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Leaked SCOTUS Draft Opinion Suggests Imminent Overturn of Roe vs. Wade
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pstuart 4y agoThe best way to reduce abortions is to reduce unwanted pregnancies. Birth control and sex ed are key to that but ironically that doesn't seem to be embraced by those who say they want to stop abortions.
- quantified 4y agoHealth ed. You don’t learn any sex in sex ed.
- dap 4y agoSo much this. To me, this reveals the deep hypocrisy of the standard anti-abortion position. I get that many folks consider birth control unethical and sex ed undesirable, too. But aren't they at least lesser evils? If one's position is "we absolutely have to stop all abortions, but also I don't want you to use birth control or sex ed to do it", then I have to think you don't _really_ care about the abortions as much as you say.
- pstuart 4y agoThe fact that this is based on religious convictions is all the more reason for it to be challenged as a law of the land. We should be governed by secular laws. Those of a particular faith should be free to follow that faith amongst their own but should have no right to enforce their religious beliefs on others. Unfortunately, for many, "religious freedom" means exactly that.
- TimTheTinker 4y ago> We should be governed by secular laws. Every law has a worldview and moral standards it assumes a priori. The point of our government's structure is to allow whatever laws people ask their representatives to pass, assuming the House and the Senate can agree and the law itself isn't unconstitutional. There's nothing unconstitutional about laws that assume particular beliefs about what is right and wrong, even if those beliefs originate in a religious worldview. If it's what "we the people" (at least a large enough subset of us) believe, there's nothing wrong with it passing from a constitutional or jurisprudential standpoint. We all have varying beliefs; that's not going to change, but it will be reflected in our politics, unfortunately. You and I may disagree with a particular law as immoral, but the battle over which worldview to found laws on should be fought in public debate, votes, etc. -- not by arguing that such laws are legally invalid. Only unconstitutional laws ought to be struck down as such.
- andrekandre 4y ago> Every law has a worldview and moral standards it assumes a priori. actually, no, law (legality) is specifically _NOT_ about morality, if it was then jaywalking would be a moral offense, which it clearly is not
- TimTheTinker 4y agoI disagree. Jaywalking was outlawed because the auto industry successfully lobbied lawmakers using specifically moral (if flawed) arguments, like: "Cars are dangerous but helpful to people, people's lives are valuable, let's protect human life by outlawing randomly walking across the street where cars are." The moral assumption that argument is asking lawmakers to accept is that human life is valuable. The argument is flawed and mostly wrong otherwise, but it's the moral component that makes it compelling. It's the same with pro-choice laws. They're compelling to many people because of the moral assumptions we're asked to accept -- specifically the bodily autonomy of the woman, among other things. Why should pro-life arguments be the only ones not allowed to be based on morality?
- mhh__ 4y agoReligiousfreedom, a la Dune, perhaps.
- tablespoon 4y ago> We should be governed by secular laws. We are. > Those of a particular faith should be free to follow that faith amongst their own but should have no right to enforce their religious beliefs on others. That is nonsense. Are you saying the state should be forbidden to (for instance) limit the operating hours of business on Sundays because that might align with the population's religious convictions? The way should and does work is the motivations for a policy almost always don't matter, so long as the policy itself is constitutional. If the state can regulate store hours, then it can regulate them on any day as it sees fit.
- philjohn 4y agoSome republican lawmakers want the court to overturn Griswold next, which also relies on the right to privacy this decision seems to be striking down.
- collegeburner 4y agoBecause both are shitty jurispridence and create rights where they aren't written. They're some of the worst opinions since FDR blackmailed the court into letting his new deal bs stand. If we want to create a new right we should pass an amendment, like we did with universal suffrage etc.
- philjohn 4y agoWhich is going to be impossible, so women need to suffer. Great.
- sharken 4y agoWell, you can have both, don't see why that should be a bad thing. A woman should have full control over her body, this decision is counter-productive. In my view USA is making a turn for the worse and setting out on a very dark path.
- pyuser583 4y agoAm I the only one who thinks the justices may have “leaked” it? As a way to diffuse the reaction when the case is decided? If the everyone freaks out now, the news cycle will be over when the actual vote happens. Nothing in here is surprising … it doesn’t even tell us how Roberts voted, and since it’s a month old, we don’t know the actual decision. Seems like PR.
- gadders 4y agoYou could cynically argue that this is leaked to motivate the Democrat base to turn out for the mid-terms.
- collegeburner 4y agoThat is not cynical, it's almost certain it's the reason somebody leaked it.
- pyuser583 4y agoWouldn’t it make sense to have the news released closer to the mid terms? By leaking it, they’re having the news released further from the mid terms.
