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Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

• luckystarr 4y ago
  The mid 2030s and 2040s will be the years of crime. That's when all the unwanted kids will "grow up" without affection.
  • caracustard 4y ago
    Bad generalization and prejudice right there. While whether someone is brought up in an environment that encourages care absolutely influences the choices people make down the road, whether the person in question was "wanted" does not matter. I can't exactly back that up with some solid data but i think that many people know someone who is far from being an "unwanted" person but still made some bad choices in life.
  • typeofhuman 4y ago
    • voisin 4y ago
      I believe there have been social studies showing the positive impact to crime by increasing access to abortion. I don’t have citations or the time to look them up now, but I am pretty sure it is referenced in Freakonomics and possibly one of Gladwell’s books.
      • 1123581321 4y ago
        Abortion rights have never been about liquidating future criminals. A correlation might exist, but the dissenting justices were not considering it.
      • Clubber 4y ago
        There's no way to tell for sure, because it's such a broad statistic. Other people have opined that the removal of lead gasoline was also a reason of the drop in crime rates. No one really knows what is causing it.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  • jimbob45 4y ago
    The study you’re speaking of (abortion lowering crime rates by preventing unwanted children from terrorizing the streets) remains unproven at best, despite oft being cited as settled research[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect#2001_Donohue_and_Levitt_study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_e...
    • luckystarr 4y ago
      Thank you. We'll figure it out in 20 years time if no federal law will be instated. The data from pro/contra abortion states can then be correlated with the crime differential in those states. Through that I guess it can then either be shown plausible or implausible. We'll see.
  • missedthecue 4y ago
    Is this line of thinking materially different from being pro-death penalty?
    • DangitBobby 4y ago
      It is if you don't consider a fetus to be a person.
  • shagmin 4y ago
    For anyone interested, the book Freakonomics had a chapter devoted to studying this as a factor that lead crime to drop from its peak in the early 90s US, approximately 20 years after Roe v Wade. Kind of a provocative study and you could make a similar case for leaded gasoline and other factors but nevertheless interesting.
    • InTheArena 4y ago
      • dang 4y ago
        Flamebait like that will get you banned here. No more of this, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • mythrwy 4y ago
    Don't worry, we will have full pre-crime surveillance by then and you won't be able even think about farting without it being noted.
  • andrewclunn 4y ago
    Looks at racial break-down of abortions. Rereads parent comment.
    • DangitBobby 4y ago
      The problem is, in a word, poverty.
• cato_the_elder 4y ago
  This is a great first step towards protecting human dignity and sanctity of innocent lives in the US. Roe vs. Wade is a classical example of judicial activism. The right to privacy clearly doesn't have anything to do with abortion.
  • mirceal 4y ago
    • cato_the_elder 4y ago
      > It's not anyone's business what you do with your body. Sure, but abortion is also about the fetus's body. (And other things as well: dignity of humans, paternal rights [1], etc.) > You want to protect innocent lives? [...] You don't get to dictate what others should care about, but I agree with some of those, though often with a different framing. For example, I think in a well-functioning society, you should be able to raise a family on a single stream of income. This is a framing currently advocated by people like Bake Masters (the AZ US Senate candidate). Elizabeth Warren (who, unlike Masters, is a left-wing politician) has also used this framing in her 2004 book titled "The Two-Income Trap" [2]. > christofascists That's a personal attack, which I don't appreciate. Also, despite the Bible quote in my bio, I'm not a Christian. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_rights_and_abortion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_rights_and_abortion [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two-Income_Trap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two-Income_Trap
      • mirceal 4y ago
• bilekas 4y ago
  Its somewhat hypocritical that the supreme court takes away an inherit right. That was part of the constitution. It was a demonstration of right to privacy concerning your own body. And they take it away and call it conservative. You really couldn't make this up.
• terrycody 4y ago
  I never expect this will happen in US history...
• pastor_bob 4y ago
  Heh, I know so many suburban Republicans who claimed this day would never come.
  • giarc 4y ago
    I don't know... they voted for a person who spoke about this in their campaign. Hard to say it wasn't going to happen.
• bediger4000 4y ago
  Who are the judicial activists?
