Supreme court to overturn Roe vs Wade

[swabian]

As Dobbs v Jackson made clear more than once in the text, mentioning the examples you gave by name:

Even Justice Thomas’ concurrence made it clear:

That is precisely the reason he mentioned other precedents should be reviewed separately in the future. As usual, Democrats and their media allies are spreading disinformation about Dobbs v Jackson, falsely claiming the decision threatens a myriad of civil rights. It’s an odd narrative to stress if abortion is what everyone is supposed to be outraged about, but it makes sense as part of the broader left wing effort to delegitimize SCOTUS for the sake of petty revenge over Merrick Garland.

I wasn't really criticising the SCOTUS decision, but the ensuing lawmaking in individual federal states. The reality created for pregnant women in some of those states is pretty absurd and in case of Alabama simply scandalous. Of course precedents should be reviewed seperately, I thought of that as a given.

In principle it is not outrageous at all to transition some instances of federal law back to local law, if that's the result of a fair review of precedents (and I actually don't doubt it is). However, cutting the 12 week threshold in half is one thing, but replacing legal assessment based on individual cases with a simple ban is clearly not wise. This is undoubtedly putting some pregnant women of the lower social strata in a very difficult situation for really no good reason at all (if abortion is considered murder, a 6 week ban still offers a time window for murder). And Alabama and it's near-total ban... please.

[Lord Thesaurian]

In principle it is not outrageous at all to transition some instances of federal law back to local law, if that's the result of a fair review of precedents (and I actually don't doubt it is). However, cutting the 12 week threshold in half is one thing, but replacing legal assessment based on individual cases with a simple ban is clearly not wise. This is undoubtedly putting some pregnant women of the lower social strata in a very difficult situation for really no good reason at all (if abortion is considered murder, a 6 week ban still offers a time window for murder). And Alabama and it's near-total ban... please.

Voters in Alabama elected leaders who want to ban abortion, just like voters in California and New York picked ones who want to give abortions out like free candy. 16 states provide abortion services by law, and you can reach at least one in under a day by car from Alabama. In Illinois for example, minors don’t even need parental consent to get one. According to Planned Parenthood, an abortion can cost up to 750 dollars, and several states and companies are offering financial assistance to travelers for abortion services. These days, you can even get an abortion by mail. It’s never been easier to kill babies in this country, but nothing is ever good enough for the people who believe anyone should be able to get an abortion any time anywhere for free and be celebrated for doing so.

I’m willing to bet Democrats could get conservative backing for federal legislation that bans abortion except in cases of fetal abnormality, rape, incest, or a threat to the mother’s health, if that’s what they’re concerned about. It’s ironic that Democrats are outraged SCOTUS will no longer enforce abortion for them, justify it based on 1% of abortion cases, and slander the courts and several states for making decisions they don’t like, all while declining to pass any federal abortion legislation for 50 years. It has less to do with abortion and more to do with the left’s campaign to destroy any institution they can’t dominate outright.

[Muizer]

There is no convincing, let alone undeniable, reason to define the value of humanity according to fluid and self-serving interpretations of social status (hitherto, no criteria has been offered) rather than biological fact. That is, unless the intention is to construct a standard which excludes in utero children from the right to life a priori. The question's loaded assumption that abortion should be a "basic freedom" is invalidated, with limited exceptions, by the supremacy of the child's most fundamental right - the right to life. The claim that society has "no stake" in reproductive concerns (i.e. its own future) is absurd on its face.

You're just redefining personhood arbitrarily to make abortion sound less immoral. A person's humanity is not dependent on proximity to any community. Yours is just the "it isn't a person" argument. Your daily reminder that legality is not a measure of morality. The holocaust was legal, slavery was legal, the death penalty is still legal, etc.

Rights are not God given. No right exists outside of what a society agrees upon. The fact that it is an agreement means that in essence all rights are reciprocal in the sense of "your freedom ends where it infringes mine" and "don't do unto others what you don't want done unto you". In the matter of abortion, the only relation in play is that between society and a pregnant woman. The fetus has no reciprocal relationship with society. If society wants to intervene it has to prove it, not the fetus, is materially impacted enough to impose restrictions on a woman's freedom to choose. And I say 'materially', because we've agreed on freedom of religion, so you can't restrict someone's actions based on your religious sensibilities alone.
Maybe you can still make a case for a ban on abortions taking this as the premise. It will be interesting to hear. IMHO there are probably cases where for historical reasons the principle hasn't been applied rigorously and awkward tension exists between religion and professed 'enlightened' ideals. The question then is, do we stick with the ideals or toss them out when they become 'inconvenient'.

