Comments on: The fight to end Roe v. Wade enters its endgame next week

The fight to end Roe v. Wade enters its endgame next week

Homo neanderthalensis — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 08:30:50 -0800

The Supreme Court could dismantle the constitutional right to an abortion, and all it has to do is sit on its hands.

By: schroedinger

schroedinger — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 09:08:41 -0800

I seriously need to get off my ass and get sterilized already. Shouldn't wait until the IUD I'm currently using gets outlawed.

By: schroedinger

schroedinger — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 09:10:02 -0800

Also once again we are reminded of the virtues of voting for the lesser evil--because that lesser evil won't nominate judges that think women are nothing but baby incubators.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 09:11:07 -0800

*barely stifled noises of anger and rage* How many Trump supporters have I heard say "Don't be silly, they aren't going to ban abortion! You're being paranoid!"? Way too many.

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 09:44:23 -0800

Historically, American liberals and the left have been way too comfortable for too long with having country club Republicans as the median swing vote on the Supreme Court. This is the result.

By: Aardvark Cheeselog

Aardvark Cheeselog — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 10:00:07 -0800

The topic of how Roe will be overturned comes up regularly in the comments at Lawyers, Guns & Money. There's no real consensus, but a popular position is that Roberts will arrange for it to be gnawed away from the inside until it's a husk that has no force to protect women or doctors. Roberts prefers not to be seen as a complete political hack, having some residual capacity for something like shame, and also having the fact that Roe was never formally overturned de jure will allow Republicans to continue to wave the bloody shirt at their low-information voters while simultaneously offering reassurance to low-information Democrats.

By: evilDoug

evilDoug — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 10:57:33 -0800

I hate that the US, is this fucking dystopian nightmare. I wish I could afford to move someplace better. I'm sorry to all of the women this affects ( which would be most of the women in the US).

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 11:07:22 -0800

There's no real consensus, but a popular position is that Roberts will arrange for it to be gnawed away from the inside until it's a husk that has no force to protect women or doctors. Exactly. The so-called "moderation" of Chief Justice Roberts is merely a concern with optics and a desire to demobilize liberal and left-wing resistance to the Supreme Court.

By: jzb

jzb — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 11:08:20 -0800

The lesson for the left - well, one of them - is that we need to stop pandering to the right, at all. I imagine there was a point in time in the 70s or 80s we could have passed an amendment to explicitly guarantee a right to abortion. But we assumed Roe v. Wade would remain settled law and played defense. If we survive the Trumpian nightmare and manage to undo the damage done in the past few years, we need to understand that compromise with the right is not possible and if you want to progress to a certain point, you need to go well past it to prevent progress from being rolled back. Settling for abortion to be legal was not enough, we needed to move to making it an explicit right. The gun lobby doesn't stop with guns being legal and easy to obtain, they are pushing to allow open carry, pushing to overturn the rights of businesses or communities to restrict guns being taken into stores, etc. If we ever have the opportunity again, we need an explicit legal right to abortion - or even better, an amendment that guarantees bodily autonomy that includes abortion, birth control, euthanasia, SRS/GRS and hormone treatments, etc. and ensures they are covered by insurance and so forth.

By: still_wears_a_hat

still_wears_a_hat — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 12:01:09 -0800

I'm sorry to all of the women this affects (which would be most of the women in the US). Could we instead say "directly affects most of the heterosexual, under-55 women in the U.S."? Access to abortion is a very important issue to me, but "most of the women" leaves a lot of us out.

By: eustatic

eustatic — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 12:16:49 -0800

If you want to know about the struggle for women s rights and against forced birth in Louisiana, which, yes, is a very Catholic state, please watch this video and support Lift Louisiana.

By: eustatic

eustatic — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 12:25:19 -0800

And shout to Mississippi too. We are one country, and I think this issue, along with others, demonstrates well that allowing one political jurisdiction to fester, economically and otherwise, will come back to the country as a whole.

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 12:26:02 -0800

[One comment deleted at the commenter's request and then a couple followups too.]

By: Secret Sparrow

Secret Sparrow — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 12:33:51 -0800

Could we instead say "directly affects most of the heterosexual, under-55 women in the U.S."? I mean, really this affects anyone with the current or future potential to become pregnant, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. That would include cis girls/women and (many) trans boys/men, and many non-binary gendered people as well, who have (or will mature into having) a fertile functioning uterus & ovaries. Sexual orientation is irrelevant to whether someone needs access to abortion, not least because not all pregnancies are the result of consensual sex.

