Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights per draft opinion (Update: Dobbs opinion official) (2 Viewers)

[LovesMusic7360]

Not long ago Kari Lake proclaimed Arizona's abortion law was a great law and wanted it the law of the state.

Now that she has gotten her way, she is lobbying for it to be repealed.

As I have been saying since 2022, the overwhelming vast majority of women aren't going to vote for the man who proudly boasts that he got rid of Roe V. Wade. Nor are those women going to vote for a forced birther politician.

Turns out, republican belief in "pro life" was all just lies to get votes. Who is surprised? I sure am not.

How many forced birthers will do the same about face?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/ka ... r-BB1ltx3I.

Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake is actively lobbying state lawmakers to overturn a 160-year-old law she once supported that bans abortion in almost all cases, a source with knowledge of her efforts told CNN.

 

[MT15]

Interesting,

If they can’t uncover the leaker we need to defund the NSA, and we all deserve a refund.

the NSA isn’t involved, it’s some sort of internal investigator. This is ridiculous. Maybe you are joking? It’s not national security, for cripe’s sake.

 

[MT15]

I didn’t realize this had happened, don’t know if she is correct in her assertion that it’s unusual:

 

[B4YOU]

Democrats control the Presidency, House, and Senate. If they care about this issue, then they would pass a law today. They won’t.

 

[superchuck500]

I would suggest reading this Twitter thread which has been retweeted by SCOTUS Blog.

That's very interesting - good find, thanks.

It continues to be the case that anyone making confident claims about who it was or wasn't is doing so based on nothing other than speculation through the lens of their own bias.

 

[superchuck500]

Democrats control the Presidency, House, and Senate. If they care about this issue, then they would pass a law today. They won’t.

Joe Manchin would beg to differ.

 

[superchuck500]

Interesting,

the NSA isn’t involved, it’s some sort of internal investigator. This is ridiculous. Maybe you are joking? It’s not national security, for cripe’s sake.

And from what I can tell (with a bit of research after our discussion yesterday) it isn't a federal crime - there's no federal statute or even regulation that applies here. It seems that it's one of those things left to tradition and protocol, but has never prompted the need for a statute.

If it isn't a crime, the investigation is left to the office or its oversight. The office is the Supreme Court, the high court of the federal judiciary but the federal judiciary doesn't have an inspector general. As far as I can tell, the judiciary doesn't have any program that could be considered professional investigators. It has some ethics review elements that could perhaps have investigatory experience but it's quite possible that if the only investigation that happens here is in-house, it may not reveal the source.

It is possible, I suppose, to bring in the FBI on the angle that the draft opinion was closely-held property of the Court and therefore the person who leaked it effectively stole it and that could give a colorable basis to have the FBI do the investigation if, for no other reason, they wanted a thorough, professional investigation.

The other avenue is an investigation by the House or Senate judiciary committees, which will probably happen but we all know the limits of those when it comes to the ability to discover evidence on their own (without the aid of a concurrence law enforcement investigation).

 

[B4YOU]

Joe Manchin would beg to differ.

Yep. The Senate, it’s initial design, 17th Amendment, and money in politics are the root of all ills. Manchin is merely a symptom.

 

[brandon]

Democrats control the Presidency, House, and Senate. If they care about this issue, then they would pass a law today. They won’t.

They have to kill the filibuster first, and Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema won't let that happen.

 

[superchuck500]

They have to kill the filibuster first, and Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema won't let that happen.

They would also have to have the 50 votes (on the statutory changes) in the first place and with those two, that's not a foregone conclusion as we have seen.

 

[superchuck500]

Strong piece from Adam Serwer at Atlantic.

This observation is particularly sharp in distilling what many have been claiming about the conservative format for how America works: rules of law they disagree with should make exception for them to be "free" from the mandate, while rules they support should apply to all without exception . . . even in the most dramatic circumstances (e.g. rape victims denied access to abortion).

The right-wing majority’s radical repurposing of the so-called shadow docketto set precedents and nullify constitutional rights rather than simply deal with time-sensitive matters foreshadowed this outcome. In the Court’s religious-freedom decisions related to the coronavirus pandemic, and in its choice last year to allow Texas to nullify the right to an abortion, you can see the outlines of this new legal regime: On the grounds that it constitutes a form of religious discrimination, conservatives will be able to claim an exemption from any generally applicable rule they do not wish to follow, while imposing their own religious and ideological views on those who do not share them. Although the right-wing justices present this rule in the language of constitutionalism, they are simply imposing their ideological and cultural preferences on the rest of the country.

Alito’s Plan to Repeal the 20th Century

If the conservative justice’s draft opinion is adopted by the Court, key advances of the past hundred years could be rolled back.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[samiam5211]

Democrats control the Presidency, House, and Senate. If they care about this issue, then they would pass a law today. They won’t.

