Or are those votes already factored in?

I'm thinking there's a good chance the conservatives on the Supreme Court won't kill Roe v Wade until after the elections.

Those that have been voting for Republicans against their own interest for 30-70 years are tough to change. It is the people that did not vote (a large percentage of younger voters) that need to turn out now.

Several of the Democratic candidates for President could be good Senate choices in states that are likely to switch. I hope they haven't been lured by how low 45 set the bar. Maybe it is better that anybody already running for Senate really wants it, instead of settling for it as a consolation prize.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

If Roe is killed, then the Republican mantra will be to vote Republican or abortion will be brought back.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

Roe v. Wade is already being murdered by the dystopian state laws being orchestrated all over the country. And the insanity is just getting worse. Death Penalty for a miscarriage ? Hoo boy... Way PAST Atwood....

Alabama has now declared that embryos by IVF are NOT 'at conception', only embryos INSIDE a woman.

This is all clearly about controlling women.

Quote
cbelt3
Roe v. Wade is already being murdered by the dystopian state laws being orchestrated all over the country. And the insanity is just getting worse. Death Penalty for a miscarriage ? Hoo boy... Way PAST Atwood....

There is an illogical feel to the reasoning behind this bill. One of the architects of this bill said that the intent was for this to go to the Supreme Court - and the central argument for it is based on the idea of "personhood" happening at conception. This is a key thing the court will be asked to rule on - does personhood begin at conception?

But on what grounds would the Supreme Court rule that personhood begins at conception? It certainly couldn't be grounded in science since the notion of personhood is a legal concept, not a scientific one. Would they try to ground such a ruling by appeal to religion? Which religion? Why would a religious view matter in this legal question? An appeal to religion doesn't seem logically viable from a Constitutional perspective (the perspective the court is supposed to take).

So on what grounds would they make such a ruling? How would they deal with issues like exactly what "conception" is? What about identical twins? What about chimeras? It's a mess. sekker points out that the bill says IVF isn't conception? WTF? That just sounds like a kludge to avoid the messy issue of what to do about keeping all these persons frozen in limbo if fertilization happens in a tube and then the embryos are frozen. It makes a hash of even the notion of a mystical inculcation of "personhood" - got to happen inside a woman; good grief, magical wombs.

And if the court were to decide that personhood begins at conception - and therefore entitlement to basic human rights - how would they be justified in ruling that abortion could be okay in some states but not in others? Shouldn't such a ban apply to all states? It's a mess.

Establishing when the legal status of "personhood" begins and ends is always going to be a gnarly affair, but this Alabama law is particularly ill-conceived (pardon the pun).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2019 05:09PM by Ted King.

The Supreme Court now can and will do anything they want.

Ted - this legislation is written by people with conviction and certainty that flies in the face of details and facts. They hope their courts have a similar relationship with abstract reasoning.

Quote
Ted King

Quote
cbelt3
Roe v. Wade is already being murdered by the dystopian state laws being orchestrated all over the country. And the insanity is just getting worse. Death Penalty for a miscarriage ? Hoo boy... Way PAST Atwood....

There is an illogical feel to the reasoning behind this bill. One of the architects of this bill said that the intent was for this to go to the Supreme Court - and the central argument for it is based on the idea of "personhood" happening at conception. This is a key thing the court will be asked to rule on - does personhood begin at conception?

But on what grounds would the Supreme Court rule that personhood begins at conception? It certainly couldn't be grounded in science since the notion of personhood is a legal concept, not a scientific one. Would they try to ground such a ruling by appeal to religion? Which religion? Why would a religious view matter in this legal question? An appeal to religion doesn't seem logically viable from a Constitutional perspective (the perspective the court is supposed to take).

So on what grounds would they make such a ruling? How would they deal with issues like exactly what "conception" is? What about identical twins? What about chimeras? It's a mess. sekker points out that the bill says IVF isn't conception? WTF? That just sounds like a kludge to avoid the messy issue of what to do about keeping all these persons frozen in limbo if fertilization happens in a tube and then the embryos are frozen. It makes a hash of even the notion of a mystical inculcation of "personhood" - got to happen inside a woman; good grief, magical wombs.

And if the court were to decide that personhood begins at conception - and therefore entitlement to basic human rights - how would they be justified in ruling that abortion could be okay in some states but not in others? Shouldn't such a ban apply to all states? It's a mess.

Establishing when the legal status of "personhood" begins and ends is always going to be a gnarly affair, but this Alabama law is particularly ill-conceived (pardon the pun).