• danso 4y ago
  Ruling: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
• hunglee2 4y ago
  my condolences to my friends in the US, this is a backwards step
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• usrn 4y ago
  This doesn't ban abortion, it leaves it up to the states. IMO that's the best since people simply aren't going to agree on it. EDIT: Abortion is not in the Constitution in any way, it's not a right.
  • erellsworth 4y ago
    No, best would be to leave it up to the individual.
    • usrn 4y ago
      We don't do that with other state laws like murder and theft. And different states have different ideas on what those laws should look like too. EDIT: I'm not sure what you mean by that. Are you upset about SCOTUS citing common law tradition? Most of our law works that way, you have to build on something. Even "reason" needs axioms and you have to find a way to pick those. EDIT2: There are a surprising number of people who want to decriminalize theft and even murder in some situations (look up "mutual combat" in Chicago.)
      • jablala 4y ago
        It seems utterly ridiculous that you would rather go on precedent than case by case rational decision making.
      • babelfish 4y ago
        Abortion is not murder or theft. An appropriate comparison would be an appendectomy. If states started banning appendectomies, I would hope the fed would codify it as law.
        • jasonlfunk 4y ago
          This is the very core of the disagreement. Pro-life people do not agree that it’s comparable to an appendectomy.
        • sparrish 4y ago
• sbarbarian 4y ago
• anonu 4y ago
  Interestingly: The NYT link was written 4 hours ago (~6AM EST) - but the decision seems to have been released around ~10AM EST. I suppose everyone expected this post the leak. Without taking any side on this issue: this is a tough day in America, when a 50-year precedent is overturned.
  • josephcsible 4y ago
    • anonu 4y ago
      I don't know enough about Dred Scott. What is the parallel between that case and abortion?
      • josephcsible 4y ago
        The parallel is that they were both Supreme Court cases that had their rulings overturned years later, and in both, a lot of people liked the original decision and were upset that it no longer stood.
        • jquery 4y ago
          “Both Hitler and Obama were disliked by millions of people” Same energy. This ruling today has more in common with Dred Scott (reduces citizens back down to property because of founder intent or something) than the overturning of it.
      • avs733 4y ago
        It’s a bad faith argument to undermine precedent.
        • sokoloff 4y ago
          It's not the undermining of precedent (for its own sake) that matters here. It's the contents of the precedent that are presumably bothersome to the upthread poster. Comparisons to precedents overturned in the name of progress are entirely reasonable to examine whether its the matter of precedents in general or specific contents that are issue.
• yesdocs 4y ago
  Welcome to the 50’s
  • the_only_law 4y ago
    Without the economy
    • zeroonetwothree 4y ago
      GDP per capita was <$3000 in the 50s Edit: downvoted for stating a fact
      • krnlpnc 4y ago
        Do cost of housing next
        • zeroonetwothree 4y ago
          Right now median house price is 350k and gdp per capita is 70k (so 5x) In 1954 median house price was 19k and gdp per capita was $2,400 (so 8x) So yeah I’ll take the current economy please.
          • waffleiron 4y ago
            GDP per capita doesn’t mean much here, median wage would be a lot better. Also there are a ton of different stats for median house price and 19k I can only find on a single source, the rest is a lot lower
• jjgreen 4y ago
  The day that the coat-hanger became a medical instrument (again).
  • ncallaway 4y ago
    We very thankfully have more options for women that are much safer than coat hangers. There are drugs that will allow women to have illegal abortions that are much much safer than a coat hanger. The important factor will be finding ways to get such drugs to women in states where they cannot be legally used, and ensuring that such a delivery mechanism delivers safe, and authentic drugs.
    • DesiLurker 4y ago
      so basically corner meth dealers will now deliver abortion pills? IDK if thats gonna last, because you know we can always police the drugs out of the system.
      • mywittyname 4y ago
        A lot of fairly common prescription drugs are abortifaciants. Prostaglandin is the substance used in drugs designed for that specific purpose, but many drugs that influence muscle control, inflamation, or bloodflow can do the same thing. It's going to be very difficult to regulate all of these drugs.