[Genava]

Ordinarily, a pregnancy does not constitute a bodily violation because it is the product of a consensual relationship. But if a pregnancy is not consensual...

Consensual relationship =/= consensual pregnancy. Consenting to an intercourse doesn't mean consenting to a pregnancy. This is why condoms, birth control pills, morning-after pills and other contraceptives are commonly used for. Consenting to the former, not the latter.

But if a pregnancy is not consensual, the mother is no more obliged to the child that was Shimp to McFall, even though the child is an innocent party. A case can be made that it is still immoral for the child to be terminated, but not that it is more immoral than forcing the mother to accept the violation.

Still, Shimp to McFall is about a bone marrow transplant. A pregnant mother is a very different situation. An abortion is an active process. Furthermore, you are saying that it is morally equivalent to terminate a fetus or to force a mother to carry out the pregnancy ? That's interesting.

[Coughdrop addict]

Voters in Alabama elected leaders who want to ban abortion, just like voters in California and New York picked ones who want to give abortions out like free candy. 16 states provide abortion services by law, and you can reach at least one in under a day by car from Alabama. In Illinois for example, minors don’t even need parental consent to get one. According to Planned Parenthood, an abortion can cost up to 750 dollars, and several states and companies are offering financial assistance to travelers for abortion services. These days, you can even get an abortion by mail. It’s never been easier to kill babies in this country, but nothing is ever good enough for the people who believe anyone should be able to get an abortion any time anywhere for free and be celebrated for doing so.

I’m willing to bet Democrats could get conservative backing for federal legislation that bans abortion except in cases of fetal abnormality, rape, incest, or a threat to the mother’s health, if that’s what they’re concerned about. It’s ironic that Democrats are outraged SCOTUS will no longer enforce abortion for them, justify it based on 1% of abortion cases, and slander the courts and several states for making decisions they don’t like, all while declining to pass any federal abortion legislation for 50 years. It has less to do with abortion and more to do with the left’s campaign to destroy any institution they can’t dominate outright.

Laughable. It is your party who has sought to take away every civil right they can to establish their dream of remaking the US into a third world theocratic despotism.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...trac-rcna35228

The Supreme Court must revisit and overrule past landmark decisions that legalized the right to obtain contraception, the right to same-sex intimacy and the right to same-sex marriage, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote Friday.
Thomas, in a concurring opinion to the court’s precedent-breaking decision overturning Roe v. Wade and wiping out constitutional protections for abortion rights, said that he would do away with the doctrine of “substantive due process” and explicitly called on the court to overrule the watershed civil rights rulings in Griswold v. Connecticut, Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges.

When you are sent to prison or stoned to death for buying condoms, don't say you weren't warned.

[Pontifex Maximus]

Rights are not God given. No right exists outside of what a society agrees upon. The fact that it is an agreement means that in essence all rights are reciprocal in the sense of "your freedom ends where it infringes mine" and "don't do unto others what you don't want done unto you". In the matter of abortion, the only relation in play is that between society and a pregnant woman. The fetus has no reciprocal relationship with society. If society wants to intervene it has to prove it, not the fetus, is materially impacted enough to impose restrictions on a woman's freedom to choose. And I say 'materially', because we've agreed on freedom of religion, so you can't restrict someone's actions based on your religious sensibilities alone.
Maybe you can still make a case for a ban on abortions taking this as the premise. It will be interesting to hear. IMHO there are probably cases where for historical reasons the principle hasn't been applied rigorously and awkward tension exists between religion and professed 'enlightened' ideals. The question then is, do we stick with the ideals or toss them out when they become 'inconvenient'.

You've constructed a bizarre framework to justify your position, which I reject. Any society which would allow its future society to be indiscriminately killed is evil and barbaric, and does not qualify as civilization.

