[www.newyorker.com]

Within a matter of months, women in about half of the United States may be breaking the law if they decide to end a pregnancy. This will be, in large part, because Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is surprised that there is so little written about abortion in a four-thousand-word document crafted by fifty-five men in 1787. As it happens, there is also nothing at all in that document, which sets out fundamental law, about pregnancy, uteruses, @#$%&, fetuses, placentas, menstrual blood, breasts, or breast milk. There is nothing in that document about women at all. Most consequentially, there is nothing in that document—or in the circumstances under which it was written—that suggests its authors imagined women as part of the political community embraced by the phrase “We the People.” There were no women among the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. There were no women among the hundreds of people who participated in ratifying conventions in the states. There were no women judges. There were no women legislators. At the time, women could neither hold office nor run for office, and, except in New Jersey, and then only fleetingly, women could not vote. Legally, most women did not exist as persons.

Because these facts appear to surprise Alito, abortion is likely to become a crime in at least twenty states this spring. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” Alito wrote, in a leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The draft decision, which Politico published on Monday night, would overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion. Chief Justice John Roberts, promising an investigation, has not denied its authenticity. Five Justices have reportedly voted in accordance with the draft: Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan are sure to dissent. Roberts is not likely to concur. One theory has it that whoever disclosed the draft is trying to make it more difficult if not impossible for Roberts to recruit a defector from the majority. But, of course, this remains unknown.

About as wholly speculative as the question of who leaked this decision is the history offered to support it. Alito’s opinion rests almost exclusively on a bizarre and impoverished historical analysis. “The Constitution makes no express reference to a right to obtain an abortion, and therefore those who claim that it protects such a right must show that the right is somehow implicit in the constitutional text,” he argues, making this observation repeatedly. Roe, he writes, was “remarkably loose in its treatment of the constitutional text” and suffers from one error above all: “it held that the abortion right, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, is part of a right to privacy, which is also not mentioned.”

Women are indeed missing from the Constitution. That’s a problem to remedy, not a precedent to honor.

There is no Equal Rights Amendment, therefore women cannot carry guns?

---

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

Hard to believe a group of rich white men, some of whom were having sex and children with the enslaved women they owned, would not take time to write something about women's rights.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2022 03:45PM by Lemon Drop.

A higher percentage of men are pro-choice than women.

Quote
kj
A higher percentage of men are pro-choice than women.

What poll is that from?

[news.gallup.com]

"Views on abortion by gender, 2021

Majorities of both men and women express support for legal abortion, though women are somewhat more likely than men to hold this view (62% vs. 56%)."

[www.pewresearch.org]

About equal numbers of men and women and a majority in each case support abortion rights.

Quote
Lemon Drop

Quote
kj
A higher percentage of men are pro-choice than women.

What poll is that from?

[news.gallup.com]

"Views on abortion by gender, 2021

Majorities of both men and women express support for legal abortion, though women are somewhat more likely than men to hold this view (62% vs. 56%)."

[www.pewresearch.org]

About equal numbers of men and women and a majority in each case support abortion rights.

Ok, it seems to flip-flop occasionally, so I may have looked at something from 2019. I'm sure Trump is responsible for a lot of changed minds among women, but it doesn't seem right to portray it as a man vs woman thing.

Quote
kj

Quote
Lemon Drop

Quote
kj
A higher percentage of men are pro-choice than women.

What poll is that from?

[news.gallup.com]

"Views on abortion by gender, 2021

Majorities of both men and women express support for legal abortion, though women are somewhat more likely than men to hold this view (62% vs. 56%)."

[www.pewresearch.org]

About equal numbers of men and women and a majority in each case support abortion rights.

Ok, it seems to flip-flop occasionally, so I may have looked at something from 2019. I'm sure Trump is responsible for a lot of changed minds among women, but it doesn't seem right to portray it as a man vs woman thing.

I agree.

But this thread is not about 2022. It is about 1787. At that time women had no rights amd barely existed as individuals. And certainly had no say in what went into the Constitution.

Fair enough.

The Constitution can’t be inclusive of every group or scenario, and it was never intended to delineate rights. Alito’s analysis that there is no mention of a specific right, and, therefore, it does not exist, is in clear opposition to the 9th amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

---

Le poète doit vivre beaucoup, vivre dans tous les sens. - Verlaine

Quote
Marc Anthony
The Constitution can’t be inclusive of every group or scenario, and it was never intended to delineate rights. Alito’s analysis that there is no mention of a specific right, and, therefore, it does not exist, is in clear opposition to the 9th amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

Yeah, I was wondering about his take on the 9th Amendment with respect to this as well.

---

e pluribus unum

Quote
Ted King

Quote
Marc Anthony
The Constitution can’t be inclusive of every group or scenario, and it was never intended to delineate rights. Alito’s analysis that there is no mention of a specific right, and, therefore, it does not exist, is in clear opposition to the 9th amendment: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

Yeah, I was wondering about his take on the 9th Amendment with respect to this as well.

Alito conveniently ignores the 9th Amendment entirely.

---

Retained by the people - as individuals. As in the individual right to an abortion.

---

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

"The Constitutional is for men only"


Thanks Hal; I'm glad we've got that settled...........

The US Constitution also says nothing about:

Chickens - eliminate the Food and Drug Administration - let the states decide how chickens should be kept and prepared for human consumption.
Credit Cards - guess they should be illegal if any given state deems it moral.
Airplanes - so states ought to be able to ban their flight in their airspace if their electorate consider them unsafe dangers that could fall out of the sky.

Just ridiculous. Thank you, conservative Justices of the Supreme Court, for once again making the nation you so badly want to be called "great" a laughingstock instead.

---

g=



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2022 08:08AM by gabester.