certainly did not "misrepresent" your comments purposely.
Thank you for clarifying your statement. And thank you for being a pro-woman man.
Perhaps in future, you would consider amending your language of "I am pro-life" and "prenatal children" to "I am pro-choice, and I also support life outside the womb" (kinda wonky, I know) and "zygote/embryo/fetus." "Prenatal children" and "unborn babies" is the language of the anti-woman movement. Like yourself, I consider myself pro-life; I mean, what's the opposite -- pro-death? It's absurd.
Take care, Dovey
2
To the pro-choice side, abortion is a simple medical procedure. To the pro-life side, abortion is murder.
In either case, the Supreme Court erred in the initial Roe decision, as both regulation of medical procedures and laws against murder have been, and should remain, within the purview of state law, not Federal.
2
I guess this was true in 1789 or so, but I think federal law has superceded many state laws in the interim
7
Robbiesimon,
This commenter stands by the statement that the pro life movement is expanding. I know because I take part and see this for my own eyes. I am correct. But you can believe whatever you want if it makes you feel better.
1
Eyes on Chief Justice John "Stare Decisis" Roberts. Remember his Senate confirmation hearings. He was all about respecting the precedent of established law. We'll see.
It's a shame Kavanaugh is even on the SCOTUS but at least he got there legitimately. Gorsuch did not and doesn't belong on the court.
7
Five justices of the Supreme Court are slaves of the Republican Party. They will do whatever the Republican Party wants them to do. Those five will overrule Roe vs. Wade, but will do so after the election so as not to anger all those pro-choice suburban women. They will also decide in favor of Trump and his administration on every issue Trump and his administration bring to them.
9
People are going to find out soon what it is like to live under the thumb of an ultra right wing, ultra religiously fundamentalist Supreme Court. And we will be under their thumb for DECADES. Sad. The vast majority of Americans did not want this kind of court ruling our lives.
13
Yes. Chief justice Roberts is always concerned with appearances. He wants his hard right, anti-women, anti -democracy agenda to appear to be reasonable. And it has worked. But more and more Americans realize that SCOTUS has become a tool of the very corrupt, very crazy Republican Party.
10
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable." (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops).
Consider this: If Roberts, Alito, Kavanaugh, Kennedy, or Thomas, all Catholics by belief, come to a decision that supports abortion rights for women, they will, by their own religious standards, be aiding and abetting the commitment of a "moral evil".
So how an one expect these judges to put their immortal souls in danger by supporting in any way a woman's right to make decisions concerning their her body? Good luck with expectations of an impartial decision on the part of these men, with an emphasis on "men".
6
Linda has stated her view: “There is not the shadow of a doubt that these laws were enacted not to protect women’s health, but to destroy the medical infrastructure that enables women to exercise their constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.”
Yes, not a shadow of doubt.
Beyond that, there is not a shadow of doubt that the restriction of abortion is a religious imposition violating the Constitution by forcing a particular religious belief upon everyone, regardless of their personal beliefs.
So where does that leave Roberts? Eh?
351
@John♻️Brews
Yeah, if he votes the wrong way he might get ex-communicated, just as Alioto might.
7
@Sam Song
In that case they might want to recuse themselves.
9
@John♻️Brews
Opposing KILLING a human being is not a religious imposition. It is a moral stand.
Some people believe human life begins at conception, and purposefully ending a pregnancy at any stage is murder. After all, what is being conceived?...A human being.
This is not a silly idea. If a fertilized egg is cared for and nurtured, it will likely grow to become an adult human (there are many hazards on that path). The embryo is simply a very early stage in the life of a human.
3
As long as those who believe in a woman’s right to control her own body do not directly confront the notion of full personhood at conception, theirs will be a losing battle.
I take my religious cue from Barbara Bush: “I could feel Robin’s soul enter her body when she took her first breath.” I will not allow my religious liberty to be infringed upon, never mind denied.
5
She didn’t take her first breath until she was born. That was not at conception.
22
@Mike Pod Barbara Bush was pro-choice. The sentence you quote ought to have told you that.
21
@Mike Pod So let's just infringe on tangible, physical liberties instead. I don't need to live my life based on the arbitrary rules of a magical being in the sky.
11
I fully believe that women should have control of their bodies, _especially_ at the point of conception. Absent coercion, abortion is the admission by a woman that she gave up control of her body to a man at some time x-weeks ago and has now changed her mind. Pregnancy is the consequence of forfeiting control of her body and suddenly this woman sees the consequence. Being confronted with the pregnancy she suddenly wants a 'mulligan'.... and a dead baby is the next consequence. Now we have abortion advocates arguing that "2 wrongs do make a right." Still doesn't work in any context. In discussions with others it was noted: "The argument that a woman can, by her actions, invite a child into her womb and then kill it because "It's my body," doesn't hold water. It's like arguing that you have the right to invite children into your home and then murder them because, "It's my house."'
2
@PSCT I am going to guess that this was written by a man. Because all women know that birth control can fail, that some pregnancies are not viable, that sometimes the mother's health is being compromised, or a million other reasons to end a pregnancy.
38
@PSCT contraception often fails. But the real issue is your fantastic notion that a woman “invites” an already existing child into her uterus. Where has this child been until he pops up in some flabbergasted woman’s body? Floating on the clouds in the company of angels? There is no baby until it is born; no child until it grows up; no human person until the brain develops to generate self-awareness. Conception is part of a long and complex biological process through which new individuals come to exist. Zygotes are not children.
32
@PSCT ,
Uh, no. Just no. The "invited" not-yet-child in her womb could easily kill HER. So it is HER decision. She shouldn't have to remain celibate.
23
It's obvious that "pro-life" people aren't really against abortion, since they consistently oppose sex education and birth control, which are known to prevent unwanted pregnancy. So what motivates them? I think it's their realization that other people are having sex and enjoying it.
17
This case is simple. If the court decides that the right to an abortion depends upon the reasonableness of that state's statute, the court is saying that abortion is not a constitutionally-protected right. We are back before Roe v. Wade when abortion rights were left to the discretion of each state's legislators.
5
@moschlaw Which is where it should be. I can think of no other area where the Federal government feels a need to override the individual State's authority to regulate medical procedures.
1
last time I looked the federal government regulates the availability of all drugs which I think affects medical procedures.
3
And is a perfect example of why the state has a right to control individual’s bodies.
Many religious people in America believe the soul enters the fetus very late in the gestation process. Abortion is not only not murder, it isn’t even death. The soul isn’t there to leave the fetus.
There is no contradiction in religious people supporting abortion.
6
C’s Daughter,
The Supreme Court approved of abortion in 1973. It is a matter of semantics but they did pass Roe V Wade in 1973 which has resulted in 60 million babies yes babies being aborted. As a pro life woman, this disturbs me greatly. Obviously, I see life differently than you do. I see these little creatures as having lots of value and worth. You do not. How very sad.
I am an active pro lifer who along with millions of others are trying to make a difference. We are succeeding and more people are coming over to our side than ever before. We will triumph and never give up this extremely important battle.
1
- What is sad is someone obsessed with religion - and abortion - and therefore desperate to try to tell others how to live, and what to believe.
- This commenter keeps saying that anti-abortion numbers are growing larger. Unfortunately for her, polls indicate no such thing.
(Gallup poll from 2019: 60% DON’T want Roe overturned.)
23
@KMW
No. You are wrong, again. Courts do not "pass" decisions. They rule on cases and issue opinions. It's not semantics, it's how our government works.
Obviously I see women differently than you do. I see women has having worth. You don't. Sad. You would torture them and discard their rights, tell them they have no value and deserve no autonomy, force them to gestate and birth their rapists' babies, force them to tear their genitals to give birth to unwanted children, all to satisfy your need to think you're saving pwecious cuddly baybies.
I also do not see a blastocyst (literally, you cannot see it, it is microscopic) as a "baby" because I believe that words have meanings.
11
@KMW: And what a convenient group of people (the unforn) to advocate for. They never make demands, they don't complain, or want money or education. You can feel good about yourself without any actual work of relationships, caring, etc. You can advocate for them without changing your own wealth, power, or privilege. Of course when they cease to be unborn, you forget about them.
13
The Louisiana bill seems appropriately named, since it appears to protect unsafe abortion at the expense of sound medical practice.
5
@Gary Roz
I had the same thought.
Magicisnotreal,
You do not say “I am expecting an embryo or fetus.” You tell people you are expecting a baby. I repeat. IT IS A BABY.
1
@KMW
Embryo is defined as the entity existing from the 2nd to 8th week after fertilization of the egg. No more an independent being than ones appendix. Not YET a baby.
A fetus cannot survive independently until after 23 weeks gestation.
The debate has always involved a balancing between the State's right to preserve the potential for life and the woman's right to privacy.
Most folks come down, like me, on the side of abortion being made safe, legal and rare.
Frankly, I would like to see folks like you worried more about helping ensure resources for poor women who elect to follow through and give birth, than condemning women who resort to abortion after a crisis pregnancy.
18
@KMW, most people say "I'm pregnant". And all babies, ever, have already been born.
13
That’s because they expect that it will be born.
8
Alito and his three colleagues are owned by anti-abortion goons - they are men who didnot and never will get pregnant either by choice or rape and they do not think that will happen to their granddaughters or ven great granddaughters. The Pay masters come first. Roberts needs to take the bold step, away from the radical Christian evangelical/catholic agenda and do the right thing. He does not owe anything to Trump or
4
I'm more worried about the upcoming decision on the electoral college. Would love to read Ms. Greenhouse's take on it:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/faithless-electors/607831/
1
I haven't got a side in these cases, but I have to point out the irony of Linda Greenhouse, of all people, deploring the possibility of the lawyers on the Supreme Court "behav[ing] like politicians."
Greenhouse's life's work has been to politicize the Supreme Court.
She got what she wished for, and now she is posing as being above politics. It won't wash.
5
I do t understand why it takes this much writing to give the opinion you have. Abortion is a womens right to choose. Period. All your textual preamble is simply noise. Bullet the case issues and refute the egregious bullets with facts putting those male chauvinist USSCJ on notice that their biased and cannot be trusted to pass unbiased judgements based on the facts. Beyond that states rights cannot infringe on individual liberty,and rights. Thats is what the SCOTUS is there for
6
The GOP leadership’s middle ground (you know, not the pick-up truck and guns part of the GOP) is this: abortions allowed in blue states so that those heathens can all have them if they want them, and monied women in red states can just go there when THEY want them.
5
Not until the day when abominable, hypocritical "conservative" males are faced with a mandatory law written by women to submit themselves to a non-consensual vasectomy procedure, or even better, a severence of their genitalia, should they have any voice in legislating or ruling on a woman's health issue.
9
Misogynist sneaks hiding behind Lady Justice.
Typical republicans. Lie to your face and smile there Mr. Roberts
Need more Linda Greenhouse.
5
There is a middle ground and all of Italy, Germany and France have it as does India. Abortion by choice is legal for 10-12 weeks. Abortion after that requires an emergency certified by two physicians.
As long as pro-choicers like you stick to hardline "MyRightMyDecision, there CAN be no compromise.
The compromise must be national and pro-choicers like you, as well as Christian pro-lifers have to accept and respect that compromise.
I do not see you Linda as respecting compromise. And as long as you do not, we will be wasting energy fighting these battles over abortion while climate change and the coronavirus threaten us all.
2
@Ludwig
Roe and Casey are already compromised.
Practically speaking, access to health care is far too fragmented in this country for a 10-12 week abortion limit to be workable or ethical.
