Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Mike]

I predict that when the dust settles, the vast majority of states will regulate abortion much as they do now but with slightly more restrictions.

[iam416]

Yep. First trimester stuff will remain widely accessible. After that, it'll depend on the state with some states allowing abortions freely up to the second before delivery.

[Da Geezer]

Re: public opinion polls on abortion, it's all about how the questions are phrased. Specific to the question of "do you think Roe should be overturned?", a significant number of people don't really understand what exactly that current ruling does. That question is often misinterpreted as "do you think abortion should be outlawed?". I thought that for a long time until this cropped back up as a possibility the last year or two and began reading up more. It's no wonder that pretty much every major news outlet is running headlines that most Americans don't want Roe overturned.

What's more telling is that, assuming it is, what does the public think about how abortion should be regulated. When you start asking specifics, it isn't nearly as popular as the left would have you believe.

From June 2021:

The new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds 61% of Americans say abortion should be legal in most or all circumstances in the first trimester of a pregnancy. However, 65% said abortion should usually be illegal in the second trimester, and 80% said that about the third trimester.

https://apnews.com/article/only-on-a...00bef4520a8fa8

Looking forward to the left's arguments on why late term abortions should be legal in all 50 states.

This is why conservatives are so sanguine about bringing abortion to a vote. Progs always note that a large majority vote "no" on the question "should abortion be outlawed" As you note Mike, this is not what the proposed Dobbs decision is about.

I believe the majority of Americans will be OK with abortion prior to the quickening and with an honest reason for the abortion. What most Americans don't want, and don't want to pay for, are the "convenience" abortions. I suspect the "hook-up crowd" will pay more attention to birth control, and that is a positive.

This is going to come down to the question "when does life start...?"

[Tom W]

I believe the majority of Americans will be OK with abortion prior to the quickening and with an honest reason for the abortion. What most Americans don't want, and don't want to pay for, are the "convenience" abortions. I suspect the "hook-up crowd" will pay more attention to birth control, and that is a positive.

Correct- and trivializing the whole matter by slotting it in as "women's health" and "my body/my choice" isn't really helping the cause, either.

[Hannibal]

The bigger victory, if it holds, will be that it is a rebuke of the judicial activism and bench legislation that has been the primary driving force of politics since the 1960s.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The national discourse on this topic except in this forum is wildly out of sync with the substantive issue: Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) grants a woman's constitutional right to an abortion in the first trimester, right? This isn't hard. The Supremes are either going to reverse the Roe v. Wade decision (as it should based on the grounds it's not constitutional), modify it or let is stand. A reversal as has already been noted here, returns decisions on abortions to the state's elected officials. DEMOCRACY IN ACTION.

On the sideline, or better yet, the rai·son d'ê·tre for the Supreme's getting into R v.W., is the Dobbs Decision in Missouri.

There's a ton of ancillary bull-shit floating around that has no bearing on what's really going on here. As talent has already pointed out there is an abundant amount of constitutional illiteracy that is driving the national discourse. I find it hard to read it. Just a lot of stupid.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The bigger victory, if it holds, will be that it is a rebuke of the judicial activism and bench legislation that has been the primary driving force of politics since the 1960s.

Just got my evening edition of the Economist. The lead article is "How to Save the (US) Supreme Court." Here's the lead in intro:

The court is poised to reopen some of the most contentious questions in American public life, including carbon-dioxide emissions, gay marriage and guns. Conservative Americans argue that liberals broke the court in the 1950s and 1960s, pursuing a programme they could not get past Congress. Even if most Americans favour a compromise between a libertarian view and the belief that life begins at conception, they say, judges are supposed to rule on the law, not bend to public opinion. That is surely right. However, when a dysfunctional legislature is unable to pass laws that resolve the big questions of the age, the courts bear a special responsibility, lest justice itself be poisoned. If the justices take it upon themselves to cut through legislative knots, using their power maximally, they will transform themselves into an all-powerful unelected third chamber, with grave implications for America.

Like Hanni, the editors here - Englishmen - grasp the abrogation of attending to the the rule of law manifested in the activism of the US Supreme Court. R.v.W is a classic example and should be struck down. I also think those same editors recognize the bad state of affairs in the US congress - absolutely brought about by an uninvolved, poorly informed, self centered US electorate. IOW, "we get what we pay for."

[iam416]

However, when a dysfunctional legislature is unable to pass laws that resolve the big questions of the age, the courts bear a special responsibility, lest justice itself be poisoned.