By: Weeping_angel

Weeping_angel — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 14:02:18 -0800

I'm in my upper 30s and probably won't have any need to get an abortion any time in my life. This still affects me because it would codify the fact that, since I have a uterus, I have fewer rights than someone who doesn't. It makes me less of a person to take away that option, even if I never need it.

By: Your Childhood Pet Rock

Your Childhood Pet Rock — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 14:13:49 -0800

This still affects me because it would codify the fact that, since I have a uterus, I have fewer rights than someone who doesn't. It makes me less of a person to take away that option, even if I never need it. I can just see it now. "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids men and women alike to get abortions." Or as Bojack saw it, "I'm a man, but if I got pregnant, would I put my life on hold for a child I didn't want? Yes, I would. I can say that with confidence, because I will never have to make that decision, so I'm unbiased." My gender sucks.

By: Etrigan

Etrigan — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 15:23:31 -0800

I imagine there was a point in time in the 70s or 80s we could have passed an amendment to explicitly guarantee a right to abortion. You're imagining an America that bears little resemblance to the one that existed in the '70s and '80s and failed to pass the ERA. There's a reason the Supreme Court has to wade in on abortion over and over again — neither side can get enough political power to get an amendment passed. You have to get 38 states to sign off on an amendment. The only things 38 states have agreed on in the time since Roe was that Reagan and Bush I should have been President.

By: MattD

MattD — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 15:29:47 -0800

There was never a time an abortion rights amendment could have been adopted. It has never had two-thirds of either House of Congress to say the least of both legislative houses of three-fourths of the states. There has been a pro-Roe v Wade President and both Houses of Congress for precisely two of the 46 years since Roe was handed down (2009-2011).

By: Emmy Rae

Emmy Rae — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 15:39:16 -0800

The picture illustrating that article couldn't be more disgustingly perfect.

By: Caduceus

Caduceus — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 15:40:19 -0800

By: corey flood

corey flood — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 19:48:07 -0800

Could we instead say "directly affects most of the heterosexual, under-55 women in the U.S."? I mean, really this affects anyone with the current or future potential to become pregnant, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. It also affects everyone who has a personal or professional relationship with someone who ends up dead or imprisoned because of an illegal abortion.

By: Secret Sparrow

Secret Sparrow — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 20:51:53 -0800

I mean, once we expand the scope of "affected" beyond the pregnant person themselves, it just keeps going: Families affected by the emotional and financial impact of an unwanted child, or the imprisinment, injury, or death of the pregnant person. Employers and co-workers affected by the temporary absence, permanent departure, or even death of the pregnant person. Healthcare workers risking their livelihoods and their freedom to get people access to abortions. The families of healthcare workers imprisoned for providing abortions. Increased strain on social programs. We know what the impacts will be because the they're still in living memeory in the U.S. and they're ongoing in other countries. At the end of the day we're all affected, it's just that some of us are much more harshly and directly affected than others.

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 23:53:08 -0800

My mom marched on Washington carrying a sign that read "Post-Menopausal Woman Nostalgic For Choice". In goddamn 1989.

By: non canadian guy

non canadian guy — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 11:54:48 -0800

I mean, once we expand the scope of "affected" beyond the pregnant person themselves, it just keeps going: Families affected by the emotional and financial impact of an unwanted child, or the imprisinment, injury, or death of the pregnant person. Don't forget the unwanted children themselves, at least some of whom are (if forced to be born) bound to grow up resented, neglected, and/or abused. And their future kids, when the cycle inevitably perpetuates itself.

By: Your Childhood Pet Rock

Your Childhood Pet Rock — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 13:58:22 -0800

Don't forget the unwanted children themselves, at least some of whom are (if forced to be born) bound to grow up resented, neglected, and/or abused. And their future kids, when the cycle inevitably perpetuates itself.

At 17 Shannon is pregnant As young as her mom when she had her Her kid is never gonna have a dad The same old way that Shannon never had What comes around well it goes around Nothing changes cause it's all the same The world you get's the one you give away It all just happens again Way down the line And all the things you learn when you're a kid You'll fuck up just like your parents did It all just happens again Way down the line

20 years later we refuse to learn the easily learnt lessons.