Not sure why you, a man, feel the need to chastise women for not "compromising" on our own rights enough.
What exactly are you giving up here?
19
Duh.
Weird thing. Have all these legal experts who are so high minded. Above the fray.
But Anglo American law has these things called fact finders. And in the Anglo American law the fact finders are not High Judges so high they are Justices and not mere Judges as a Supreme Court Justice was famously for snottily letting the ill learned attorney know that He Was Not A Judge But A Justice. Like a Justice of the Peace.
And in the Anglo American courts there is NO law without facts.
And the fact is that with four right wing Roman Catholic judges and one fellow traveler trained the same way and belonging to the same sect who make up facts as suits their politics
the fix is in.
For pity’s now sake every one of those five—in fact—was appointed on the assurance that their votes could be counted on to meet the politics of the republican right. Not like that traitor Souter who did his job. Judged.
The fact is the fix is in.
But somehow the legal experts don’t know how to fact find and are themselves too grand to stoop to facts.
To calling balls and strikes. And throwing out head hunting pitchers.
The right wing Roman Catholics have made themselves the fact finders and now they make up facts. They have been rigorously selected for just this anti judicial fascist trait. That is how they write the federalist society cult fictions in the educated man’s version of end times potboilers.
And in fact Greenhouse knows it but wont face it. Journalistic nullification.
4
how many "pro-birth" people here also voted for republicans who are dismantling services for children?
10
Whatever Brett Kavanaugh did or didn't do at 17, we know the types of assaults on women he is capable of as a man in his 50s who wears a black robe.
9
I’ve been a lifelong Democrat. But I agree with Lindsey Graham on the Kavanaugh fiasco.
Children in the US are treated like trash by Republican lawmakers. Have they no shame? (No, they don't.)
9
I don't see these "pro life" zealots adopting children, or rallying against locking kids in cages at the border, or rallying in favor of SNAP, food for poor families and kids. They are not pro-life; they are hypocrites.
16
Women are treated very badly in our Constitution. Not much has changed. We have a President who admits to sexually assaulting women and 2 SC justice who have sexually assaulted women.
It's time to pass the ERA and protect women like we did race after the civil war. Granted we have failed terribly to protect people based on race but at least we acknowledge that people have rights based on race in our Constitution.
The USA has been pretending we are something we aren't for a very long time. That doesn't mean we aren't redeemable.
The religious right is clear evidence that our species crawled out of the primordial slime. Let's start to evolve. Pass the ERA.
11
All male and Catholic Justices must recuse themselves from all cases related to abortion.
12
How do you hide murder? Yet 800 dead babies were found in a Catholic nursing home. 10 more to be investigated. I believe the nuns and the Vatican should be held up for second-degree murder. And according to Al Jazeera America the pope is the largest tax-exempt landowner in the world. So his cash is influential. But how do you hide murder: pro life.
Former justice Scalia wanted a doctor to circumvent abortions. But Scalia forgot. Planned Parenthood provides free condoms. Had the condoms been used in Ireland, no unwanted babies. And no abortions.
3
After the impeachably un-Constitutional stolen seat to insert Gorsuch on the Court, followed by the mind-boggling fiasco of the Kavanaugh hearings and appointment, I know of no one who respects this Court. Someone should start a Dilbert-like cartoon strip of this group so Americans can at least get a daily dose of dark humor about the banana republic we've become under Republican rule.
9
The SCOTUS now is Republican. Conservative is just a euphemism that must be dispensed with.
6
God has given human beings the power of choice. The Roman Church, and oddly the Evangelical churches of this era (it was not always so), wish to take choice away. Republicans have become ultra extremist in desiring to force one million young American women (mostly teenagers who have not finished their education, obtained jobs or left their parent's home), *each year,* to have one million unwanted babies they are not prepared to care for, raise, educate.
6
The pro-life [sic] crowd is almost exclusively the religious right who worship Conception as sacred.
We are well on our way to Christian/Catholic fundamentalist religious tyranny through the power of gaming secular law and pretending that abortion is harmful to women or that same-sex couples are disordered or that contraception is intrinsically evil.
Of course, when it's not mainstream religion or if it doesn't involve a large Christian corporation (Hobby Lobby), the courts can do the right thing. Just search the internet for "onionheads" and "hostile work environment", e.g.,
http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2020/03/court-upholds-18m-award-for-religiously.html
But that seems to be the exception, not the rule.
We need a bright line separation of church and state, not "play in the cracks".
7
Yet again. Break up the country into 4 or 5 countries
Let’s see Louisiana Arkansas Alabama Oklahoma etc survive without the fed tax dollars from blue states. Most women will leave and they can have the country they want
Don’t visit or vacation in any of these states. Put your discretionary income into blue states
10
@Mary M You might want to check as to which states disproportionately export food, staff the military, and provide the nation's energy.
A break up wouldn't necessarily be doom and gloom for "red" states.
Gov. Bobby Jindal declared “to make Louisiana the most pro-life state in the nation.”
Remember "pro-life" is a demonstrable lie. It is nothing but a right wing feel good marketing term. Don't use it! That allows them to control the conversation. What they are legislating for and what the result of it is Forced-Birth. Forced-Birth.
The truth is that what Jindal and others want “to make Louisiana the greatest Forced-Birth state in the nation” and after that to make the country follow suit where women are controlled and are forced to give birth.
You never hear of them forcing a medical procedure on men do you? One that could prevent abortions in the first place if they are so worried?
11
@Marie I like your comments. I’m at the point where I believe anyone who is pro-birth (KMW) is so brainwashed and completely narrow minded that they will never ever see the gray areas. At all. Especially some of the males commenting.
2
Based on the fictional middle ground of a 1973 Supreme Court decision?
I'm afraid Roe is as good as dead. It's no longer a matter of if Roe will be overturned, but when. If Trump gets to pick Ruth Bader Ginsburg's replacement, it's game over for what? Brown? Voting Rights Act? Wagner Act? ACA is definitely gone. Elections have consequences. https://madsociologistblog.com/2019/05/21/roe-is-as-good-as-dead/
2
@Michael Andoscia
I wish that Ginsburg had retired for a variety of different reasons, not least of which is her general refusal to hire black clerks.
But there's no telling which SC justice might retire or pass next. You just never know. She might be on the court six years from now..
RBG will probably retire on the first Wednesday in November if Biden gets elected.
The Court now accepts rationales that it knows are lies to justify regulations that impinge on freedom. E.g., the Muslim ban is not a Muslim ban, and the abortion ban is not an abortion ban. I suppose this comes from a President who doesn't know the difference between truth and fantasy and a cult that defends him.
5
We can only hope those individual Rights, guaranteed by our Constitution, will over-ride allowing any religious belief to rule our Nation!
4
I would be more convinced that Republicans care about babies if they weren’t constantly cutting SNAP and WIC. Instead they say, “If you can’t afford children, don’t have children.”
What they mean is, “If you can’t afford children, don’t have sex.”
As it is, it seems they believe in the sanctity of life from conception to the birth canal. The minute that infant takes its first breath, it becomes a parasite on the holy right of the rich to tax cuts.
This has Zero to do with life and everything to do with forcing other people to follow your religious beliefs about sex.
10
@JLW and of course they also mean that only women cannot have sex. Men can whenever they want, but with *gasp* hush hush- escorts. Because they don’t “count” as women in the eyes of the religious right.
1
I would think that doctors who work in outpatient clinics would strive to keep their patients from having to be admitted to the hospital. Clinic doctors don't take cases that would likely lead to a hospital admission. And one would want to be treated at a clinic by a doctor who doesn't send a lot of patients to the hospital later. But it seems that the hospitals will only grant admitting privileges to doctors who do a minimum number of cases at their hospital, thanks to our for-profit healthcare system. It really doesn't make sense.
3
They have a fictional middle ground on everything.
They are there to support Dear Leader.
Nothing more.
3
Linda Greenhouse covered the SCOTUS as a reporter for the NYT for decades. Since her transitition to pundit several years ago, it is quite clear that she has very liberal leanings. (Same thing with David Leonhardt, Frank Bruni, Tim Egan, and more NYT pundits)
Are we to believe that Ms Greenhouse and her colleagues were not liberals all along? Are the readers really believed to be so naive as not to notices this?
Of course, this comment will be censored by the "moderators". Their only role is to promote the views of liberals and to squelch all views that diverge in any way, shape or form. All part of the same corrupt enterprise, no different than Fox News or Breitbart.
1
@Mike James Even worse, Ms. Greenhouse is a woman!
6
One hopes lresitbiden will expand the court to include justice garland and undo the harm rethuglicans have done.
3
There is only one biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit procreative human gender with eggs, breasts, ovaries, a vagina and a uterus.
And the Founding American Fathers determined that gender was not divinely naturally created equal persons who owned property with certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Unless and until there is an Equal Rights Amendment misogyny and patriarchy will confiine, define and surround American female sexual, reproductive and health choices.
8
@Blackmamba , the thought that keeps me going is knowing that these icky white men will eventually die off and we’ll be left with young, vibrant, non religious people who will change this nation for the better.
3
This entire issue is political. It has nothing to do with women’s health, nor even what happens to an actual woman facing a crisis pregnancy.
Decades ago, demagogues sought an issue to motivate religious fundamentalists into a reliable political force. They found it in abortion. Everyone has an opinion, even males, who will never grapple with an unplanned pregnancy. It’s easy to be “pro life,” because all that it requires is judging young women. It allows people to feel morally superior.
I hope, one day, SCOTUS will help stop this insanity and place abortion decisions in the hands of women and their doctors, the only place they can ever belong.
But republicans will never willingly give up their effective wedge issue. They keep coming up with cruel variations on the theme—admitting privileges, heartbeats in embryos without a heart, requiring ultrasounds before abortion that require inserting probes in a woman’s vagina. On and on.
10
The larger, much more frightening “fictional middle ground” for this Supreme Court is that any middle ground at all even exists. Roberts as a swing vote is absurd — he’s another Trumpian Brownshirt in nonpartisan robery. This court is and will remain tipped toward fewer inalienable rights, less Federal intervention in states’ campaigns to disenfranchise minorities who can’t fight back, and, yes, finding a path toward making abortion difficult to offer.
This is why Democratic control of the Federal legislative should include a plan to review Kavanaugh’s testimony for his first Federal court nomination and, if its true that he lied to the Senate under oath, another plan to impeach him. Thomas is an embarrassment with a crazy wife, willingness to lie for an appointment makes him the scariest of them all. Gorsuch’s appointment will always be a Republican aberration, a sign of the GOP’s willingness to defy the Constitution and Senate precedents. But Kavanaugh, perhaps the most shameful of them all, is the only current justice who may be impeachable.
And to those who worry that impeaching a justice is a slippery slope, I point to the Trump-McConnell campaign to stack our courts against justice for all.
8
But there CAN be a middle ground!
At this time, there are many “pro-life” (which simply means anti-abortion) forces dedicated to denying a woman’s right to choose what happens in her body.
Concurrently, there are absolutists who insist on the right to an abortion at any time, for any reason. (And just to throw this tidbit out — many of the people insisting on abortion in the third trimester are the same people who decry the religious or health practice of male circumcision; kill a fetus, protect a penis).
Anti-abortionists have their own agenda (perhaps they think it’s their entree to Heaven), while having an abortion at 20 weeks, close to the point where a fetus can live outside the womb, is really crossing into a very questionable category.
Can’t people arrive at a compromise, say, unrestricted abortion in the first trimester; anything after that only for the safety of the woman’s life?