      • evan_ 4y ago
        yeah the war on drugs in the US has been famously successful
      • ncallaway 4y ago
        Well, I hope we can find systems that avoid it being dangerous. For example, pills can be acquired safely from outside of the jurisdiction and mailed in. Or, many such pills have on-label uses that are not abortion related. So there could be avenues to helping people who need them for abortion purposes obtain them from reputable providers for legal purposes. But, yes, the war on drugs has shown that trying to police drugs out of the system is incredibly difficult. I'd just like to make sure that, once the war ramps up, we can find ways to keep the delivery of the drugs as timely, authentic, and the use of them as safe as possible.
• jquery 4y ago
  • grnmamba 4y ago
    Yeah, now the USA have the same federal legislation as civil war torn federations like... the european union?
• gnicholas 4y ago
  As expected, the 5 justices on the leaked Alito opinion constitute the majority, Chief Justice Roberts filed a concurring opinion (in which he argues that the principle of judicial restraint requires merely upholding the law in question, not overturning Roe), and the 3 liberal justices dissented. In total, the opinions are 217 pages long. Anyone able to quickly run a diff on the leaked majority opinion and the official one?
  • jonathanjaeger 4y ago
    Don't have that for you, but I found one difference cited on Twitter: https://twitter.com/notjessewalker/status/1540342070002348032?s=20&t=LxEHzBgZBAifbb_Bdtrjdw https://twitter.com/notjessewalker/status/154034207000234803...
    • gnicholas 4y ago
      Tweet deleted — what did it say?
      • jonathanjaeger 4y ago
        Ah sorry, don't remember who was the original tweeter before the quote tweet.
• ceejayoz 4y ago
  13 states have "trigger laws"; pre-bans on abortion, dependent only on this ruling. A large swath of the country, as of this morning, bans abortion.
• Ndjdndnbd 4y ago
  • ceejayoz 4y ago
    From 1973 until 2022, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was officially deemed by the Supreme Court to be a Constitutional protection of abortion. The idea that "most legal scholars agree" is pretty silly; there's been significant debate for decades.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • Ndndjdndj 4y ago
      • ceejayoz 4y ago
        That's incorrect, on several counts. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2690604/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2690604/ > Quickening, the point at which a woman feels life, was used to determine fetal viability. That's 16-20 weeks, a far more liberal standard than the bans going into practice now. > By the end of 1868, 30 to the then 37 states had passed laws restricting abortion. That's not all states.
• uptown 4y ago
  "In a solo concurring opinion, Thomas says the court should reconsider rulings that protect contraception, same-sex relationships, and same-sex marriage." https://twitter.com/fordm/status/1540338064324698112 https://twitter.com/fordm/status/1540338064324698112
  • zeroonetwothree 4y ago
    No one was surprised.
  • jquery 4y ago
    These are next up on the chopping block and the same logic used to overturn Roe v Wade can be used to overturn those. Thomas is merely voicing that reality instead of playing coy like other reactionary justices.
    • rob74 4y ago
      Yeah, better hurry up while the conservatives still have the overwhelming majority on the court. You never know what the future brings...
    • pjscott 4y ago
      Take heart! The majority ruling explicitly says that its reasoning does not apply to those, and goes into detail about why those rulings are different.
      • dwater 4y ago
        The majority also said in congressional testimony that Roe was settled, and then changed their minds when they had the power to overturn it.
    • 0xfeba 4y ago
      There are, IIRC, forced sterilization laws that depended on RvW, so perhaps those are back in fashion too.
    • colinmhayes 4y ago
• dotdi 4y ago
  https://archive.ph/pqtwO https://archive.ph/pqtwO
• ABeeSea 4y ago
  This Supreme Court is coming for contraceptives and same-sex marriage next. We are headed towards a theocracy.
• YPPH 4y ago
  As an Australian, a few things about the SCOTUS absolutely shock me, aside from the obvious issue of politicisation. I've only skimmed the judgment, but Roberts CJ convincingly points out that there was no need for the court to completely overturn Roe. It would suffice to jettison the viability standard. Going further was completely unnecessary to decide the case. On the other hand, Thomas J took the occasion, without having heard complete argument on the respective issues, to opine that other substantive due process rights should be reconsidered. Including Griswold (no banning controceptives), Lawrence (no banning sodomy), and Obergefell (no banning gay marriage). This is simply astounding. The second is the sheer hypocrisy of the members of the court who decry judicial activism while, in the next breath, engaging in the same. I wish you luck for the future, Americans.