- aaomidi 4y agoYeah except these justices are so insulated and so senile that they wouldn't be able to think this far ahead. This is a pissed off staffer.
- bern4444 4y agoA terrible day in our country; individuals lose yet another freedom.
- waelkjlkj4t 4y ago
- voz_ 4y ago
- waelkjlkj4t 4y ago
- bufferoverflow 4y ago
- aaomidi 4y agoOkay then let's increase taxes by 3x and provide housing and shelter and a good life for every child. Wanna see how far this goes?
- bufferoverflow 4y agoWhere did the 3x figure come from?
- hedora 4y agoIt’s not a few months of inconvenience, etc. A friend had an abortion in high school, and is now professionally successful and providing extremely well for her children. Should her aborted kid have been shunted off to adoptive parents, only to take up a stable household that an already born kid needed? Should she have kept the kid and raised it in an unstable household? Once 100% of children on this planet are well-cared for, your argument might make sense, but we are far, far away from that. Until then, we should prioritize kids over fetuses.
- waelkjlkj4t 4y ago
- voz_ 4y agoThis is tragic, from every way you look at it. I cannot think of a better way to, in one fell swoop: 1) Increase crime long term. 2) Weaken the mandate of the Supreme Court, and destroy any trust people have in it. 3) Financially disenfranchise poor people further. 4) Hurt rape victims.
- gadders 4y agoI realise that (1) is from Freakonomics, but I can't help thinking there could (or should be) be better ways to stop unwanted pregnancies turning into criminals than aborting the foetus.
- jimbob45 4y agoI’d heavily challenge you on #2. For fifty years, every SCOTUS nominee has been weighed against their opinion on Roe v Wade. It’s high time to relegate that decision to the legislative branch so that we can more wisely seat new justices based on a wider variety of opinions.
- cmurf 4y agoCongress should pass a right to privacy law, and repass the Equality Amendment. Not a dime of money need be spent convincing blue state voters, spend it in red states that ratified the first attempt at the Equality Amendment.
- waelkjlkj4t 4y ago
- hedora 4y ago4 sounds like hyperbole, but Ohio is now in the process of specifically banning abortion in rape cases.
- chomp 4y agoTexas already banned it, no exclusions for rape and incest. Greg Abbott says it's fine because he's going to "eliminate all rapists". https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/texas-gov-abbott-defends-new-abortion-law-vows-eliminate-all-n1278648 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/texas-gov-abb...
- hedora 4y agoThe draft decision is based on the idea that we don’t have a right to privacy in the US, and that findings based on that concept are incorrect. Here are some quotes from current senators: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/members-of-congress-react-to-draft-supreme-court-opinion-obtained-by-politico-that-shows-justices-poised-to-overturn-roe-v-wade/ar-AAWR6Bm https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/members-of-congress-... Here are two that I think are particularly well thought out: Congress must pass legislation that codifies Roe v. Wade as the law of the land in this country NOW. And if there aren’t 60 votes in the Senate to do it, and there are not, we must end the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes. — Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 3, 2022 As we’ve warned, SCOTUS isn’t just coming for abortion - they’re coming for the right to privacy Roe rests on, which includes gay marriage + civil rights. Manchin is blocking Congress codifying Roe. House has seemingly forgotten about Clarence Thomas. These 2 points must change https://t.co/5Isec0osV0 https://t.co/5Isec0osV0 — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 3, 2022
- ryeights 4y ago>The draft decision is based on the idea that we don’t have a right to privacy in the US, and that findings based on that concept are incorrect. I don't believe this is accurate. >The abortion right is also critically different from any other right that this Court has held to fall within the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of “liberty.” Roe's defenders characterize the abortion right as similar to the rights recognized in past decisions involving matters such as intimate sexual relations, contraception, and marriage, but abortion is fundamentally different, as both Roe and Casey acknowledged, because it destroys what those decisions called “fetal life” and what the law now before us describes as an “unborn human being." (p5) Would a "right to privacy" imply a right to murder? The issue at hand, IMO, is precisely whether or not abortion is a personal, private decision, versus the ending of a life separate from one's own.
- gadders 4y ago>> The draft decision is based on the idea that we don’t have a right to privacy in the US That's false, as reading the opinion would show.