1
@David G
There is no compromise with anti-abortion forces because they believe "life" begins at conception. Thus, any termination after that is considered murder to them, regardless of viability outside the womb.
7
@David G
Giving into these people will only encourage them to try to ban effective contraception, then who knows what else? Limit women's travel? Remove pregnancy testing kits and plan B from sale to the public?
1
The irony here is that those who most fervently oppose abortion are the first to complain of government intrusion regarding seat belts, motorcycle helmets, health care, product safety standards and on and on. This is almost always a challenging decision. Please allow women the dignity to make it for themselves.
7
The male Catholic justices should recuse themselves from the case. Their predisposed prejudice against women is well established in the church.
However the Supreme Court rules, it has a long way to go to restore its integrity. Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Thomas have no credibility.
6
Repubs are basically hard hearted people who don't believe in helping other less fortunate. The downtrodden are that way because of their own fault and lazy. Anti abortionism is a way to project a caring image for those who actually don't care.
6
Any Bernie supporters reading this?! Because, without your votes, we, older-Moderate-Democrats can’t defeat Trump! I’ve been reading comments and tweets for days from Bernie’s supporters threatening not to vote IF Biden doesn’t embrace their agenda. Well, Trump’s SCOTUS got TWO conservatives because in 2016 Bernie’s supporters didn’t vote! Choice is endangered. Then there is addressing the Climate CRISIS! Without a solid voter turnout, Trump wins! Everyone okay with this?! I am not! Vote Blue for America!
9
@Mari
Bernie's voters voted at a higher rate for Clinton than Clinton's supporters voted for Obama. If Biden doesn't win against Trump, the fault will be Biden's, not Bernie's.
Bernie couldn't generate the youth turnout he needed for his own campaign and you are all set to blame him if he's unable to do so for Biden's?
That doesn't seem fair.
1
Some jurists accept settled law. Others do not. Some jurists recognize that cultural norms evolve and in time such norms must be honored and protected by constitutional and statutory law.
Others, with revanchist views, continuously fight a rear guard action using constitutional arguments and judicial power to reverse cultural revolutionary principles that are now normative.
William Buckley, founding editor of National Review, enunciated the political principle of conservatism best:
We (the editors of National Review) see , “ A conservative (as) someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”[Wikiquotes]
Will this Supreme Court fanatically “redouble it’s efforts (to ban abortion) when it has lost sight of its constitutional responsibility?” Only John Roberts knows for sure.
3
Gov. Bobby Jindal is the most bogus anti-abortion convert catholic I have come across; his interest is electoral votes politics for winning elections. He is a born Hindu Piyush Jindal of immigrant parents from India; The majoriry Indian culture and policy freely permits abortions without meddling on religion grounds and also actively promotes contraception to help poor to keep families small and invest in educating children for better future. As Indian American I just can not understand anti-abortion politics of the USA.
8
Don't you know that it doesn't matter whether we "call out" the Supreme Court for their bad decisions? It is an unelected body filled with right-wing zealots at this point...
Buttigieg had it right-- expand the Court to 30 members. Have the American Bar Association nominate them, and give the Republicans and Democrats 10 vetos each. Let's have a court that is truly non-political, where decisions don't depend on the mood of whoever happens to be the current swing vote. Term limits of, say, 15 years would be good too. Enough already!
6
@Miker
Term limits for federal judges would require a constitutional amendment. That's unlikely, to say the least. As long as the court swung left NOBODY on the left wanted term limits or an expanded court.
You can't imagine that people on the right haven't noticed those things.
Thanks for the article. I would simply add that to ignore the influence of the Federalist Society and their extremist activist leader Leonard Leo and the agenda of the Catholic church in these matters is a dangerous ignorance.
The agenda of the Federalist Society, in my opinion, is to employ divide and conquer tactics on wedge issues such as abortion and is also leveraging the nexus between members of groups like the Knights of Malta and Bilderbergs and those interests among the nations most concentrated wealth converge.
This is not a conspiracy "theory." That there are 5 male members of the Federalist Society on the Supreme Court and that the activist leader of the the Federalist Society most responsibility for this fact is a Knight of Malta, the sovereign and militant branch of the Catholic Church of Rome are facts. The membership list of the donors to the Federalist Society and of the Knights of Malta should be investigated deeply. They are held in ever greater secrecy. Why you may ask?
If we had more investigative reporters, which is counter to the agenda of this same nexus, as is the truth, we might know the answers.
4
@Tom Paine
Talking about a "Catholic agenda" in this aspect because there are Catholics on the court is just as biased as talking about a "Jewish agenda" because there are Jews on the court, who also vote pretty consistently one way.
Let's leave people's religious affiliations out of it.
1
Why is no one arguing that what we have here is dishonest Catholic (or reared Catholic) justices incrementally enacting church doctrine via Court decisions? For instance, Alito’s hatred of abortion clinics seems rooted in his Catholicism, and he is unable to intellectually distance himself from his upbringing to apply established Supreme Court precedent. This is the danger of the four conservative Associate Justices—that they are moving the Court in the direction of supporting a theocratic state. Only Roberts (at times) stands in their way.
14
Clare,
60 million babies have died since roe v Wade. Doesn’t that bother you that so many lives have been lost to abortion? We saw a dramatic rise in the number of abortions performed after the legalization of abortion. This was a terrible law that was passed by the Supreme Court. What were they thinking. Life matters at all stages even those in the mother’s womb.
2
- Definition of “baby”: a very young child, especially one newly or recently born.
- There wouldn’t have been an additional 60 million births had Roe not happened. There would have been - as women made progress in moving toward equality with men - increasing numbers of illegal abortions; more states legalizing abortion; and more travel to safe states.
- What were they thinking? They were thinking women and girls dying from illegal abortions was a tragedy.
- “Life matters at all stages...” Anti-abortion activists say this, but in practice their concern for “life” begins at conception and ends at birth.
10
@KMW
Oh boo hoo. A bunch of non-sentient organisms that have no relationships, dreams, values, hopes, goals, memories, experiences, emotions, wishes, thoughts, feelings, perceptive ability -- all the things that truly make us human--have died.
In exchange, women get human rights. That's a fine trade off to me.
PS- the Supreme Court doesn't pass laws. I'm surprised you don't know this considering how obsessed you are with panty-sniffing (I mean... being "anti-abortion").
9
@KMW
Not one single "baby" has died in an abortion at any time ever in the history of abortion. Which is to say the history of the human race.
6
Why is it we do not hear about the liberal justices on the Supreme Court who favor abortion rights? It is always the conservative justices who are criticized for their views on pro life. They are following the constitution and abortion was never mentioned.
13
@KMW
It isn't "pro-life" it is Forced-Birth.
That is the goal. That is the result. Call it what it is. Forced-Birth.
54
“Why is it we do not hear about the liberal justices on the Supreme Court who favor abortion rights?”
Perhaps because justices who have supported abortion rights (Roe was decided 7-2) care about freedom; want to prevent women and girls from dying from illegal abortions; and believe in following Court precedent.
Whereas the five right-wingers currently on the court (practicing Catholics or born as Catholics) wish to force their religion on society.
“They are following the constitution and abortion was never mentioned.”
I’m not clear - if abortion was never mentioned how can they be following the constitution?
36
If abortion was never mentioned in the Constitution, why do you assume the founders meant for it to be illegal? In fact, abortion was a fairly common and legal procedure on the late 1700s.
143
No ethical MD can work in an abortion clinic; it’s been medical law for thousands of years that abortion is “harm” outside the scope of legitimate medical practice.
Roe is not, and never will be, “settled law”; no “constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy” exists, and not even a casual reader of the document could conclude otherwise. The idea of a COURT second-guessing a legislature on a matter of policy should appall anyone who cares about the appropriate role of the judiciary. That an Obama judge ruled in favor of abortionists should come as no surprise.
You’re right, though: there is no constitutional middle ground on abortion. The right simply does not exist. And the sooner we get the courts out of the business of writing abortion policy, the better off we – and the judiciary – will be.
3
@Michael
Infanticide was the rule until terminating a pregnancy preterm became possible. A fetus is a fetus not a human being. Thus the termination of a pregnancy which was done by a lot of very dangerous means over the span of time you imagine is not doing harm according to the Hippocratic oath. In fact there are many cases where harm will result to the mother if a pregnancy is not terminated.
BTW how many babies have you adopted from women who who could not raise them as they need to be?
5
@Michael
Credible citations to "medical law for thousands of years?"
(There has always been abortion. Duh. The "wisewomen" who had enough knowledge of botany to provide for women who needed/wanted abortion were called "witches" by those opposed to their work.)
The men who put wisewomen, midwives, granny women, et al. out of business in the 19th century refused to wash their hands between handling cadavers and handling women in childbirth. Result: puerperal fever.
Take a walk through a 19th-c. graveyard to note the number of young wives who were victims of what you call "legitimate medical practice." In short, educate yourself.
9
@Michael
"No ethical MD can work in an abortion clinic; it’s been medical law for thousands of years that abortion is “harm” outside the scope of legitimate medical practice."
LOL. Please cite me to this "medical law." Can I find that in a medical text book? The New England Journal of Medicine? Or is it a statute passed by the legislature?
Wait-- you said it's been medical law for thousands of years. Again, please cite this source. I'm so eager to see what you come up with.
10
No matter how much John Roberts may tell us to pay no attention to the men behind the curtain, it's a Republican court with a majority of lifelong, hardcore partisan Republicans who were put there by Republicans to carry out Republicans' bidding.
17
Any honest person whom has been alive during this decades long process of trying to reimpose religious tenets on us by law knows that is what is happening here.
The idea these people actually care about a fetus or a living baby infant toddler child or adult human being is a joke.
The only purpose behind these attempts to officially use religious standards in the US is the same purpose that religion has always been put to. The obtaining of and use of false power over people to control them for fun and profit.
I long for the days when reasonable adults were in most positions of authority. And the religious among them were humble about it.
10
To the "religious" anti abortion people I request they recognize Judaism's beliefs on abortion rights. Abortion in Judaism is permitted only if there is a direct threat to the mother. The fetus is subordinate to the mother because the fetus may be the cause of a life threatening condition, whether directly (toxemia) or indirectly (diabetes). Judaism recognizes psychiatric as well. If a pregnancy causes a woman to be suicidal there would be grounds for an abortion. Also the mother may have other children who will grow up without a mother and a husband left alone to care for the children. The vast majority of women are not proponents of abortions. Judaism recognizes there are times to abort a fetus. It is personal and a very private choice, not a legislative or governmental one. It is also a religious freedom right. The so called pro life folks need to realize nothing is black or white. There is a lot of grey in medical decisions. Remember one never knows what may happen to the women in their lives. Lastly I'm sure many politicians who claim to be "pro life" would send their daughters out of the country for an abortion if they became pregnant by a rapist or the daughters had sex with a boyfriend not approved of by their parent.
8
Religious people today who say that God wants every unborn baby to be born are attributing the accomplishments of science on to God. If God wanted every unborn baby to be born, the infant mortality rate would have been much, much lower than the 30 to 50 percent it was before science and vaccines came along.
Roe was decided by Supreme Court justices who had grown up before vaccines. Each of them had lost a brother or sister or known someone who did. They recognized that whatever “God’s Plan” was for humanity had nothing to do with saving the babies.
The anti-abortion movement is a secular movement not religious. It’s goals are to use the power of the state against women’s health choices. They use religious language to hide their secular goals.