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Quote
Ted King
There is an illogical feel to the reasoning behind this bill. One of the architects of this bill said that the intent was for this to go to the Supreme Court - and the central argument for it is based on the idea of "personhood" happening at conception. This is a key thing the court will be asked to rule on - does personhood begin at conception?

But on what grounds would the Supreme Court rule that personhood begins at conception? It certainly couldn't be grounded in science since the notion of personhood is a legal concept, not a scientific one. Would they try to ground such a ruling by appeal to religion? Which religion? Why would a religious view matter in this legal question? An appeal to religion doesn't seem logically viable from a Constitutional perspective (the perspective the court is supposed to take).

So on what grounds would they make such a ruling? How would they deal with issues like exactly what "conception" is? What about identical twins? What about chimeras? It's a mess. sekker points out that the bill says IVF isn't conception? WTF? That just sounds like a kludge to avoid the messy issue of what to do about keeping all these persons frozen in limbo if fertilization happens in a tube and then the embryos are frozen. It makes a hash of even the notion of a mystical inculcation of "personhood" - got to happen inside a woman; good grief, magical wombs.

And if the court were to decide that personhood begins at conception - and therefore entitlement to basic human rights - how would they be justified in ruling that abortion could be okay in some states but not in others? Shouldn't such a ban apply to all states? It's a mess.

Establishing when the legal status of "personhood" begins and ends is always going to be a gnarly affair, but this Alabama law is particularly ill-conceived (pardon the pun).

The SCotUS has already not decided when personhood begins, and I don't think they are likely to start now.

What the SCotUS will essentially be asked to do is draw the line balancing a woman's right to personal autonomy and privacy against the state's interest in protecting a fetus (or embryo, depending on the state law), and its power to abrogate an individual's right in the pursuit of that interest.

Oh, the fun of living in a nation of quasi-nations.

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rj
AKA
Vreemac, Moth of the Future

Quote
rjmacs

The SCotUS has already not decided when personhood begins, and I don't think they are likely to start now.

What the SCotUS will essentially be asked to do is draw the line balancing a woman's right to personal autonomy and privacy against the state's interest in protecting a fetus (or embryo, depending on the state law), and its power to abrogate an individual's right in the pursuit of that interest.

Oh, the fun of living in a nation of quasi-nations.

Yeah, I was looking at what was in the bill and was reflecting on the logical consequences. But I didn't clarify in my head whether I was assuming the Court will choose to hear the case or I was hypothetically assuming that the Court would choose to review this law. I was dazzled by the logical implications of this law. I think I mostly meant it in the hypothetical sense but even that didn't come across. Sorry.

It does seem most likely that the Court will choose to review a law from a state that has more along the lines of "not undue burden" underpinning rather than take on a case where the real visceral issue is actually adjudicated. It's disingenuous at best (I think deceitful, but it's not like a a fair number of decisions aren't deceitful). I think Roberts in particular is inclined to keep sliding down the "not undue burden" slope until the burden of the not undue burden is so great that functionally abortions will be all but stopped (except if you have enough money, of course).

And, as you say, they probably won't get around to it until after the election for some reason or another.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2019 11:14PM by Ted King.

Quote
Ted King
There is an illogical feel to the reasoning behind this bill. One of the architects of this bill said that the intent was for this to go to the Supreme Court - and the central argument for it is based on the idea of "personhood" happening at conception. This is a key thing the court will be asked to rule on - does personhood begin at conception?

But on what grounds would the Supreme Court rule that personhood begins at conception? It certainly couldn't be grounded in science since the notion of personhood is a legal concept, not a scientific one. Would they try to ground such a ruling by appeal to religion? Which religion? Why would a religious view matter in this legal question? An appeal to religion doesn't seem logically viable from a Constitutional perspective (the perspective the court is supposed to take).

So on what grounds would they make such a ruling? How would they deal with issues like exactly what "conception" is? What about identical twins? What about chimeras? It's a mess. sekker points out that the bill says IVF isn't conception? WTF? That just sounds like a kludge to avoid the messy issue of what to do about keeping all these persons frozen in limbo if fertilization happens in a tube and then the embryos are frozen. It makes a hash of even the notion of a mystical inculcation of "personhood" - got to happen inside a woman; good grief, magical wombs.

And if the court were to decide that personhood begins at conception - and therefore entitlement to basic human rights - how would they be justified in ruling that abortion could be okay in some states but not in others? Shouldn't such a ban apply to all states? It's a mess.

Establishing when the legal status of "personhood" begins and ends is always going to be a gnarly affair, but this Alabama law is particularly ill-conceived (pardon the pun).