By: slappy_pinchbottom

slappy_pinchbottom — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 17:49:47 -0800

I'm 100% for abortion rights for all women and other pregnancy-having people, throughout the entirety of pregnancy, but I've always been uncomfortable with the framing of it being at all for the sake of the unborn children. The message seems to be "if you grew up resented, neglected, and/or abused, then it's better if you had never existed at all," which, I feel like those kids probably get enough of that message from their neglecters and/or abusers, don't you?

By: sotonohito

sotonohito — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 06:29:24 -0800

I'm a bit doubtful on the chain of logic leading to Roberts insisting on leaving a shell of Roe. While, sure, I get that he has a bit of a history of trying to present a false front of reasonable moderation, I just don't think the political climate is such that he can get away with refusing to take an opportunity to strike down Roe. Yes, the Republicans have been waving Roe around as a vote grabber for generations and that's precisely the problem. Their constituents now expect it to happen. They've got their majority now, I think the backlash from forced birth Republicans would be tremendous if their Justices refused to follow through. And I think Roberts is enough of a partisan Republican to recognize that and vote accordingly. I hope I'm wrong, because leaving even a shell of Roe would probably make it easier for a hypothetical liberal court to restore abortion rights. But I think we've been putting far too much faith in the idea of Republicans holding up a mask of normalcy and reasonableness. Trump has proved that they don't need to and I think a great many are reveling in that including the Republicans on the Court.

By: aspersioncast

aspersioncast — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 06:34:35 -0800

Historically, American liberals and the left have been way too comfortable for too long with having country club Republicans as the median swing vote on the Supreme Court. This is the result. "Let's figure out a way to blame this on someone other than the people who are explicitly at fault."

By: sotonohito

sotonohito — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 07:54:56 -0800

aspersioncast Not that it's our fault, but polling does show that the American right was **VASTLY** more concerned with the courts in general, and the Supreme Court in specific than the American liberals and left are/were. I think in large part it's because American liberalism is often focused rather intensely on process and trying to assure that process is being followed meaning that it'd be a violation of a big part of the American liberal ideology to try to rally voters around the Court. Heck, right here on metafilter there's people arguing that it's inherently wrong and immoral for a Democratic President to automatically disqualify all Republicans from consideration for the Supreme Court, arguing for a sort of Catholic style double intent position whereby the President should adopt officially non-partisan criteria that just happen to almost certainly exclude all Republican jurists. Because, at heart, American liberals really do care about process being just and fair and at heart the American right doesn't. So the right uses the Court as a big rallying cry for their voters and the Democrats simply don't. Not that Democrats don't care about the Court, they do, they just don't see it as a vote grabber because to the Democrats the Court is supposed to be non-partisan. During the 2016 election we saw a huge number of Republican ads focusing on voting for Trump because he'd put a hard right Justice on the court. We saw a lot fewer ads for Clinton focusing on voting for her to save Roe or to get a liberal on the Court. In fact, I'm pretty sure there weren't any. Not because she, or the Democratic voters, don't care but because they're still committed to the idea of a neutral Court and think campaigning on putting liberals on the Court would be a violation of their ideology.

By: agregoli

agregoli — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 10:48:14 -0800

I feel so helpless. I hope more states will go the way of Illinois.

By: RedOrGreen

RedOrGreen — Thu, 10 Oct 2019 13:59:24 -0800

I posted this to the front page but I was told it would be better as a comment here: "Doctors' standing is so much an accepted part of abortion litigation that Louisiana didn't even question it in defending its law in the lower courts, and the lower courts naturally didn't address it. ... On its face, then, the state's cross-petition is frivolous. I sensed potential trouble when I stumbled upon it by chance over the summer, but the idea that the justices would actually grant it seemed so far-fetched that I put it out of my mind..." Linda Greenhouse, Pulitzer-winning Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times, writes about the very high stakes in the first of a wave of anti-abortion measures to reach the Trump Supreme Court. "It turns out that the idea of eliminating doctors' third-party standing has been in the anti-abortion movement's water supply ever since Justice Thomas raised it in his dissenting opinion in Whole Woman's Health three years ago."