Most Americans (who believe in the soul) believe the soul enters the fetus very late in the gestation process. Not only is abortion not murder, it isn’t even death, if you define death as when the soul leaves the body. There is no contradiction in religious people supporting abortion.
11
Underlying everything in conservative ideas about abortion is the conviction that women and women alone are responsible for getting pregnant. In their minds, this translates into the idea that pregnancy is women's "fault" and they should "pay for having had sex."
The "love" of the "unborn" is merely a patina.
18
Yes. "Clearly erroneous" is the standard. But going over the falls is the way to get attention.
Otherwise, Donald has all the fun.
The Supreme court is hemming and hawing around the issue of the right to an abortion. The Court could declare Louisiana's law unconstitutional because the state did not provide an adequate vehicle for doctors to meet its requirements. Access depends upon enough facilities available to do the abortions. That the state is phasing out facilities and not replacing them with better ones is obviously an attack on the right to have an abortion. Instead the court it seems is deliberately trying to appease conservatives by agreeing to outrageously restrictive laws in the hopes that the issue will just go away.
2
No one can predict what the Supreme Court will do, not even you, we can only guess.
Yes most likely it would chip away at Roe but not overturn it.
If liberals want to preserve the basic spirit of Roe they should run candidates (outside of big liberals states) in the three branches of gov't that are moderate progressives not liberal and get elected and nominate more Roe friendly justices in other words not identity/social engineering obsessed Neo cons like Hillary.
2
@Paul
Thank you for the advice mentat.
But I do not trust you. All party line sloganeering that runs from the trouble start hand.
Hmmmmmm
4
Oh, Linda, don't you realize that the current Supreme Court is now perfect? Well, maybe not as perfect as the truly perfect letter, or maybe not even the almost truly perfect Coronavirus response, but, you know, really pretty perfect. And, if that doesn't make you feel any better, remember that the thousand year Reich fell about 987 years short of its goal. Cold comfort.
1
When will Linda Greenhouse and other reporters on the SCOTUS do an investigation of the profound influence by Opus Dei on the Court? Time to reveal what she and other experts know.
(Fear of being accused of Catholic bashing keeps reporters at bay, imho. The few who have been given "unprecedented access" have been intimidated/seduced by the smooth leaders. That would include Chris Matthews and John Allen.)
8
Requiring admitting privileges is a way of “outing” the doctors at the clinic. Many of these doctors in these communities do their best to remain anonymous, fearing that they will be killed. This has nothing to do with making the abortion procedure safer.
13
Banker Biden is going to abandon women on this. He sold out everyone who ever relied on him, and he'll do it again. Crime bill, bankruptcy bill, wars, continuing those wars forever, all of it. This too.
3
@Mark Thomason
No true.
"Biden has said he would seek to codify Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that established women's abortion rights nationwide -- a move that could protect that right from mounting legal challenges from Republican-led states."
He was denied Holy Communion at a Catholic Church in South Carolina because of his pro-choice stance.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/29/politics/joe-biden-denied-communion-south-carolina-catholic-church/index.html
6
@Mark Thomason: Biden is brainwashed Catholic.
1
I am reading a splendid Supreme Court history by Adam Cohen, Supreme Inequality. He makes an important point bearing on this issue. His basic thesis is that the Supreme Court during the last 50 years has consistently sided with wealth and corporate power, deciding essentially all economic questions, and social questions bearing on the economy, in favor of the powers that be. He notes, however, that on social issues like abortion it has not pursued the same path. That fact, along with the Chief Justice's desire to preserve the Court's status, offers a sliver of hope.
3
"...only four patients of the Shreveport-based Hope Clinic, which brought the case on behalf of its doctors and patients, had needed hospitalization during the 23 years the clinic had been providing some 3,000 abortions a year."
3,000 x 23 = 69,000
4 complications out of approximately 69,000 cases.
10
@Tom Walker Perhaps we need to compare complications from other procedures that are far more likely to need hospitalizations. Perhaps the comparison would shed some light on their disingenuous stance on abortion safety.
4
@Kathryn Ranieri
What are the stats on dental/orthodontic/oral surgery complications?
4
@magicisnotreal Just mortality stats for women in childbirth or recognition of the danger that pregnancy can pose for many women throughout their lives would be enough you would think.
2
The great irony is that the Supreme Court's decisions on Second Amendment rights and Roe v. Wade are based on the same underlying Constitutional principle in which a person has a basic right to own a gun, and a woman has a basic right to have an abortion, but that government can nevertheless pass laws regulating guns and abortion, as long as those laws don't place undue burdens on the ability of someone to own a gun or have an abortion that serve as de facto bans.
4
Roe v. Wade was a big compromise. A so-called compromise now from this court in this context would be extremist. Greenhouse is right.
12
Louisiana is one of the least safe places in America to have a baby already. Perhaps instead of focusing on abortion Louisiana should focus on infant mortality, maternal death rates, and basing healthcare decisions on providing competent care rather than religious beliefs.
38
No matter how the Supreme Court rules on abortion, the GOP's antediluvians are as helpless as King Canute trying to stop the tide. The latest Economist points out that abortions worldwide are "becoming safer and easier to obtain -- even where they are illegal." That's because women no longer have to rely on expensive abortion clinics to terminate their unwanted pregnancies; abortion pills are much cheaper, available over-the-counter in pharmacies just across the Mexican border and can even be ordered by mail. The Economist tells the story of a woman in Fort Worth who consulted a doctor online in Austria, paid him $90 and was sent seven abortion pills from India. Abortion is still illegal in 26 countries around the world but 27 more have recognized the futility of abortion bans and made it easier to get one. Even Catholic Ireland relaxed its prohibition when it realized that when you hae unreasonable laws, to quote one Irish doctor, "you merely drive people to find more creative solutions."
14
"Wouldn’t a state-specific win for Louisiana, one that left existing precedents on the books, represent a reprieve"
It would represent 48 more state-specific cases challenging abortion.
How many would abortion rights win?
Does 100% sound likely?
State specific means extensive litigation, and that means some losses. That is reality, not ideology. It is how courts work.
5
Many of the problems in the U.S. are fueled by the non-tax status of religions. You can rest-assured that if religions suddently had to pay into the system and have real skin in the game, many would drop off the face of the earth. Their meddling in the personal affairs of their fellow Americans and in politics would come to a poetically beautiful, long-overdue end.
Solution to the abortion issue: tax the churches and all the other non-profit organizations in the U.S. Force everyone to play by the same rules. Then perhaps they would actually have to spend their time worrying about themselves.
32
Thanks again to Senate Republicans for supporting Trumpover the Constitution and the rule of law.
Thanks to John Roberts for washing his hands of all responsibility to defend and support the Constitution and the rule of law.
And a big tip of the hat to FOX news for supporting a post truth world to maximize profits.
15
Just one more issue where an overly clever, and profoundly immoral reading of the law tries to limit the rights of the people, by the Republican party ( and this is an overwhelmingly Republican tactic and aim ).
In its implementation, it is similar to their approach to disenfranchising minority voters: unnecessary restrictions placed on select groups of people to limit their constitutional rights. It is the same type of twisted logic that said a Corporation is equivalent to an Individual, and could/should be able to contribute as much to a candidate of its choosing as it wished to. It is the same idea that says: if a person needs redress from a corporate policy or malfeasance he or she can go to court as an individual, but not as a member of a class action law suit.
This is the same Republican party that rails against liberal-interventionist judges who make laws instead of interpreting them, but then intervenes in the vote counting in a presidential election, and unilaterally throws the state and therefore the Presidency to the candidate of its choice.
I am tired of this hypocrisy. This where the real battle must be fought, so if the Sanders supporters want redress from the grievances they have against "the System", then let them go out in November and VOTE for Democrats-- imperfect as the individuals are. The courts and the state houses, was where Republicans were focused, NOT the presidency. You agonized over a president; they turned the law upside down.
15
This the game Conservatives have been playing for sometime now. They keep chipping away at the law till eventually it tumbles. This is why they don’t want any exclusions to the right to bear arms. They have been using this tactic against abortion successfully and do everything to insure liberals can’t use it against them. So pro-choice Americans need to pay attention and stop anymore erosion in their rights. You have to draw a line in the sand now and not except these rulings. Go after the Court if need be. These Conservative judges are now partisan hacks. Not at all interested in the law or the Constitution other than to misconstrue the words to fit their own beliefs. Once we bring Democracy back to the Senate and White House, we will need to bring the scales of justice back to the Supreme Court. Watch it Roberts we are coming for you and your fellow hacks.
8
Americans do not lose their basic rights by moving from one state to another, nor should they.
6
This is is beyond tiring for women to have to defend their right to do whatever they feel is right for them and their bodes. Like the old saying goes, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacred right.
21
@Sheila
All rights must be defended, or they will be lost.
2
The agency World Population Review currently puts Louisiana at number 48 in the U.S. for educational achievement (only Mississippi and W. Virginia are lower.) It's time to rethink this Union thing.
7
Abortion can be stopped today and it won’t take a SCOTUS decision. Put your money where your mouth is.. Try a $1,000.00 a month incentive to keep that baby, and shore up other infant and children programs. Additionally, enforcement of support from father’s for their children would be prudent. The Republicans talk a good game, but when it comes to funding and support for mothers and children they are MIA. Subsidies to the oil companies seem to be no problem, why not help for our most vulnerable citizens?
3
@Margaret Wasilewski ,
$1000/month would not be nearly enough. In many areas it wouldn't even cover child care to allow the mother to work.
8
@Margaret Wasilewski
Agree that republicans are filthy hypocrites on this issue, but this won't stop abortion.
Many women just don't want to be pregnant and there's no amount of money that will compensate them.
Or they don't want to have a baby with the sperm donor.
Also, raising a child costs more than $1,000/month.
6
Chief Justice Roberts is the Uriah Heep of SCOTUS, as evidenced by his assertion that there are no Obama judges, there are no Trump judges. Proof lies in his recent castigation of Senator Schumer while remaining silent when the Very Stable Genius attacked two of his Obama-appointed SCOTUS colleagues. Robert's public demeanor belies the wolf in sheep's clothing that is his true nature.
16
Alito who is troubled that he is seen as a homophobic bigot rather than being upset that he is one probably is equally upset that he is rightfully seen as a man with immense power who wants to intensify state terror in an effort to control women's sexual and reproductive lives.
12
Roe vs Wade was decided in 1973. This is 2020, the time and money people have spent fighting the ruling would have been better spent on the babies born in the 47 year span that were in need of nutrition, education and safe environments to live. Their lofty concern for an unborn is in stark contrast to the nurture a living baby and child requires. Their choice to deny medical care via Planned Parenthood to generations of women at clinics who received pre natal care, reproductive treatment, birth control, ( which I'm sure those opposed to abortion use themselves), is an American tragedy. Furthermore their stinginess regarding food, housing, Medical Care in the ever expanding birthrate among those who can least afford it is a travesty. Lose sleep over a fetus for 9 months but give those babies and children the stigma of burdens on society due to no fault of their own. What hyprocrisy, growing up Catholic in the 50's there was one other family in the school with over 4 children, most had 2. . Didn't take long for me to realize my parents and the King's had a active sex life and the rhythym method was a recipe for failure.
14
Surely the point here is not whether politicians are behaving like lawyers or lawyers like politicians but whoever they are, are trying to tell women what they should do with their bodies. It is a woman's right to decide what is best for her not the politicians or lawyers. America is supposed to be a 1st World country but is behaving like its still in the 18th century and treating women as 2nd class citizens who need to be told what to do by men. Its time to grow up America!