  • zeroonetwothree 4y ago
    “Judicial activism” refers to striking down state laws. In this case they upheld a law.
    • avs733 4y ago
      I mean…no it doesn’t.
    • ncallaway 4y ago
      That’s nonsense.
    • threeseed 4y ago
      Does that equally apply to gun rights ? The states can ban abortion but not ban concealed carry.
      • zeroonetwothree 4y ago
        Yes I would say the gun rights decision was judicial activism.
    • ADifferentKyle 4y ago
      I've never heard such a limiting definition for judicial activism. It's typically understood more broadly as a criticism of American judges who, according to some, go beyond their duties of "interpreting law" and instead create it. To borrow from conservapedia (a resource I wouldn't otherwise defend, except in this limited case), it's "when judges substitute their own political opinions for the applicable law, or when judges act like a legislature (legislating from the bench) rather than like a traditional court."
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  I'm pro-choice but I still believe that this is the right move. > “My criticism of Roe is that it seemed to have stopped the momentum on the side of change,” Ginsburg said. She would’ve preferred that abortion rights be secured more gradually, in a process that included state legislatures and the courts, she added. Ginsburg also was troubled that the focus on Roe was on a right to privacy, rather than women’s rights. https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-offers-critique-roe-v-wade-during-law-school-visit https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/justice-ruth-bader-ginsbur...
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • dryanau 4y ago
    Could you explain this a bit more please? (I'm not from the US so I'm possibly missing something but your comment is surprising at a broad strokes level) Edit: I see you've edited your post already with a quote which is helpful.
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
      Sorry for the late edit. I basically see people holding states more accountable now. State politicians who are pro-life are on notice. They can no longer cry about it and blame the federal government. The issue is now on their plate- and it's a thorny one. People need to vote.
      • threeseed 4y ago
        But the Supreme Court just banned the rights of states to decide how they apply gun laws. Specifically, New York was prevented [days ago](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-gun-law-new-york-second-amendment/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-gun-law-new-york-...) from deciding how concealed carry should be implemented. Surely you can see the hypocrisy in only being in favour of state rights when it suits you.
        • 4y ago
• thriftwy 4y ago
  (edited) It's not like you had any more urgent issues than this? That move greatly reinforces Galkovsky's position that USA is now a Latin American country not unlike Brazil; and indeed, Latin American countries also deeply care about this (non)issue and have abortion laws inappropriate to their general level of economical and human development. The problem being, at least Brazil recognizes that it is Brazil and knows how to run Brazil.
  • qalmakka 4y ago
    It's a simple vote exchange, you know. People got triggered badly by Roe and "liberal" rulings that actually enshrined the right of women to have a sexual life and control their own life, so they made a pact with the Republicans to overturn it. In exchange for that, the Republicans had a free hand to cut taxes to rich people and ensure that poor people stayed poor.
    • thriftwy 4y ago
      That's so many read flags in one place that it resembles May 1st on the Red Square.
  • lom888 4y ago
    I wish we saw more comparison between the US and Latin America in online discourse. There is an excess of references and analogies made to the emotionally salient topics of the US Civil War, the Civil rights period and Europe from 1918 to 1945 when discussing the current American situation and a dearth of comparison to Latin America. The frequent comparison of Trump to a dictator instead of to a populist president in the Latin American mold is an example.
  • rg111 4y ago
    Religious issues are how you get votes. And that is how you can be in power to help your crony capitalist friends.
