Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights per draft opinion (Update: Dobbs opinion official) (1 Viewer)

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    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    Now that she has gotten her way, she is lobbying for it to be repealed.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.
     
    Optimus Prime said:
    I do wonder when the horror stories start happening and

    When women start dying that shouldn’t due to pregnancies like in mt15’s post,

    When women Start dying due to desperate measures to get an abortion, especially when it’s women who aren’t supposed to do that (read: well off suburban white women who are terrified what their parents/husband will say/do)

    When abuse/neglect skyrockets due to women’s issues raising their rape babies

    When poverty/welfare goes up when women were barely surviving before getting pregnant have a baby

    When there is Abuse from men furious about now supporting a child neither he or she wants

    When all that stays happening I’m curious how all the state and National Republicans cheering this decision now are going to pivot and try to blame the Libs for it all
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    They won't care -- they will say it is God's will or something.
     
    Max, I’m so glad your wife survived. There are so many things that can and do go wrong where a pregnancy needs to be terminated so as to give the woman good medical care. This idea of a “heartbeat” at six weeks is particularly cruel. There isn’t a heart at six weeks. It’s a group of cells that will eventually form the heart, and that have a rhythmic electrical activity that can be detected. It doesn’t even have to actually be an embryo to have this electrical activity, as in your family’s case.

    But the longer women with these abnormal pregnancies are allowed to go before their physicians can terminate, the more chances for sepsis, hemorrhage or any number of other serious complications. There will be women who die because of this. Women who wouldn’t have died if they could receive proper medical care. I am enraged over this cruelty.
     
    Optimus Prime said:
    When abuse/neglect skyrockets due to women’s issues raising their rape babies
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    Or when the state budgets are being crippled due to the amount of children being given to the state to raise.
    Optimus Prime said:
    When all that stays happening I’m curious how all the state and National Republicans cheering this decision now are going to pivot and try to blame the Libs for it all
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    They will simply follow the Republican way a lie about it. Why change when you see it works like a charm with your supporters. Simply lie about who and what is causing the problem. Their supporters will believe anything they are told to believe.
     
    DaveXA said:
    Tell us how you really feel. :hihi:
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    She's also the most qualified candidate since Bush I and it's not even close.
    Unfortunately for us, she refused to accept that that doesn't matter. The Presidency is a popularity contest, and HRC was unable to grok just how thoroughly despised she is.
     
    Another opinion on the source of the leaks. I think there is a real chance that this radical opinion doesn’t have the backing it needs, and the ongoing leaks are a somewhat desperate attempt to “set in stone” the Alito draft.

     
    At this point I'm for whatever damages the integrity of the Court because it needs a significant overhaul by way of Constitutional amendment.
     
    Good article
    =========
    It’s still early, but my nomination for the three most revealing words of the month are “compassionate consensus builder.”
That phrase comes from a memo leaked from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), the group charged with helping the GOP win U.S. Senate races.

    In the wake of Politico’s publication of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, the memo’s architects were trying to help Republican candidates protect themselves from the growing backlash.

    The committee advises every Republican candidate to “be the compassionate, consensus builder on abortion.” The document stresses that most Americans believe “we should care for and support pregnant women in difficult circumstances.”

    Missing from the memo is anything concrete about what policies offering “care” and “support” might look like. And its use of capital letters in advising Republicans on what they should deny demonstrate the party’s defensiveness.

    It said: “Republicans DO NOT want to take away contraception” and “Republicans DO NOT want to take away mammograms or other health care provided specifically to women.”

    Yes, and they “DO NOT want to throw doctors and women in jail.”
The memo makes you wonder if Republicans believe anything they say about abortion.

    Its implication is that the GOP wants to outlaw the practice but not punish anyone involved. Except with the equivalent of a traffic ticket, maybe?

    Yet what legislators in Republican-led states are considering on reproductive issues doesn’t square with what GOP pollsters want their candidates to say. Since the Alito draft leaked, state Republican officials have raised all sorts of possibilities, including potentially restricting certain kinds of contraception.

    In more than a dozen states, abortion would become instantly illegal because of “trigger laws.” A bill cleared by a legislative committee in Louisiana last week would, The Post’s Caroline Kitchener reported, “classify abortion as homicide and allow prosecutors to criminally charge patients.”

    At least the Louisiana solons are intellectually consistent: If you insist that abortion is murder, shouldn’t you expect the law to treat it that way?

    Most Americans don’t see the matter in this light, which is what the NRSC memo concedes.

    But that fact speaks volumes about where the public — including many who think of themselves as pro-life — really stands……

     
    Until these azzhats demonstrate that they are pro-life they must acknowledge that they are anti-choice and pro-slavery.

    Rant time:

    I no longer care.

    I no longer care about any Republican politician on any level from local to federal. I. Do. Not. Care. They have abandoned any belief in the country or in the American people. There ultimate goal is a twisted, psychotic version of “God’s Law” even though abortion is not treated in that manner in so-called scripture. They are far beyond dangerous. They have become a national security threat and a threat to peace worldwide. They embrace authoritarianism while spewing “freedom!”

    They need to be removed from the body politic.
     
    RobF said:
    From a completely unqualified point of view, couldn't a national law be seen to be within those limits, if it could be framed as necessary to protect individual Constitutional rights?