11
Five of SCOTUS (or six, as Gorsuch won't declare) are Roman Catholic. My fear is that this majority will embrace this opportunity to impose their adopted beliefs upon the entire nation.
18
If you're really pro-life, why aren't you protesting the two wars Americas's in ? How about the lack of medical care for so many of the otherwise disenfranchised ? The list goes on. Why aren't you actually HELPING anyone if you care so much about life ?
12
Two key issues before the Supreme Court should be considered together.
First is the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade and make it difficult, if not possible, to obtain abortions. This of course primarily affects poor women, as those who are well off can simply travel to another state.
Second is the effort to declare the ACA unconstitutional, denying affordable health care to millions of people. This again would primarily affect poor people, as those who are well off can afford private coverage.
Each attacks carefully considered and reasoned legal analysis. One has been in effect for many years, the other now for a number of years.
Will this Court deny health care to millions of people? Sadly, I think it will. The only reason is rigid right wing application of religious thinking. Once again to the Catholics on this Court, think twice about following religious doctrine in legal proceedings, and think again about whether the constitution allows states to force religious doctrines on people who do not voluntarily adopt them. The Catholics on the Court should think twice about how priests have treated children entrusted to their care, and how the Church has protected those priests. The existing precedent is based on law and has worked well. Do what you promised and leave that precedent intact. Otherwise, you are just more right wing liars.
10
One thing I can tell you about deeply religious people is that they are always willing to compromise. Another thing is that they bridle at irony.
Thank goodness Betsy DeVos is doing her best to destroy our public school system, where history is taught, because those with a sense of history don't see any legal arguments here. Rather, these cases are testing the integrity of a court system that has been constantly assailed for 50 years by people who believe that all of us should be subject to the rules of their religion.
In other countries, this is called Shari'a, and ironically it is disparaged and denounced by some of the very people who have brought this lawsuit and will continue to bring lawsuits until the Constitution kowtows to the Bible.
When you are confused at the sight of holier-than-thou Christians wearing MAGA hats, remember what single stroke of the pen will make American great again for them. They have put Satan in the White House in order to get their way, which makes them a less self-aware version of Faust, the way I see it.
19
Really wish this tiresome issue would go away, but it won't as long as it works so well for the right wing to motivate their angry know-nothing voters.
14
Pro-choice IS “the middle ground”, and the only Constitutional ground.
Nobody is forced to terminate a pregnancy, nor forced not to.
And the only argument against abortion is based on unprovable theology: of the existence of a “soul” and a point during gestation when it enters a fertilized egg/embryo/fetus...
Or the fouler theology of “original sin” holding women responsible for the outcome of their sexual behavior.
Since theology is not permitted as a basis for making law in the US, it is obvious that the middle ground is to make abortion a personal decision based, in part, on a pregnant woman’s religious beliefs. (If she decides to continue a pregnancy she holds religiously neutral, that’s not the law’s business either).
12
Carving out this exception and that, all the while narrowing people's options, is exactly the plan. It keeps abortion alive as am issue fore the right to campaign on. Voters' consciousness of the attack on freedom is minimal because it's always someone else's freedom. The real backlash to won't begin until the dog finally catches the bus, and the radical right doesn't want that.
09:00 EDT, 3/12
3
Do you mean that SCOTUS will ignore reality and render a political, hypocritical determination? What a surprise. While very wrong-headed, this Court is no different from that which has existed since the birth of our nation.
2
The author's cynicism about the Supreme Court is well founded.
6
Since Roe v. Wade, a majority of Supreme Court justices have pretended that the Constitution gives American women an ‘implied right” to an abortion based on an implied “right to privacy,” but the Constitution doesn’t imply rights. The Constitution is mute on abortion, as it is on most issues. because the founders opted to leave most issues to the states. Abortion was an issue when the Constitution was signed; it had been lawful in some colonies but unlawful in others. The Constitutional Convention delegates opted to leave the matter to the states, along with other pressing issues such as slavery.
Linda Greenhouse proclaims the Supreme Court would be wrong to “reject four decades of settled law,” but settled law doesn’t trump the Constitution. However, it is unlikely the court will strike down Roe v. Wade simply because the Constitution is mute on abortion. It is also mute on judicial review. The Constitution does not explicitly empower the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of congressional legislation; it is an “inferred” power. Supreme Court justices are not going to give up their power to pretend the Constitution says what they think it should say.
1
@William Case I will leave the interpretation of the Constitution to you and others who may have knowledge. What I will say is that if we are in one country, then laws should be effect across the country. This state's rights thing is all well and good during a debate, but I like to think that where I live is real and not easily changed, and that should not effect such important things as health and welfare. But here we are.
3
@newyorkerva
The Supreme Court probably won’t overturn Roe v. Wade, but will probably uphold the right of states to set abortion clinic standards. Advocates should react by conducting fundraisers to help clinics meet state-imposed standards.
Appalling and disturbing this article by the esteemed Linda Greenhouse on abortion. I've been a supporter of choice for women forever, seeing the choice from Margaret Sanger's eyes since reading her book describing her time as a nurse in poor areas in NYC. We've gone from wealthy matrons many who were Republicans to others like me in the 60s and on to the current religious embrace of the fetus. The GOP embraces this view rather than the child, and the stats from LA's maternal deaths, shocking, seem to bear this out.
11
If you want to control the Supreme Court, then Democrats need to stop running on social issues that divide the country 50/50 (therefore losing in the electoral college and the Senate) and start concentrating on economic issues where a majority of the country leans to the Left. Trump's base WANTS "free stuff" including universal healthcare, school for their children and roads and bridges that don't break their pickup truck. They don't want to share.
If Democrats would start concentrating on the 60% of the population that works for a wage, instead of trying to be the other party of the rich, while they divide workers on social issues, they would win more elections and pick more supreme court judges.
The Right waxes poetic about the virtues of Greed. The definition of Greed is the accumulation of free stuff. This is why red states get more in spending (oh the horror) from the federal government than they pay in taxes. McConnell is leader of the Senate because he brings back $2.50 for every dollar Kentucky pays to the Fed.
Trump will promise all things to all people. He will promise them free healthcare, while Biden calls it impossible!
The Democrats keep losing because they keep repeating Republican lies instead of explaining why they are lies. (Warren is an expert at popping lies.)
If you let the Republicans choose the topics we debate, and redefine the language that we use to debate, then Democrats lose before the debate begins. That is the history of the last 25 years.
9
Louisiana is 47th for maternal mortality.
Pregnant women (not someone seeking an abortion, JUST pregnant) are more likely to DIE in Louisiana than in most other states.
What is maternal mortality?
Maternal death is the death of a woman WHILE PREGNANT or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from ANY CAUSE RELATED to or aggravated by the PREGNANCY or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes. (from WHO)
This is not about "life". It's about withholding critical care from pregnant women. This is what happens when you attack abortion by DEFUNDING critical care that has nothing to do with abortion.
33
@Enjoy The Kitchen
And it's also about power, just to put it bluntly & most simply, The lame, transparent, & cynical excuse of "state's rights" notwithstanding, it's about government intrusion, telling people what they may, may not, & Damned Well BETTER do as far as their own self-determination.
"Party of small government," my Aunt Fanny....
3
Nothing will expose the rank absurdity of John Roberts’ insistence that the Supreme Court is apolitical better than a ruling for Louisiana in this case. After all, nothing has changed since Whole Women’s Health other than the makeup of the court. The question is whether Roberts is willing to see the fig leaf ripped off once and for all for the sake of additional abortion restrictions, or whether he’s got bigger goals in mind.
20
You know as well as anybody that the current Supreme Court is politicized, highly partisan; hence, without the credibility required for us, the people, to listen and acquiesce. And we haven't even mentioned the constant intent of religion to enter the fray, an abuse of sorts in a civil society, and the need to apply justice independent of whether we belong to a given faith...or not. The question is, how do we change this unjust state of affairs...so we can trust the Court's impartiality again. And speaking of abortion, let's hope it will remain women's choice, and keep it legal while expecting it to remain rare and safe.
14
It's astonishing that SCOTUS allows state government to madate lies and misinformation campains against a single class.
I certainly hope women don't beleive they have or will ever obtain equal rights in this country. It's a mans world and the men Trump appointed to SCOTUS are going to ensure it stays that way.
11
You know during the election of 2016 I came across a table of canvassers promoting social democracy and sure that Clinton and Trump were basically the same.
I pointed out that I worked for Bernie’s campaign and voted for him in the primary. But now at the general election between Clinton and Trump I was voting for Clinton. When I mentioned between the Gore election and Garland the right had effectively stolen two Supreme Court appointments. Meaning that for the rest of their lives and perhaps a large portion of their children’s lives the SCOTUS would be extremely conservative. Let alone all the Federal Court appointments.
I saw a few light bulbs go off. Other had a religious zealotry quality to them and saw no difference. And that frightens me. All or nothing often leaves us with nothing.
And the current brand of conservatism/libertarianism (these two terms are interchangeable) will leave far too many of us with nothing.
24
@Rob Brown
If large swaths of the population can't tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans, whose fault is that?
Whose job is it to communicate with the voters and explain the difference between the parties?
Who is supposed to explain that the Democrats have values that align with most people's values?
Who is supposed to argue passionately for policies that promote those values?
Who is supposed to explain why the Right is a danger to the Constitution and the Democrats protect it by implementing it
The Democrats keep running on not-losing, instead of running on their values and policies that promote those values. Then they LOSE:
14 out of the last 20 years in the House,
16 of the last 20 years in the Senate,
3/5 states (where election law is made), and,
3/5 presidential elections.
The combination of refusing to oppose Supply Side Economics, Unfettered Free Trade, wars based on lies, and deregulation that leads to financial crisis, but attacking the left just as viciously as the Right does has left a large majority of the country not knowing what the party stands for.
Biden sure isn't explaining the difference. He is still talking about reaching across the isle, even though every limb that has crossed the isle has been bitten off.
Republicans pretend they have values and win.
Democrats pretend they don't have values and lose.
Your values are not a liability to be jettisoned before the election. They are what get you elected.
Run on values not away from them.
3
The Fifth Circuit substituting it's own findings of fact is deeply troubling. It is the antithesis of how our entire State and Federal system of Justice is supposed to be. Facts are gathered at the trial level and reviewed by Appellate Courts. For the Supreme Court to ignore this gross deviation from normal appellate practice would open the floodgates to a new chapter in American jurisprudence. That issue alone should be sufficient to overturn the Fifth Circuit decision, obviating the need to assess the undue burden question.
28
Professor Greenhouse is correct that there is little room for compromise on such questions. A life in the womb is still a life.
Snuffing such life should not be an easy feat. There may be situations that can overcome the presumption in favor of life (remember the Declaration's statement in favor of "life"?), but there should not be a million such cases each year.
This is a genocide.
3
That argument would seem a lot more genuine if the "pro life" crowd would stop blocking things that actually reduce the number of abortions, such as public school sex education, availability of contraception, or initiatives to fight poverty.
39
Perhaps this commenter will provide evidence that Mr. Jefferson was thinking about fetuses when he wrote that phrase in the Declaration.
In any case, it seems unwise for anti-abortion activists to refer tomthat phrase.
Because if a woman or girl can be be forced to give birth she definitely doesn’t have liberty. And if that phrase matters, then all a woman or girl need do to get an abortion is say “I can’t pursue happiness if pregnant.”