[swabian]

You've constructed a bizarre framework to justify your position, which I reject. Any society which would allow its future society to be indiscriminately killed is evil and barbaric, and does not qualify as civilization.

Jesus... It's a utilitarian, rationalist point of view that I basically happen to share. "Barbaric"? What happened to you people?

[Pontifex Maximus]

We were here all along, and even your best justification for infanticide is pretty flimsy. Killing babies may be "utilitarian" in nature but it is certainly immoral.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Laughable. It is your party who has sought to take away every civil right they can to establish their dream of remaking the US into a third world theocratic despotism.

Opposition to substantive due process has come from both sides of the aisle. Justice Byron White, a Democrat appointed by JFK, dissented in the Roe v Wade decision on that basis. Thomas has long voiced similar opposition. Whether or not SCOTUS ever does review the cases Thomas suggested, it will be unrelated to the Dobbs case.

[Pontifex Maximus]

Laughable. It is your party who has sought to take away every civil right they can to establish their dream of remaking the US into a third world theocratic despotism.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...trac-rcna35228

Show me in the Constitution where it says two men can marry. I'll wait. Your hyperbole aside, I have to point out the complete hypocrisy on the 2nd amendment. Maybe the left should stop legislating via the Court and actually pass laws since your policies are soooo popular.

When you are sent to prison or stoned to death for buying condoms, don't say you weren't warned.

I will just buy back alley condoms, straight from the pig's intestine! Bratwurst sales will reach record levels!

[swabian]

We were here all along, and even your best justification for infanticide is pretty flimsy. Killing babies may be "utilitarian" in nature but it is certainly immoral.

Abortion is an ugly business, I would certainly agree on that. Hell, life is an ugly business. The world is a nasty place. What I see here is the human fetus being the next hang-up for disgruntled Trump supporters.

Goddammit, a fetus is not a human until it matures to some degree! Do you really think I'm a baby killer?

[Pontifex Maximus]

Abortion is an ugly business, I would certainly agree on that. Hell, life is an ugly business. The world is a nasty place. What I see here is the human fetus being the next hang-up for disgruntled Trump supporters.

The pro-life movement existed way before Trump.

Goddammit, a fetus is not a human until it matures to some degree!

The same argument that has been made to justify every genocide in human history, defining some group as "not human" or "parasites" or that their deaths are for some common good.

Do you really think I'm a baby killer?

That depends, have you ever killed a baby?

[swabian]

This is ridiulous and I think you are fanaticised! I think you don't give a damn about babies. Stop it!

Come on. You're smarter than this.

[Pontifex Maximus]

...what?

[swabian]

A human fetus in its early stages of developement is not a person that can be murdered up to a certain age. There has to be a threshold. It can be argued about where this threshold is. I think 12 weeks are just fine as an orientation. What is wrong with that all of the sudden? Do I really have to be a baby murderer now, if I apply common sense?

[Pontifex Maximus]

There's no sense to your arbitrary definition of personhood. At the moment of conception, a distinctly unique genetic code is created that has never existed before and will never exist again, and if left alone will become a tiny baby born into the world. Any interference of that process by killing the baby is murder. by definition. The threshold is the moment of conception.

[irontaino]

There's no sense to your arbitrary definition of personhood. At the moment of conception, a distinctly unique genetic code is created that has never existed before and will never exist again, and if left alone will become a tiny baby born into the world. Any interference of that process by killing the baby is murder. by definition. The threshold is the moment of conception.

So it's not a baby then.

[swabian]

Any interference of that process by killing the baby is murder. by definition.

Yeah, "by definition" certainly not. Your definition of personhood is not science backed, it's arbitrary. There are some questions that aren't answerable by science yet. Like, if crawfish and lobsters do feel feel agony comparable to us humans in their diminutive central nervous systems, when we boil them alive.

What is answerable though is the question, whether or not personhood begins with a fertilized egg or not. The answer is objectively: no conception alone does not constitute personhood.

[Pontifex Maximus]

It could not possibly be anything else. Is it a raccoon? Is it an elk? Is it a rock? Stop denying science!