The SCotUS has already not decided when personhood begins, and I don't think they are likely to start now.

What the SCotUS will essentially be asked to do is draw the line balancing a woman's right to personal autonomy and privacy against the state's interest in protecting a fetus (or embryo, depending on the state law), and its power to abrogate an individual's right in the pursuit of that interest.

Oh, the fun of living in a nation of quasi-nations.

---

rj
AKA
Vreemac, Moth of the Future

Quote
Ted King

Quote
rjmacs

The SCotUS has already not decided when personhood begins, and I don't think they are likely to start now.

What the SCotUS will essentially be asked to do is draw the line balancing a woman's right to personal autonomy and privacy against the state's interest in protecting a fetus (or embryo, depending on the state law), and its power to abrogate an individual's right in the pursuit of that interest.

Oh, the fun of living in a nation of quasi-nations.

Yeah, I was looking at what was in the bill and was reflecting on the logical consequences. But I didn't clarify in my head whether I was assuming the Court will choose to hear the case or I was hypothetically assuming that the Court would choose to review this law. I was dazzled by the logical implications of this law. I think I mostly meant it in the hypothetical sense but even that didn't come across. Sorry.

It does seem most likely that the Court will choose to review a law from a state that has more along the lines of "not undue burden" underpinning rather than take on a case where the real visceral issue is actually adjudicated. It's disingenuous at best (I think deceitful, but it's not like a a fair number of decisions aren't deceitful). I think Roberts in particular is inclined to keep sliding down the "not undue burden" slope until the burden of the not undue burden is so great that functionally abortions will be all but stopped (except if you have enough money, of course).

And, as you say, they probably won't get around to it until after the election for some reason or another.

Yes - I think it's likely that the undermining of Roe will be incremental rather than a single sweeping decision, in part because I think that "overturning" the legal principles of Roe will have much broader implications than just reducing access to abortion.

Our jurisprudence has applied strict scrutiny to cases where a right to privacy applies for 46 years, and not just in abortion cases. LGBTQ+ rights would not exist as we know them without Roe's precedent. We may not be able to protect consumers from the predations of Facebook, Google, etc. without Roe. Roe is bigger than Roe.

It's going to be much easier for the Court to move the line balancing state and individual priorities to the advantage of the state, essentially letting states that want to minimize or eliminate abortion to do so with diminishing limits. It's pretty unlikely, barring a federal constitutional amendment, that the SCotUS will ban or outlaw abortion writ large, precisely because it's unlikely to want to weigh in on issues like 'when personhood begins.' So, whether or not a woman can obtain an abortion will become chiefly a question of access, which will be a question of geography and resources.

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rj
AKA
Vreemac, Moth of the Future

And yet Roe remains functionally unsettled, so long as state laws keep offering up technical interpretations that effectively render its intent moot.

The long term disadvantage conservatives have is their uneasiness with plainly stating in court what they daily bleat about as the overarching reason for restricting abortion: God, the Bible.

Religion funnels down to "the sanctity of life," but it's religion that is couched in those terms, leading an obvious question to be, "Wait a second, don't we already have expectations and laws against killing? If so, why are we concerned about this?"

Again, "personhood" is the answer. It's about being a member of society.

Arguments have logical or practical conclusions. They can seldom be both. The law is normally about practical considerations, not logical ones. We could logically argue that new life begins before conception if we want to take it that far. We are all made of stars. Literally. I don't see how that's helpful or relevant here, but someone could try to argue that it is.

Perhaps we'll soon be able to alter the legal definition of when birth occurs. If a heartbeat=birth, someone will have to update Hallmark. The greeting card industry will want to know.

If the opportunity comes about with a more liberal majority on the Supreme Court, maybe they should take note of the conservative justices reliance on a "this is not an overly burdensome restriction" rationale when it comes to states making it harder and harder for women to exercise their rights with respect to their own bodies. As I said above, the "not an overly burdensome restriction" is disingenuous at best, but there is no doubt that it has been functionally effective at reducing women's ability to get an abortion in some states. So if there is ever a liberal majority in the Court, maybe they should apply that to gun laws passed by states where the state government actually wants to rigorously restrict who gets a gun and how they get it and what they can legally do with it if they get one. Is requiring that a person get fire arm safety training overly burdensome (like say, one where they are forced to view the carnage that guns have done to real people when guns are used improperly)? I don't see why it would be. So a liberal Court majority wouldn't have to go full frontal negation on the precedent set down in the Heller decision. They could just use the path that the conservative Justices on the present (and near past) Court have been using with respect to abortion.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2019 05:07PM by Ted King.