21
@Robbiesimon Well said. I have thought the same thing. This is not about murder. This is about making the decision about what is going on INSIDE a woman's body. How what is going on will affect her mental and physical health. if this continues we will see laws just like the Handmaid's Tale, where a woman is revered only when she can become pregnant and then completely controlled by forces outside of her control. she won't be able to ride a horse, go for a run, rock climb or do anything that may harm the fetus inside her. Abortion opponents are only about control of women, nothing more, nothing less.
12
We need to stop the tax deduction for donations to religious entities.
Whilst the right try to defund planned parenthood - the left should defund organised religion.
The modern day Christian Right is to many people an offensive fundamentalist cult that has infiltrated mainstream politics for one purpose. To impose its cult on the rest of us..
96
Roe v Wade was a compromise already. It did not say abortion could be banned completely, nor allowed at all stages. No restrictions are allowed in the first trimester, some in the second, and complete ban is allowed in the third trimester, subject to the life and health of the mother. The religiose right simply has a general principal of not accepting any compromise on issues which involve their power (abortion is not really a religious issue; it is not mentioned in the Bible). The Republican Justices are more concerned with overall party power as it applies to big business rather than "social" matters, so some of them, in particular Roberts, may tend to avoid decisions that go to far or fast and might alienate large numbers of voters.
23
@skeptonomist: Abortion is a wedge issue to force theocracy on everyone. God's alleged opinion about anything cannot be respected by any law, according to the plain meaning of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". And "free exercise" of religion does not authorize forcing non-believers to participate in it.
3
@skeptonomist I believe that Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Roberts are devout Catholics and it does mean something to them.
1
Reading Ms. Greenhouse's columns on the Supreme Court is always a very sad experience these days, but it's a necessary one. She's always enlightening.
43
There is nothing moderate about this Supreme Court or any of it's rulings so there is no fear that the public will be pacified into thinking "the court tried." This is a legislative court on a mission for certain issues, voting suppression, stripping health care from millions of Americans, forcing women to be regulated by men in business and health care decisions, forcing workers and citizens to be unrepresented by either unions or the right to sue.
Unless Congress can change the law with term limits, how judges gain their positions, impeachment of justices or make some kind of regulation regarding ethics and conduct, this will continue to be a court focused on politics and not representation of the law.
32
@Terri The only thing of substance Congress can do is to expand the Supreme Court to make the opinions of any one justice less important. The number of justices is not in the Constitution. The other remidies you suggest are prohibited by the Constitution. I'd suggest a Court of perhaps 21 justices.
2
Requiring admitting privileges means that a woman who has a torn uterus from a botched abortion can seamlessly get the care she needs at a hospital before she bleeds to death trying to find an emergency room that has never seen her or her OB-GYN before. Of course requiring admitting privileges restricts access to abortion. But then again, so does requiring that an abortionist have an MD or DO degree. Why shouldn't RN's or midwives or doulas be permitted also to perform abortions? Think of how much easier it would be for women to exercise their constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy if we so expanded the pool of abortionists. One has to draw a line, and it is within the right of a democratically elected state legislature to do so.
5
@SHerman
No legislature has the right to tell any woman what she can do with her body. Emergency rooms treat people every day without having knowledge of the patient's medical history. Draw all the lines you want, friend, we're going to step right over them just as we've always done.
25
@SHerman If you believe admitting privileges laws have anything to do with patient safety, I have a bridge to sell you.
4
@SHerman The fact findings in this in this case make clear that it has nothing to do with your concerns.
3
I went through hospital credentialing many times. I was appalled by the information in the briefs and oral argument about credentialing.
If one believes the clinics, the credentialing process was used artificially to provide a roadblock against services. It was one among many gambits used by the "pro-life" faction to create artificially severe standards that could not be met.
If one believes the State, the clinics sere derelict in doing their own credentialing and quality assurance processes. The State said that those doctors hired by the clinics were not qualified, and with repeated failures of internal credentialing, it was within their authority to turn to capable organizations to do the credentialing. In their logic, what better organization than a regional hospital that already fulfills the standards of the Joint Commission. The State, itself, cannot do credentialing. Let's force a proxy into the situation.
Oral argument as well as the briefs confirmed that courts cannot understand medical issues, just as doctors can't understand complex legal issues. Courts don't have doctors to help with interpreting issues. The practical lesson of this case is that those engaged in protecting the right to choose must cleave to reasonable, precise, and effective standards in their practice of medicine. They cannot afford to be attacked on the basis of less than the absolute best practices. They have to be "sqeaky clean" in their dealings with the public.
5
@Jeff ,
You're from enlightened New England. Anyone's been south knows Dixie is anything but enlightened.
3
The piece furthers the false binary regarding the abortion issue. Four, not merely two, options exist. A person can be apathetic and be neither pro-life or pro-choice. A person can be pro-life to the exclusion of pro-choice. A person can be pro-choice to the exclusion of pro-life. Finally, a person can be be both pro-life and pro-choice: pro-choice legally and pro-choice morally and ethically.
In other words, we must respect a person's right to make a choice, but we need not respect the choice a person makes.
12
@David DeFazio The thing is, most of these descriptions have nothing to do with the options available to a woman seeking an abortion: they are about the inner feelings of a bystander. The woman in question is only interested in a binary: is abortion available, or not? There maybe be a spectrum between the extremes, relating to onerous regulations, or whether she has the resources to travel, and so on, but those two extremes define her options, and that is what court decisions are about.
29
@John Bergstrom Your response also furthers another false binary regarding the woman's choices. Three, not merely two, options exist. A woman can abort, a woman can give birth and raise the child and, finally, a woman can give birth and place the child for adoption.
@John Bergstrom There are options between the two extremes. Options that the Supreme Court tried to handle in the Roe v Wade scheme.
In response to a previous article about the case, a seemingly reasonable and intelligent commenter wrote, "We hope that the Supreme Court votes in favor of the pro-life position." Therein is the real issue. “The pro-life position.”
Unlike some social or political issues, abortion is ethically complex and I understand, while not agreeing with, a pro-life stance. It is not irrational, whether based on religion or another moral standard. But, as is trite but true, if one is against abortion on moral grounds, then don’t have one.
The Supreme Court’s role is to assess the constitutionality of statutes, not to apply a religious test based on their own beliefs or biases. As the commenter hoped, there is a dangerous possibility that the Court will take the pro-life position. They are not supposed to be pro-choice or pro-life. They take an oath to be pro-constitution.
The conservative justices certainly know that the law is intended to make legal abortions almost impossible for women, particularly poor women. If they uphold this religiously motivated charade rather than following the law it is a sign of moral bankruptcy and an offense to their constitutional duty.
66
@Barking Doggerel Couldn't the same argument then be applied to any other moral stance? For example, slavery. Your argument is not really different from that of proponents of slavery in the 19th century: "If one is against slavery on moral grounds, then don't have slaves." Of course, this wasn't acceptable to abolishonists who believed human lives were at stake and they had a moral imperitive to stand up for them. Many abolishonists even grounded their arguments in religion, though I think you would acknowledge that one must not be religious to oppose slavery on moral grounds. The same is true for abortion. It is a moral issue, not a religious one.
1
@Mari H No, it's categorically different. Slavery, by any moral standard, is an abomination. Abortion is more complex, with differing moral views along a continuum from cellular potential, to conception, to viability to birth.
Most objections are religious, not secular morality.
And slavery was outlawed. Abortion is legal. If pro-lifers wish to make their "morality" the law of the land, then so be it. But that won't happen because most Americans recognize the complexity and the importance of allowing women to control reproductive choices within limits established by law and policy.
My point was that the Courts have no legal argument to justify their religiously motivated "opinions." Their job is to consider constitutionality, not their private notion of morality.
14
@Mari H Slavery involves ownership of a born individual, free standing human being. First trimester abortion involves a woman not wanting, or not feeling able to gestate a blastula, zygote, embryo and then fetus with her own body fat, oxygen and bones. The most open-hearted part of me hopes for a day when all sexual intercourse will be 100% consensual and open to conception. The reality based part of me knows that sexual intercourse doesn't always or even generally work that way. Prior to Roe v. Wade, girls and women might be beaten, subjected to amateur attempts at pregnancy termination and, any iatrogenic injuries resulting from those attempts would likely go untreated to keep everything hidden. Pro-safe and legal first trimester abortion is pro-life. Reality check: very young traumatized rape victims might not manifest their own unplanned pregnancies until the second trimester. I will now go say a little secular prayer for the 11 year old Missouri girl whose father dropped her newborn off after she delivered her child in the family's bathtub.
11
I worked for many years as a labor and delivery nurse and we routinely accepted patients from out-lying areas whose doctors were unable to provide the specilized care that our high-risk facility offered. And those patients had doctors who did not have admitting privledges to our hospital. The same is true for almost any medical condition be it cardiac or neurological or orthopedic. Joan Rivers died as the result of a procedure done in her plastic surgeon's office. Has there been a rush to regulate plastic surgery or dermatology clinic?
81
@Hla3452 ,
Well technically Ms Rivers died due to complications of an endoscopy procedure to treat a throat hoarseness issue by an Ear, Nose and Throat team at an outpatient surgical center, but your general point is correct.
Despite Ms. Greenhouse's heated rhetoric about certain judge's dislike of abortion clinics and doctors, the Court will not (and cannot) outlaw abortion. The worst (or best, depending upon your perspective) outcome is that they could reverse Roe and say abortion is not constitutionally protected. Then it's back to the state legislatures to decide - which is where it should have been in the first place.
An issue as controversial as abortion, and one for which the Constitution is essentially silent, should be decided by the people through their elected representatives, not by 9 unelected judges who think they have the right to decide when human life begins.
In a related case, gun owners are suing to overturn a law limiting guns to no more than 10 rounds of ammunition, using a similar argument that it is an unreasonable restriction on their right to bear arms. Courts should be leery of overturning legislation unless it demonstrably infringes on a constitutional right.
1
Oh, and further as to your point: The Supreme Court could effectively outlaw abortion by holding a fetus is a human protected by the 14th Amendment application of most of the Bill of Rights to states. Doing so would effectively make abortion murder. Such a ruling is not sought in the Louisiana case, and is not likely, but it is the dream of extreme anti-abortion supporters.
10
@James Kidney a pregnancy is a long time, nine months. And the moral status of the fetus, and hopefully its legal rights change during these nine months.
What I would like from pro-choicers is an acknowledgement of and respect for these rights at some stage in the pregnancy.
I do not see that acknowledgement on the horizon. So the battle will continue.
1
“Heated rhetoric”? Whether one agrees or disagrees with Ms. Greenhouse, she tries, nearly always successfully, to apply logic, precedent and reason, all of which is refreshing in these days of name-calling and reflexive tribalism. One must reside in a very Victorian place to call her language “heated rhetoric.” For that, one need only look to other columnists on the website.
4
I am generally progressive, but am nervous about this full-throated support of abortion. Surely abortion is a bad option that should be a last resort. Interestingly Republicans have actually been worse at reducing demand. Why not all abandon this partisan fighting and come together to make abortion less in demand.
3
@Andrew—Because the issue isn’t really about whether a fertilized ovum is a person or whether fetuses have rights. This is a dispute about the place of women in society, particularly in relation to men. The way to make abortion less necessary is to have comprehensive sex education and easily accessible contraception. Yet, for some large segment of our population, comprehensive sex education and easily accessible contraception set women free, the way men have always been free. Women who can control their fertility without having to give up their sexuality are free to pursue their educations and seek places for themselves in the world beyond the home. They can explore their own sexuality the way men have always done without having to become dependent on a casual sex partner and to be rooted to pregnancy and child care if they don’t want to be. Without comprehensive sex education and easily accessible contraceptives, we ask women to trade the right to sexual pleasure men have always enjoyed for a place in the world. Restricting access to abortion is but one more way of trying to keep women in their place.