Does the federal government even have the authority to forbid states from making abortion illegal?

Other than the SCOTUS saying it would be unconstitutional, obviously.

 

[Optimus Prime]

The leak was the real insurrection
===========================
For more than a year, there has been a concerted effort on the political right to diminish the idea that the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, marked an “insurrection.” Fox News host Tucker Carlson likes to put the term in scare quotes when he talks about the riot, a quiet expression of disdain to match his audible ones.

Republican officials and right-wing pundits have repeatedly downplayed the attack and sought to separate it from any attempt to undermine the government. Donald Trump, for example, has repeatedly claimed that the “real” insurrection was the 2020 election.

This tactic should be quite familiar by now. It’s usually just a form of whataboutism, trying to compare what the rioters did that day as they sought to block the finalization of Trump’s election loss to things such as pro forma objections from lawmakers in earlier years.

We saw the same pattern with the investigation into Russian interference and into Trump’s baseless insistences about election fraud: Whatabout Hillary Clinton and Russia! Whatabout the Democrats’ rejection of election results!

Soon after Politico released a draft Supreme Court opinion that reflected an intent to overturn Roe v. Wade, though, the right had a new about to what. The leak of that document, they claimed, was an actual insurrection.

It is certainly easy in moments like this to find a few isolated examples of a phenomenon and elevate them as unfairly representative. And it is certainly true that not every Republican or member of the political right is framing the moment as a new sort of insurrection. But it is more robust than you might assume.

One of the first examples comes from Fox News. Politico’s report came out at prime time, and Fox host Sean Hannity quickly leaped into the conversation with his guests. Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary, was first to use the term “insurrection.”

“Make no mistake, Sean, this is an insurrection against the Supreme Court. I’ve already seen people on the left celebrating this leaker, calling him brave, trying to throw a Hail Mary, to stop the ruling from being issued,” Fleischer said. “ … This is an insurrection against the court and it needs to be found who did it and whatever legal means can be taken against him needs to be taken.”

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R) agreed that it was an insurrection “not by some guy from some state who got hot under the collar and went to D.C. and got overheated at a rally. This is an insurrection by a person who is paid for by the taxpayers and who has a duty under his particular job and employment to keep his mouth shut, and he didn’t do it.”

He added that he hoped “everyone will use that term.” In the hours since, his hope has largely come to fruition.............


“Merriam-Webster defines insurrection as ‘an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.’ The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as ‘an organized attempt by a group of people to defeat their government and take control of their country, usually by violence.’ West’s Encyclopedia of American Law defines it as ‘a rising or rebellion of citizens against their government, usually manifested by acts of violence.’ ”

What constitutes “revolting”? How essential is violence? How many people are needed for the standard to be met? It’s not clear.

Some on the right, such as provocateur Matt Walsh, offered a definition. The leak was “an actual insurrection,” he wrote: “An attempt to completely upend and delegitimize the rule of law, incite violence and chaos, and potentially plunge the nation into civil war.” By comparison, he said, the Capitol riot “was a stroll in the park.”

More than 100 law enforcement officers were injured during that “stroll in the park,” part of an effort to immediately derail the mandated transfer of political power. A police officer and four others died.

When a protest quickly emerged outside the Supreme Court building, some on the right seemed to think that violence was imminent. Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly fretted that the leaker had not considered “the justices who undoubtedly were not prepared for the release of this tonight,” suggesting they were at risk. A columnist for the Washington Times speculated that the term “insurrection” wouldn’t be used “when leftists start attacking the Supreme Court,” which did not occur. “They’d better not go up the steps,” one conservative radio host said of the protesters: “That would be an insurrection, no?”.............

MSN

 

[Optimus Prime]

Interesting
=========
In case you needed any further proof that the modern anti-abortion movement is an outgrowth of many centuries of virulent misogyny and violence against women, Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked opinion draft striking down Roe v. Wade relies heavily on a 17th century English jurist who had two women executed for “witchcraft,” wrote in defense of marital rape, and believed capital punishment should extend to kids as young as 14.

“Two treatises by Sir Matthew Hale,” Alito wrote in his argument to end legal abortion across America, “described abortion of a quick child who died in the womb as a ‘great crime’ and a ‘great misprision.’ See M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown.”

How interesting that Alito would cite Pleas of the Crown! That’s the text, published in 1736, 60 years after Hale’s death, that defended and laid the foundation for the marital rape exemption across the world. Let’s go straight to the text:

“For the husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband which she cannot retract,” Hale wrote.

Allowing marital rape sounds pretty antiquated, but it was actually legal in many U.S. states up through the 1990s and continues to be allowed, or at least treated quite differently under the law, in some states, than non-spousal rape. Thanks, Mr. Hale!…..