    And that said, I've only skimmed the leaked opinion now, but I can see a number of reasons why, from the point of view laid out there (note: I want to be explicitly clear, this is very much not my view), a national law giving a right to an abortion could be considered to be overreach; e.g. it argues that "procuring an abortion is not a fundamental constitutional right because such a right has no basis in the Constitution's text or in our Nation's history," and that "The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion." And, logically, if the Constitution doesn't prohibit a State prohibiting abortion, it follows that federal law following the Constitution can't prohibit a State from doing so. So that would seem to suggest this Supreme Court, taking that view, would be likely to reject a national law giving a right to an abortion.

    I'm not sure, though, and again from the point of view laid out in that opinion, that reasoning is as strong as would be applied to the case of a national law that, let's say, 'strongly regulates' abortion. Again, I've only skimmed it, but spends a lot of time arguing that not only is there not a right to an abortion in "the Nation's history and traditions," but it's the opposite ("On the contrary, an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.").

    It does make the case that "Ordered liberty sets limits and defines the boundary between competing interests," in the context of the "particular balance between the interests of a woman who wants an abortion and the interests of what they [Roe and Casey] termed "potential life."", and in that context, states that, "In some States, voters may believe that the abortion right should be even more extensive than the right that Roe and Casey recognized," (while also noting that "Voters in other States may wish to impose tight restrictions based on their belief that abortion destroys an "unborn human being""), which would seem to imply that liberty would require some recognition at least of the interests of a woman, which would in turn suggest that a federal law that outright prohibited abortion would be on tenuous grounds.

    But I'm not sure that in itself would preclude a law like, for example, the Gestational Age Act from Mississippi that the opinion is about being passed at a national level. I would think that the hurdle would be that, where the opinion has held that the Mississippi act has a rational basis due to legitimate interests including 'the State's interest in "protecting the life of the unborn"', it would have to be ruled that particular interest is a constitutional right held by the unborn.

    So I guess my question ultimately is, if a national law were to be passed on those grounds, that the unborn are protected under the Constitution, would it be impossible for this Supreme Court to declare that they do, and thus uphold a national law akin to Mississippi's Act?
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    I think that is an extremely keen, intelligent presentation and question - though I'm not surprised, you understand more about American law than most Americans.

    It sounds like the angle here is that the Constitution provides a construct of government for the people and guarantees rights of people so isn't it within federal power to define what a person is? I don't think there's any legitimate dispute that Congress can't make abortion a federal crime . . . but could Congress act to define life or personhood under the Constitution (that would apply to the states via the 14th Amendment) that would include the unborn and then all of the consequences that come with that definition would follow?

    This may seem logical on its face and I haven't really parsed out the arguments or caselaw about but I think the problem remains that this hypothetical legislation does not appear to fall within the enumerated powers of the United States Congress.

    Yes, the Constitution contains many references to people and persons. But there is no plenary power of the U.S. Congress to define terms in the Constitution. Since Marbury v. Madison, and confirmed into the 21st Century, Congress' lawmaking authority vested by the Constitution is limited to the scope of authority vested in Article I (defining the Congress) and Article IV (providing the federal relationship with the states) . . . and these are sometimes called the "enumerated powers". There are implied powers to execute the enumerated powers, but all federal statutory law must originate from an enumerated power of the U.S. Congress.

    With a quick search, here's a list of the powers of Congress under the Constitution (source at bottom):

    Key Constitutional Grants
    of Powers to Congress
    Article I, Section. 8.

    The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
    To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

    To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

    To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

    To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

    To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

    To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

    To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

    To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

    To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

    To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

    To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

    To provide and maintain a Navy;

    To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

    To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

    To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

    To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And

    To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

    Article IV, Section 3

    New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
    The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

    Amendment XVI
    (Ratified February 3, 1913.)

    The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
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    Nowhere in that list is the power to define terms in the Constitution. Moreover, the Constitution leaves all other powers not vested with the federal Congress to the states. This is why we have a long history of acknowledging that it is the authority of the states to regulate the more basic operation of daily life, especially as it relates to criminal activity . . . provided that there is no conflict with any particular state law and the Constitution (a role left to the Supreme Court to decide).

    And this is indeed the primary holding of the draft Dobbs decision: the constitutional analysis in Roe/Casey is erroneous and there is no constitutional authority to invalidate what is otherwise a proper exercise of state lawmaking authority. In other words, fundamentally the Dobbs decision validates the states' authority to make laws as yielded through their lawmaking process that are enforceable unless they violate the Constitution and with laws that limit abortion, there is no such violation.

    I don't see that the Dobbs decision provides any realistic basis to change the skepticism that federal statutory on abortion, either protecting the right or prohibiting it (even if through some definition of what a person or life is) because neither seems to legitimately connect to an enumerated power.

    (Also as a practical matter, a federal law giving all rights under the Constitution to the unborn would be a mess. For example, how do you deal with situations where the mother is in prison or other habeas applications?)





     
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    First of all, this is going to affect a lot of people which is going to have all kinds of ripple effects

    Second of all, this seems to illustrate the GOP point of view of "why care about anything that doesn't affect you personally?"

     

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