Gentlemen reading this comment, would you happily trade away your right to enjoy sex in order to make your way in the world?
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I started my career at the absolute height of the recession and had to supplement my salary with part time jobs. Very few weeks did I not work 60-70 hours in physically demanding trades. Partner this time-crunch and financial anxiety with your every-day anxieties and add a dash of increased distaste and distrust for sex and relationships amongst younger women (studies bear this out) and you might understand that some of us didn’t have much of a choice. I made my choices of course and I don’t blame anyone in particular besides myself but making your own way AND having fulfilling relationships (or just any relationship or casual sex) is not the turkey shoot that it was for my father, grandfathers and uncles. This is a necessary and important side-effect of women’s increased participation in the economy as far as I can tell and I would not have it any other way. Your question may better be addressed specifically to my older counter parts however.
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@Andrew Of course, what you advocate is exactly what Clinton did, to make "abortion safe, legal, and rare." To the so called "pro-life" advocates, this made absolutely no difference as their "full-throated" opposition to abortion under any circumstances continued. "Come together" how?
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Nonsense. Abortion arguments that live by "undue burden" can also die by "undue burden." What is "undue" in one place can be "due" in another. It matters not that the Louisiana law closely tracks the Texas law. The Casey analysis necessarily depends on circumstances, unique to each case. Even were the justices to apply Casey "undue burden" analysis, which many of them loathe, they are not bound by the Whole Woman's Health vs. Hellerstedt fact-dependent ruling.
Unfortunately this article - or perhaps it's mainly the title - confuses the discussion of abortion rights. The main argument is that laws requiring abortion doctors to have admitting rights are unequivocally anti-abortion. That part isn't confusing, and I agree with it. What is confusing is the suggestion - again, perhaps mainly in the title - that there is no middle ground possible on abortion. In fact, laws about abortion rights are full of issues, (which the writer and Times readers all know), about which one can seek middle ground, e.g., how late into the term should abortion be allowed? what about fetus viability? what about concerns for health of the mother? what about cases of incest and rape? what about severe birth defects detected in the fetus? etc. These are substantive aspects of the discussion, and consideration of them can lead to middle ground, which I think can be reasonable.
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@James
Middle ground arguments are a false flag designed to advance the anti-abortion position. Why? First of all, Roe v Wade is already a compromise. Second, the changes described as "compromise" always consist of weakening the pro-choice options, and yet (please pay attention) the anti-choice side never gives ground. Do you ever hear them say, if this compromise is reached we will STOP our opposition to remaining abortion provisions? No, you do not hear that and you will not hear that. That's why there is no compromise. For the anti-choice side, there is no compromise. They will not stop until abortion is eradicated, then they will begin weakening contraception.
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@Madeline Conant Thanks for your note. But I think unwillingness to find a reasoned middle ground is both wrong - I think some of this stuff merits compromise - and it weakens the cause for abortion rights over time, which we see happening. Abortion rights advocates are not helping themselves with their intransigence.
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@James
Dude, RvW (and Casey) *are* the middle ground. States can restrict abortion after viability and implement other restrictions tat advance a government interest and do not place an undue burden upon the right to abortion.
You have no business calling abortion rights advocates stubborn when you are completely uneducated on the legal/political landscape. Get to researching.
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How is that these republican legislators practice medicine without a license? Why doesn’t the AMA sue them for practicing without a license? They have demonstrated that these laws are not based on sound medical grounds but are religious based. It’s quack medicine, like snake oil sales were a hundred years ago, but the courts allow them to claim they are better suited to decide medical care than an actual doctor. I want in on this career, where I, with no medical background can make decisions about men’s health care. Why not force boys at the age of 10 to have a reversible vasectomy until they are 21, at which time they can commit to being ready, willing and able to provide for the needs of a child. Why do we allow boys/men to spill their seed without consequence while holding ladies responsible for unplanned pregnancies? It’s all about the power over women’s uterus. It’s our uterus and we want you to keep your hands off of it until such point you can prove you understand how it works and accept responsibility for your actions.
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Congratulations. You have just eviscerated all the ridiculous efforts to control women’s reproductive rights and our sexuality. Thanks for a forceful and effective comment.
Admitting privileges are unnecessary. If there’s a (truly rare) emergency, a woman can go to hospital, just like any other person, and be treated by hospital doctors.
But then, ultrasounds are also medically unnecessary for the majority of abortions, and to my surprise I’ve learned that this generation doesn’t even know this.
The pro-life crowd should focus on making abortion safe, legal and rare. Be Colorado (where the abortion rate plummeted when IUDs were provided free) not Texas (where it increased when Planned Parenthood was defunded).
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Linda, for an intelligent person, you can certainly distort your words and information. Do no call abortion "women's health." There is nothing "healthy" about aborting a perfectly healthy and normal pregnancy, which are the majority of abortions (I'm not talking about the few exceptions when a woman's life may be compromised). I may decide to cut off my finger because it has an unsightly mole, and if the hospital allows it I can do it with medical supervision, but there is nothing "healthy" about my choice. There is nothing "healthy" about abortion to the millions of women whose lives we removed from existence through the abortion procedure.
And while Louisiana may have a high maternal death rate, that is not directly a result of its access to abortion, as you imply by immediately quoting a Yale Law organization. Without question, the state should improve its access to healthcare, maternal health, preventive care and focus on the addressing the many issues surrounding the high rate of poverty in the state, but providing "health care" through abortion is not the overwhelming answer.
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Louisana’s high maternal mortality reflects that state’s distain for women and fear of giving us the right to control our bodies...the same distain that is driving the “admitting priveleges” charade. If you don’t like abortions, don’t get one ... and leave the rest of us alone.
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@Favs Talk about distortion, your remarks ignore some serious issues. There have been a large number of abortions since Roe. One way of looking at that number is to note that the right-to-life supporters have lost the argument many times over, and, in frustration, they have turned to the coercive power of the state to demand that it compel what they could not win through conversation. However, if women cannot have sovereignty over their bodies, they are denied the fruits of liberty guaranteed by the constitution. This would mean that if women are denied that right, they are truly second-class citizens to be sheltered by the state from making egregious decisions that the state abhors.
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@Favs
The article does not call abortion "women's health"; precisely the opposite.
The references to "women's health" are explicitly regarding the supposed virtue of the laws requiring admitting privileges: those laws are alleged to support "women's health", and this article argues that they will not contribute to it in any way, but would succeed in making many services (not just abortions) more difficult for many women to access.
But beyond that, you're argument that abortions are only rarely about a woman's health are simply incorrect. "Health" is never defined as "anything short of mortal danger"; almost all medical interventions include preventive and palliative elements, including the emotional well being of the patient, in consultation with their doctor (but not surprisingly, without consulting their neighbors.) In this case, you do not consider another citizen's decisions about their own health to be valid (you've decided that they are not actually concerned for their own health at all)... but thankfully, we as citizen's don't make those decisions for each other. Can you think of any instance where you'd allow your neighbor to decide what procedures you need for your own health? can you imagine your neighbor telling you that you and your doctor aren't really concerned about your own health at all... and going to great lengths to have the law insist on that point as well?
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And you wonder why 2nd Amendment advocates are unwilling to budge on gun restrictions. It’s a slippery slope that supporters of abortion and gun rights don’t want to step on.
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That’s glib, but misleading. There are far more regulations and restrictions already placed on abortion than on gun rights.
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These laws do not address an existing problem. This is why they are being opposed by every medical association starting with the AMA. Regarding admitting privileges, even if you are granted after an initial application you need to maintain a certain volume to keep them. Hospital admissions after an abortion are so rare, that these practitioners would fail to satisfy that requirement. In an era that more and more physicians depend on hospitalists to manage their patients in the hospital it is transparent what is the real purpose of this legislation.
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@Panagiotaropoulos I would add one word in your astute argument. "Hospital admissions after a LEGAL abortion are so rare ..."
In the days before Roe V Wade, all American hospitals had a "septic abortion ward" to care for the maimed and dying victims of back alley abortions. While accurate records were hard to find, it's estimated that up to a million women died each year as a result of botched attempts to terminate a pregnancy. Those wards and deaths disappeared after abortion services were legalized.
Every woman KNOWS if she is capable or able to create and raise another human being, a herculean task that represents a lifelong commitment. If states want to FORCE women to bear unwanted children, then they should also demand DNA testing be done to determine paternity and the father be forced to provide parenting duties and financial support for the life of the child and mother.
Somehow this never comes up with the so called "pro-life" people.
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The issue is: at what point does a fetus become a person, i.e. an entity protected by the law from being deliberately killed ? Reading the media we see the point of argument is from conception to birth. Those who raise sham issues like "the anti-abortion laws are for the safety of the women" only reinforce support for the women's rights side of the argument. To this writer, sad to say, if the Republicans (those who have no conscience about twisting the wording of the law) are against an issue, the issue must be good for society. When someone does not have the forthrightness to address the subject head on, but needs to resort to diversion in the attempt to get his way, can that person be trusted ? And doesn't that describe today's Republican party: avoid the real issue, argue about the wording.
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@eclectico
"The issue is: at what point does a fetus become a person, i.e. an entity protected by the law from being deliberately killed ? "
Wrong. Even if it was a person, it wouldn't have the right to use a woman's body.
Do you think that born people have the right to use women's bodies, even if necessary to sustain their lives?
8
Why is it that the Supreme Court even accepted this case, when it was so recently decided in Texas? And why is it so much easier to burden a woman's right to health services than it is to burden a man's right to own an arsenal of unnecessary guns? Are women's constitutional rights not as important or lasting as men's?
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@A.K.G.
I assume they accepted it so a 5-person majority could issue a different opinion. What other conclusion is possible.
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@Ken
None that I'm aware of. If ever there were prima facie proof of deliberate judicial intent, this would certainly seem to be it.
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@A.K.G.
Because they have a conservative majority and because they want to challenge the clinic/physicians' standing to bring lawsuits challenging abortion restrictions.
If they are successful in challenging that standing, it means that it will be very difficult to get these horrible laws enjoined/overturned.
What the 5th circuit did is called "judicial activism."
"Are women's constitutional rights not as important or lasting as men's?"
Obviously because too many people in this country fail to appreciate that women are fully human/entitled to a full suite of human rights.
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Abortion will not go away with a change of law like this. It will mean that women will have unsafe abortions by providers who don’t have a license. So it’s up to the woman then to go to the hospital afterward if she develops infection??
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@Kathy :
Not "women", but poor women. ONLY poor women. Rich women go elsewhere to do whatever with top doctors, with no legal consequences.
And, yes, poor women will go to the hospital should they have complications, possibly to face murder charges.
3
I'm wondering why any doctor licensed to practice medicine in the United States is NOT required to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
Personally, I wouldn't see a doctor that is unaffiliated.
It's just common sense.
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@The Owl
Because if your patient needs a hospital, any hospital will admit them. Doctors don't need 'admitting privileges' to send patients to the hospital. Admitting privileges may speed paperwork and increase coordination, but all hospitals coordinate with the patient's PCP regardless of admitting privileges.
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@The Owl I don't see why admitting privileges are not automatically granted. Maybe that should be a requirement to get any federal funds.
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@The Owl Just because they aren't affiliated with the nearby hospital does not mean that they are not affiliated with any hospital.