In Leaked Abortion Decision, Justice Alito Relies on Jurist Who Supported Marital Rape, Executed 'Witches'

The draft Supreme Court opinion striking down Roe v. Wade heavily references Sir Matthew Hale, a 17th century Brit who dehumanized women.

jezebel.com

 

[SFIDC3]

what does it say about the that judges flat out lie in order to secure enough votes to get appointed to a lifetime position?

The same thing it says about the Republican (not necessarily conservative) wacko politicians that got them there....I don't trust anything they say, never will again unless the party implodes and restarts into something sane....don't think that is happening....

 

[superchuck500]

Does the federal government even have the authority to forbid states from making abortion illegal?

Other than the SCOTUS saying it would be unconstitutional, obviously.

It's a very good question. A statute making it illegal to restrict abortion services in the states would have to pass constitutional review to determine its a proper exercise of federal power - and I'm not sure that it would. If you have Roe/Casey in place, the statute can identify itself as a codification of the constitutional right identified by the Court. But without Roe/Casey, I think it would have to be defended on interstate commerce grounds and that seems pretty flimsy.

 

[coldseat]

It's a very good question. A statute making it illegal to restrict abortion services in the states would have to pass constitutional review to determine its a proper exercise of federal power - and I'm not sure that it would. If you have Roe/Casey in place, the statute can identify itself as a codification of the constitutional right identified by the Court. But without Roe/Casey, I think it would have to be defended on interstate commerce grounds and that seems pretty flimsy.

Are you saying it would take a constitutional amendment that would recognize an individual right to privacy and bodily autonomy?

With every one of these backwards decisions that comes out of the SC, I lose more and more faith in the constitution. It just feels like we need to scrap the whole thing and start over with a constitutional basis that's functional for this century and that recognizes some of the basic individual rights that we, as a population, have come to depend on. We also need to make our system more democratic and actually representative. A lot of these conflicts that have arisen are because our government doesn't really represent the actual populace any longer. Voting alone isn't going to change that.

 

[porculator]

Edwards is pro-life. As are a ton of Louisiana democrats. Funny enough, there is an older statute from 2006 authored by a Democrat and signed off on by Kathleen Blanco that would prohibit all abortion in Louisiana with the only exception being life of the mother (i.e., wouldn't exclude rape or incest). The statute is worded such that whenever Roe/Casey is repealed, it goes into automatic effect.

Yes, sorry, my reference wasn't about abortion specifically but idealistic politics in general, of which of Bobby Jindal was a huge offender. He took the tea party doctrine way more seriously than the rhetorical joke that it is, gutted funding from education and any other service that he could, and people didn't like the result.

I see this as a similar scenario where hard line rhetoric all of a sudden becomes the law, and it's not going to be pretty.

 

[Optimus Prime]

We’ll have to see the effect this has on the midterms
===========


How do you strip away cherished rights? The best strategy is incrementally and undramatically, a death of a thousand cuts.

That’s how Republicans were hacking at voting rights until recently, when the rest of us woke up and began to pay attention to the cumulative impact of voter ID laws, the shuttering of polling places, restrictions on voting by mail, and all the rest.

Reproductive rights have been under attack for more than 30 years – by rightwing terrorism against abortion providers all through the 1990s and as recently as 2015 in Colorado Springs, but also by a sort of attrition, narrowing down access by shutting clinics, limiting how many weeks pregnant you can be, and other such measures.

Overturning Roe v Wade upends all this stealth and incrementalism. Judging by the reaction, it may be exactly the kind of overstep that leads to a backlash. After all, the great majority of Americans support the right to choose.

There are many kinds of actions to take in response to this likely overturning of a fundamental right to bodily self-determination and privacy. (And it’s bitterly amusing that a court that wants to set policies reaching into the uteruses of people across the country apparently feels violated by having its own internal workings exposed with this leaked draft opinion.)

Direct support for the poor and unfree people who will be the most affected is already under way – and by unfree I mean those who are under the domination of a hostile partner, family, church or community.

People have organized to offer travel to clinics for those far from them, access to abortion pills, and other forms of support. But by backlash I mean and am hoping for the kind of backlash Trump’s election and subsequent outrages provoked, the 2018 election that swept the Squad and many other progressives into office and took back the House of Representatives.

A Democratic majority in both houses could make abortion a right by law, and it’s worth remembering that Mexico, Ireland and Argentina are among the countries that recently did so……

Here’s how Americans can fight back to protect abortion rights | Rebecca Solnit

A Democratic majority in both houses of Congress could make abortion a right by law, and it’s worth remembering that Mexico, Ireland and Argentina are among the countries that recently did so

www.theguardian.com