[Cope]

Rights are not God given. No right exists outside of what a society agrees upon. The fact that it is an agreement means that in essence all rights are reciprocal in the sense of "your freedom ends where it infringes mine" and "don't do unto others what you don't want done unto you". In the matter of abortion, the only relation in play is that between society and a pregnant woman. The fetus has no reciprocal relationship with society. If society wants to intervene it has to prove it, not the fetus, is materially impacted enough to impose restrictions on a woman's freedom to choose. And I say 'materially', because we've agreed on freedom of religion, so you can't restrict someone's actions based on your religious sensibilities alone.

Maybe you can still make a case for a ban on abortions taking this as the premise. It will be interesting to hear. IMHO there are probably cases where for historical reasons the principle hasn't been applied rigorously and awkward tension exists between religion and professed 'enlightened' ideals. The question then is, do we stick with the ideals or toss them out when they become 'inconvenient'.

As mentioned, the social status limitation is arbitrary, ill-defined (still no criteria) and designed to exclude. The demand for proof of reciprocity, "material impact" and societal interest have been met, but could anyway be dismissed as stemming from personal conviction - just as the right to life was dismissed as a "religious sensibility". On this latter point, allow me to again cite Hitchens, who reaches the pro-life conclusion from a position of atheism:

What about the feminist claim that abortion is an issue of a woman’s right to control her own body?

Look, once you allow that the occupant of the womb is even potentially a life, it cuts athwart any glib invocation of “the woman’s right to choose.” If the unborn is a candidate member of the next generation, it means that it is society’s responsibility. I used to argue that if this is denied, you might as well permit abortion in the third trimester. I wasn’t as surprised as perhaps I ought to have been when some feminists—only some, and partly to annoy—said yes to that. They at least were prepared to accept their own logic, and say that the unborn is nobody’s business but theirs. That is a very reactionary and selfish position, and it stems from this original evasion about the fetus being “merely” an appendage.

But it’s only an evasion if we have some firm grounds for suspecting that the fetus is a human being.

True. But I think that by now we know where babies come from. And dialectics will tell you that you can’t be meaningfully inhuman unless you are actually or potentially human as well. Pointless to describe a rat or a snake, say, as behaving in an inhuman fashion. I put the question like this. You see a woman kicked in the stomach. Your instinct is properly one of revulsion. You learn that the woman is pregnant. Who will reply that this discovery does not multiply their revulsion? And who will say that this is only because it makes it worse for the woman? I don’t think this is just an instinctive or an emotional reaction (not that we should always distrust our instincts and emotions either). We are stuck with a basic reverence for life.

But aren’t all these notions of the sanctity of human life and so on alien to your otherwise Marxist view of the world?

Hitchens: On the contrary. As a materialist I hold that we don’t have bodies, we are bodies. And as an atheist I believe that we do not have the consolation of the afterlife. We have only one life to live, so it had better be good. All the nonsense we hear about mediate and immediate animation, the point where a soul enters the unborn and so on, is at best beside the point. It has in common with the sectarian feminist view a complete contempt for science and the theory of evolution—which establishes beyond reasonable doubt that life is a continuum that begins at conception because it can’t begin anywhere else.

https://www.crisismagazine.com/2019/...ainst-abortion

Consensual relationship =/= consensual pregnancy. Consenting to an intercourse doesn't mean consenting to a pregnancy. This is why condoms, birth control pills, morning-after pills and other contraceptives are commonly used for. Consenting to the former, not the latter.

If a person consents to intercourse they are accepting the risk of pregnancy. The involved parties are therefore responsible for its fruits . Use of contraception illustrates risk awareness.

Still, Shimp to McFall is about a bone marrow transplant. A pregnant mother is a very different situation. An abortion is an active process. Furthermore, you are saying that it is morally equivalent to terminate a fetus or to force a mother to carry out the pregnancy ? That's interesting.

SvM demonstrates my reasoning adequately, albeit imperfectly. It's true that abortion is not passive, but it is the only method for ending the bodily violation prior to viability (~23wks). If there was a way of ending the pregnancy without causing the death of the child, I would support that.

Goddammit, a fetus is not a human until it matures to some degree!

This is false: a zygote/blastocyst/embryo/fetus made of human gametes is a genetically unique organism* belonging to the homo sapiens species.

*Or organisms if the cell splits to create identical twins.