5
The religious right has been trying to impose their religious beliefs on everyone in the US for decades. The US Constitution says that the state cannot impose those religious beliefs on us. It’s time for the Supreme Court to recognize that abortion is a medical decision, and like reproductive medical decisions men make such as having a vasectomy, women have a right to make their own medical decisions without religious interference. Overturning abortion rights is the same as establishing a specific religious belief as law, violating the rights of millions of Americans who choose their Constitutional right to be free from a state religion.
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@Jackson But atheists don't impose their beliefs on anyone. We aren't passing any laws to oblige when to have abortions. Our point of view is "If you are against abortion, don't have one" but leave the rest of us alone.
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@jackson actually atheists don’t impose their beliefs on everyone else, they’re just practicing this country’s long standing tradition of separation of church and state. And as one who has worked in the field of reproductive healthcare, I know that birth control sometimes fails. I have seen many women choose to terminate pregnancies for a myriad of reasons; maternal health, unviable fetus, or just the plain fact that there’s a dearth of supportive services for a low income woman whose child IS carried to term - don’t hide under the moniker of “right to life” when you care more about an unborn fetus than you do about the families and children already on this earth. The hypocrisy is appalling.
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Abortion access is not a tenet of atheism. The equal rights of women is, though, and their right of control over their own bodies. This is in contrast to teachings of the Bible.
Significant numbers of self-describing "Christians" support abortion rights and many "Christian" women have chosen to have abortions for various reasons.
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The anti-sex component is part of the anti-woman (misogynistic) foundations of the “pro-life” movement. It is why the pro-life movement also fights against sex education in schools and fights against cheap, readily available birth control, despite robust evidence that both of these strategies can dramatically reduce abortions. De-funding Planned Parenthood profoundly impairs education, awareness and visibility of sex education in schools and cheap, readily-available birth control.
In short, de-funding Planned Parenthood will *cause more abortions* which should be seen as a huge loss to the pro-life proponents, not a win.
How can more abortions possibly be a win for pro-lifers?
Its only a win if reducing abortions isn’t the real goal at all. It can only be a win if the real goal is oppressing women by saddling them with children that the males will not be supporting.
In fact, I would suggest that if the pro-lifers really wanted to reduce abortions, their focus should be the males impregnating these women.
It is the pandemic frequency of males failing their parental responsibilities, their part in the conception process, which is the primary reason we are even having this discussion.
In America, men’s failure to be responsible for the children they create is so bad, so routine, we had to create an entire branch of the court system forcing men to contribute at least financially through child support.
And some people wonder why women are getting abortions?
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@SMcStormy
This is because--even though it takes both a male and a female to conceive a pregnancy--the so-called pro-life movement considers it appropriate to put the entire burden of the "irresponsible sex act" that produced the unwanted pregnancy on the woman.
Hence, I think one way to move the conversation--or at least expose the inherent misogyny in the "pro-life" position--is to raise the issue of "equal protection" to the legislature (when anti-abortion legislation is being considered) or the court (when a law or reg is being litigated).
If the legislature or court is willing to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term--with all the restrictions to her choices about her bodily integrity and how she wants to live her life--are they willing to impose comparable consequences on the biological father?
Are they willing to do whatever it takes to determine paternity in ANY pregnancy? Then, if the father is unwilling or unable to provide child support, incarcerate him into a state forced labor program, with the proceeds used to support his child? And then force a vasectomy on the man so that he can't father any more children when he is unable and/or unwilling to support one that he has already fathered?
Why is it OK for the state to invade a woman's bodily integrity and her freedom to live her life as she chooses--but the equally responsible man's bodily integrity and civil liberty remains unconstricted?
40
@SMcStormy Whatever the motives of people opposed to abortion (and I think many are sincerely opposed on religious grounds), I think one thing is clear. If the Court removes the Constitutional protection for abortion, the long reign of Republican politicians will quickly end. Women who thought the matter had been settled with Roe v Wade will come back into the streets, and there will be a non-violent but irresistible revolution.
7
@SMcStormy
Last I checked women are no less and no more responsible for the creation of new human beings than men are.
Women are quite capable of refusing to have sex with irresponsible men, or making sure that both parties are using birth control.
Responsibility. It's not just for men.
1
The so-called “pro-life” supporters are effectively anti-(life, woman, Women of Color, poor.)
First, life cannot be conceptualized as intrinsically infinitely valuable while cutting funds and services for children or that directly impact children’s welfare, care, education and upbringing. This would include school funding, governmental programs for parents, child protective services, etc.
Second, if life is intrinsically infinitely valuable, then if enough reliable, rigorous, peer-reviewed studies repeatedly indicate (and they have) that the best ways to prevent abortion is through robust sex education in schools and easy, readily-available birth control, then the “pro-life” movement should embrace and promote both vehemently. Of course, they don’t, quite to the contrary.
This proves, that the “pro-life” movement is not really about saving the lives of unborn children, but a culture war against women.
I have a grandchild whose father routinely quits his job and so no child support. Why isn’t he in jail if he’s not working? Why isn’t the sheriff out there watching and making sure he is mowing the lawn and fixing the house where his kid lives?
And how many times have I overheard some male lamenting his child support payments and the males hearing this nod in agreement at the gross unfairness of it all.
The “pro-lifers” should be spending at least half of their efforts targeting men for routinely failing their parental responsibilities, instead of virtually none.
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@SMcStormy Your belief that men are there to supply the money and mow the lawn is typical thinking of the radical feminists. Typically in a divorce court, the judge will award custody to the mother and a few days a month to the father and then impose extremely onerous support payments to the father. This type of anti male bias is practiced 100% of the time and no man ever gets a fair hearing in our courts. That's why millions of kids grow up without a father.
1
@lester ostroy
LOL "extremely onerous." Please. Citation needed. Are you aware that the woman who is doing the actual labor of raising the children in your scenario has to pay for their care, too?
"This type of anti male bias is practiced 100% of the time and no man ever gets a fair hearing in our courts."
That's, um, quite an absolute statement you've made there, Lester. One almost wonders if it's hysterical, overly-emotional hyperbole and not an actual statistic.
8
@lester ostroy /The demographics and mountains of available information, studies and evidence unequivocally refute your supposition and the handful of unfair situations that a few men experience.
Millions of kids grow up without a father because men, in general, are happy pressuring women into allowing the males to avoid wearing a condom but then must be forced by the courts to support the children they create. Many of these men end up paying child support to multiple mothers, which also refutes your claims.
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6
In this case the Supreme Court faces another test: will it remain a constitutional court, or continue its transition into the judicial wing of the Republican party? In the age of Trump, the smart money doesn't bet on the Constitution.
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@The Owl: You speak of "a court where the desired outcomes are predetermined, and the law bent to fit the circumstances." That describes what the Republican appointees to the high court have been doing at the behest of the conservative movement. But I'm sure you were thinking of something else...
17
@The Owl
Please tell me where in the Constitution it says money equals speech, or that there should be no regulation of spending in elections. Also, please tell me where in the Constitution it says business entities have freedom of religion rights just like people do.
If you honestly believe the current Court isn't bending laws to fit the circumstances of a desired right-wing outcome, I'm not sure you have been paying attention.
32
@The Owl
I take it that you are referring to the mythic “activist judges” that are a part of the GOP’s mantra of lies and falsehoods meant to confuse voters and obfuscate facts. Let’s all go back to the good, old days. Sure.
Thank you for this cogent overview. It is both horrifying and fascinating to witness the ways in which these most powerful men in the world use the full legal apparatus to justify their terror of the power of the female body to bring forth life and the desire of the female mind to determine the viability, medical and psychological, of that decision. Maybe this feels like a reverence for life, but these same folks aren’t exactly demanding comprehensive prenatal and birthing care for all American embryos, nor are they advocating comprehensive free childcare for babies. This battle will continue whatever this Court decides because it only appears to concern the law; it really concerns the cultural value of women.
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Now, full disclosure, I'm 100% pro-choice. But does anyone wonder why it's so difficult to get admitting privileges? Why aren't the Democrats - who LOVE the regulatory state - targeting that problem?
3
@RJ - "the Democrats - who LOVE the regulatory state"
said in response to a piece on how Republicans LOVE regulatory state power when it can be used to control those who they want to control and force women into birth and child care.
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@MegWright
You might also mention that the health services provided in a clinical setting are so routine and safe that hospitalization is rarely if ever needed.
9
@RJ
Those of us who have done 2 minutes of research on the issue don't wonder, because we understand what admitting privileges are and how they work, and also that abortion has an exceedingly low rate of complications. Why don't you do some research too and join the adults when you're finished?
It isn't a problem that most physicians who perform abortions don't have privileges.
4
Repeat several times: Louisiana is not a pro-life stater. It's an anti-abortion state. Of all 47 states that report maternal deaths, it's the absolute deadliest, and the legislature opposes all attempts to change that fact. Stillbirths are not reported but Louisiana might be number one there too, and certainly is among the worst.
I was born and bred in Louisiana and as a young man worked briefly for the state's Department of Child Welfare. It was horribly understaffed and funding was low to the point of cruelty. Although this is from some decades ago, I read that these things haven't changed. The next organization I joined, the United States Marine Corps, was much more caring.
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@Marvant Duhon: Well said, sir. Well said.
1
Ever since Bush v. Gore the Supreme Court has been overtly political. That is the entire story. And I do not see it changing in the near future.
59
Cosmetic surgery centers have higher complication rates than abortion clinics in Louisiana. Any effort to protect the public with new restrictions on those centers.
Of course not!
By the way in ANY medical emergency you will be admitted to ANY hospital emergency room. What does admitting privileges have to do with that?
Nothing!
Dishonest framing is dishonest framing.
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@SNP
You say, "dishonest framing." I say, "lies."
2
It is hard to believe that just a few years ago the Supreme Court did not act as the legal protection arm of extreme right-wingers. Due to the abortion issue, millions of Americans have moved to the right and anything less than making abortion completely illegal is seen by them as liberal. The next time you wonder how a GOP that is anti-science and anti-fact came to power, just remember abortion. The party hijacked this issue and it has brought win after win.
84
These are sad and disturbing times in this country. The pro life movement says they support women’s health but the facts betray that theory.
When will we wake up and support women? Religious fanatics that want to impose their rules on everyone but restricts individual freedom. There is no medical support for their requirement from hospital privileges. If the ability to have safe abortions is banned, I fear for women everywhere in this country.
Will the Supreme Court uphold the precedent? Not likely, I fear.
29
Ms. Greenhouse's column is, as is always the case, clear and concise. I am grateful to her and to this paper for publishing articles that require attentive reading and cover complex issues.
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Why is it that Supreme Court Justices only "behave as politicians" when they issue conservative rulings?
14
@Joe
Where did you read that? Not in this column, for sure.
It is or it isn’t. Agree?
10
@Joe
Ms. Greenhouse's point is not about conservative rulings, it's about following precedents. The Texas precedent is exactly the same as the Louisiana case, and therefore judges would ordinarily apply the Texas precedent to the Louisiana case.
On the rare occasions when justices do overrule precedents, it's supposed to be for legal reasons. Ms. Greenhouse's point is that if the court overrules the Texas precedent, it will be for the sole reason that Kavanaugh is more conservative than Kennedy - revealing that its rationale is political, not legal, no matter what words they use.
The same will be true, by the way, after President Biden appoints a justice to replace, say, Clarence Thomas.
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@Joe - I dunno. Perhaps it is because as the great Philosopher, Stephen Colbert, said, "Facts have a well-known liberal bias."
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