- verdverm 4y agoAdding "Abortion Policy in the Absence of Roe" which has a good table showing the scope of state laws https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/abortion-policy-absence-roe https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/abortion-pol... --- and globally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law#International_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law#International_law
- goldforever 4y ago
- mwnivek 4y agoPrevious threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31243022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31243022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31243404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31243404
- jandrewrogers 4y agoAs a pro-choice liberal, I always felt like Roe v. Wade was poorly decided from the perspective of consistent and robust jurisprudence. Much like Wickard v. Filburn, the line of reasoning was sufficiently tortured that it opened the door for future adverse decisions in directions they might not otherwise go. For this reason, there was always a possibility that a future court may patch it to make it more consistent with other precedent. In my view, sending most things to the individual States to decide is the correct default. See also: marijuana legalization, which has spread at the State level because it is nearly impossible to change at the Federal level.
- Blammar 4y ago"sending most things to the individual States to decide is the correct default." Problem with that is the deciders in these states don't reflect the population of the state in general. Another problem with that is what if the State's decision is egregious, e.g., slavery is permitted again, Hispanics are not allowed to vote, etc., etc. ? I am bemused at the marijuana thing -- I suspect there's a huge untold story there involving the DEA, the FBI, large sums of money, etc., etc. . Once we allow States to decide things and overrule the government arbitrarily, we're possibly on the road to the balkanization of the United States. Sure, a slippery slope argument, but I've read enough science fiction to think this has a non-zero probability of happening.
- Auracle 4y agoThe deciders of the nation are even further removed from the population. If the state’s decision is egregious we have a constitution with amendments and other federal laws. The federal government was incredibly limited prior to the civil war, and since then has only gained power and taken it away from the states. Our country was designed this way for a reason and I would personally love to return to it. If nothing else, different states having wildly different policies means that we can more easily see what works and what doesn’t.
- verdverm 4y agoOne of the most important aspects of democracy is the ability to self correct, however this shakes out (really) long-term
- silexia 4y ago
- thatswrong0 4y agoEw.
- mhh__ 4y agoHow long until Every sperm is sacred?
- markoman 4y agoThis decision will further weaken the credibility of the Court since Barrett, Gorsuch & Beer Boy paid lots of lip service to 'super-precedence' and how Roe was the 'law of the land' during their confirmation hearings. Unlike pro-choice Sen. Collins who was fooled, the liberal senators were not. What's next for Republicans will be to ban abortion outright at the national level, and not leave it up to the states. Then the sanctity squad will come for your Plan B pill, contraceptives, gay marriage, etc.
- mcphage 4y ago> This decision will further weaken the credibility of the Court Is there any indication that they care?
- smitty1e 4y agoIf this comes to pass, it will be the culmination of a half-century effort of the pro-life movement to correct a perceived wrong. One hopes that the pro-life movement continues its positive efforts in a pro-family vein. If there has ever been an occasion to read a full SCOTUS opinion, this may be it. Prediction I: the abortionistas will not actually read the opinion and engage with its points on the merits. Prediction II: a State, e.g. Nevada, will become an abortion necropolis, and those who disagree with the practice will find a preferred climate. As with taxation preferences, that is a major point of our system.
- smitty1e 4y agoNotes on the leak => https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/05/notes-on-the-leak.php https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/05/notes-on-the-...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tmaly 4y agoIf they are to overturn something decided so long ago, it seems they might start flipping other decisions.
- ReptileMan 4y agoWhether women have constitutional right to abortion, whether they should have access to abortion as elective procedure and whether this procedure should be at federal level and cover the whole of US are three separate questions. Using SCOTUS was a hack by the activists at time. Make it a federal law or constitutional amendment if it is so popular and important. Both are much harder to repeal. If it was weak or wrong decision (not from moral but from judical point) - it should be removed and done right.
- mcphage 4y ago> it should be removed and done right. The people who removed it have no interest in doing it right.
- briHass 4y agoThis is not unusual: https://constitution.congress.gov/resources/decisions-overruled/ https://constitution.congress.gov/resources/decisions-overru...
- jgon 4y agoJustice Alito's draft opinion specifically criticizes decisions which legalized sodomy aka its no longer a crime to be gay, and same-sex marriage, basically stating that they have the same (invalid in his opinion) reasoning behind them as Roe v. Wade, so yeah buckle up because they aren't stopping here.
- ravar 4y agoAwesome if true. However it is unlikely we are getting sodomy laws back, republicans never actually get wins. They just exist to slow down the lefts agenda. Not that long ago Obama publicly said that he thought gay marriage should never be legal, something he obviously did not believe. I think people forget just how much things have changed in the last 10 year.
- matthewmcg 4y agoI would say, if you're a clerk and you're working on this thing, you can just walk out. Make the kooks write it out themselves, longhand. You can still collect your 6 figure signing bonus from the law firm you go to work for.
- smugma 4y agoIf you’re a clerk working for Alito, this is the opinion of a lifetime.