This is manifestly wrong, IMO. I mean, I disagree with it as as strongly as I disagree with anything save for Ohio State's 2021 "defense."

First, it directly asks unelected, unaccountable persons to legislate. That's not the way the United States is intended to work. Second, it assumes that the "big questions of the age" have some sort of clear "just" answer. That's not the way the World works.

If, e.g., the Supreme Court were to not only overturn Roe but, at the same time, say that abortion is illegal in the United States, then a "big question of the age" would be resolved but I highly doubt the author would approve. And, of course, neither would I. But for far different reasons -- it's not the Supreme Court's job to resolve this issue.

We trust elected, accountable persons to sort through the interested parties and their respective policy positions to resolve questions in the ways that best reflect what the folks want. The "correct" decision is the one defensibly made by our elected institutions. And that means two opposite decisions in two different locales can be right.

[Hannibal]

Roe v Wade was one of at least a dozen huge decisions since the Warren days where the Liberals on the court made a purely ideological decision and then performed a creative writing exercise to shoehorn into the Constitution. Ponder that as you realize that the latest Supreme Court Justice can’t define what a womanis.

Let’s pray that this decision holds and is also the first of many that reestablishes the Constitution as the governing document of the United States.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Louisiana legislature will vote on a bill that grants constitutional rights to eggs at fertilization and would classify abortion as homicide. I have no idea if Republicans have a large enough majority to actually pass the bill without the Governor's signature.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/louisiana-legislators-advance-bill-classifying-abortion-homicide-2022-05-05/

This seems like a weird thing to ask but if a fertilized egg becomes classified as a human being and since the police conduct at least a cursory investigation almost any time someone dies outside the hospital, does that mean that the police will be investigating a lot of miscarriages in some states?

I had trouble finding exact numbers but as many as 1 in 5 pregnancies end in miscarriage. Something like 750k to 1M a year.

https://www.livescience.com/50790-miscarriage-misconceptions.html

[Dr. Strangelove]

Roe v Wade was one of at least a dozen huge decisions since the Warren days where the Liberals on the court made a purely ideological decision and then performed a creative writing exercise to shoehorn into the Constitution. Ponder that as you realize that the latest Supreme Court Justice can’t define what a womanis.

Let’s pray that this decision holds and is also the first of many that reestablishes the Constitution as the governing document of the United States.

I've been assured that this decision is a one-off and no other decision made between 1933 and Obergfell will be revisited.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Different topic but this caught my eye

[Dr. Strangelove]

This is a well-written best educated guess about the leak. A summary:

1) There were actually THREE leaks, all (possibly) by different people
2) On April 26, a full week before the draft was leaked, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial that mysteriously contained a lot of details that we now know to be true. In fact they claimed that Alito would be writing the Opinion. The guy who wrote this piece thinks that whoever talked to the WSJ was "almost certainly" a conservative. Which logically makes sense because the WSJ Editorial Board is virtually synonymous with Fox News.
3) The second leak was to Politico. Someone told them that five justices had voted to overturn Roe. Not much more detail than that. Possibly the same individual that spoke to the WSJ, maybe someone entirely different.
4) The night of May 2 Politico publishes the Alito draft. They say theyr received it just a few days prior. The author believes this leaker was someone different from Leaker #1 and probably a liberal, most likely retaliating for the first leak.

*********************

The question here is who believed they would benefit from leaking the opinion itself. That document was much more likely to rally liberals than conservatives. It brought home the fact that the court was poised to overrule Roe in much more concrete terms than merely leaking the vote. The opinion is also a full-throated attack on abortion rights and – with important caveats – substantive due process rights more broadly. And as a first draft – without the benefit of later refinement – it does not yet present the critique of Roe in its most persuasive form.

It is also important to look at the leak of the opinion through the lens of the fact that someone – almost certainly a conservative – had just before leaked the court’s tentative decision and the state of the voting to The Wall Street Journal. That leak was itself an extraordinary and unethical breach of confidences and certainly caused very deep concern inside the court.

My guess is that someone on the left felt somewhat justified in releasing the opinion in response. Through the opinion, one would see what the Journal was saying Kavanaugh and Barrett were considering. That leak was a historically unprecedented violation of the deepest and most solemn trust among the justices and the court’s staff. It wounded the institution.


https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/05/h...have-happened/

[THE_WIZARD_]

shaddup

[Hannibal]

I've been assured that this decision is a one-off and no other decision made between 1933 and Obergfell will be revisited.

I’m told that a repeal of the 19th Amendment and legalization of rape is imminent.