• chewmieser 4y ago
  Here's the article linked in case you don't have a NYTimes sub: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-abortion-supreme-court?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxfs4h2Hza3LNE2wFl7pSWdTH5lyKf61uIsQ60zneTdVGKqMuQ_o31fJHJUFoRkyjpYaehN5NBRQJnr-JfzF82YPRD_d_9TLlZ2KoI-B7wLC0oxOBNn_sX6Db0HEjJRIzosdlaV2h2XEXz63HEPohjtQoifZ3AJ15RDwQdWLd6amTfhZ0Pd-NbBDW6xBnGL0KHGGOwqPPru4IYw5QClnZTXxg4mta6N5UOt8fOKqXPAd3MYOlwu1XUjo0Wd_vU54hRIHUlKFot6rNrHGPzcm3w_YxEMZEreHyBGIaR7hOn3H-jOkyzmQ&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-abortion...
• incognitoes 4y ago
• rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 4y ago
  How is this seen like it's the end of the world? Just vote with the people that won't ban abortion.
  • monocasa 4y ago
    Because in contrary to the states' rights argument being touted, the legal theory underpinning the decision opens the door to a federal ban. You might not get the chance to vote for the people that ban abortion for you.
  • JacobThreeThree 4y ago
    Because the media is making it out to be the end of the world. This ruling does not ban abortion, it lets the states have jurisdiction over the issue.
    • Fauntleroy 4y ago
      In practice, this ruling bans abortion in those states. Regardless of your opinion of those states, people DO live in them and will be adversely affected. Lives will be ruined, people will die, and ultimately this will probably be counterproductive wrt lowering the number of abortions overall.
    • ncallaway 4y ago
      And in many states there are laws on the books that make abortion illegal effective today.
      • Clubber 4y ago
        I mean isn't that the will of the people in that state? If you live in a state that will be affected, it could certainly be a problem for you. If you don't then you are wanting to subvert their democratic process, no? Imagine if it was something else like marijuana legalization and whatnot.
        • ncallaway 4y ago
• nus07 4y ago
• lawn 4y ago
  There's this belief that society always moves in a "forward/upward" directory, where we become more advanced, more enlightened and more moral. But this is not the case and sometimes we regress.
  • typeofhuman 4y ago
    A contrarian argument would say that protecting life - especially young life - is a more enlightened and moral direction.
    • voisin 4y ago
      I am fine with this contrarian argument, but why does it stop at birth? There’s no support (universal healthcare for children, paid maternity/paternity leave, etc etc). Conservatives apply these arguments inconsistently.
      • josephcsible 4y ago
        • enumjorge 4y ago
          The next sentence in his post explains what he meant by support.
          • josephcsible 4y ago
            I know that's what the post says. But that's not the actual equivalent. If we had free healthcare just for pregnant women, then it would be fair to say we should give free healthcare to children too, but we don't.
            • ClumsyPilot 4y ago
              The fact that there is no free healthcare for pregnant women demonstrates that noone actually cares about the child's life. It demonstates that you are willing to force a woman to carry the child of a rapist against her will (so it's not her choice) and then have her give birth without medical assitance if she can't afford hospital stay, potentially resulting in the death of the child and the mother. it shows what the game is really about - control over women
• fhkatari 4y ago
  I work for a company, headquartered in the Mid West, that has been very public in their support of LGBTQ rights, among other things. Do you think corporations should take a public stance in support of abortion rights? Will tech companies continue to flock to Texas, in what will become a very difficult environment for abortion?
  • major505 4y ago
    They will if they have some kind of tax relief.
    • cryptonector 4y ago
      Texas has no income tax. But the property tax functions as a backdoor income tax because there is rich school district to poor school district redistribution. Therefore property taxes are high in Texas, though not higher than, say, in New Jersey (which also has an income tax).
  • Hermitian909 4y ago
    > Will tech companies continue to flock to Texas, in what will become a very difficult environment for abortion? Recruiting for tech in Texas has already taken a hit due fear around abortion (getting employees to move down there can be quite difficult). More broadly, I think this is likely to put a big damper on high-end knowledge work in conservative states. Educated people are overwhelmingly liberal. While you could certainly find a subset of knowledge workers who don't have an issue working in a state banning abortion, the difficulties with hiring and transfers probably won't pass a cost benefit analysis (again, we already see this in Texas).
    • hotpotamus 4y ago
      "Knowledge" worker in Texas here (native; didn't move here). I don't feel this affects me for a few reasons, but I will say that I'm also aware that 1. I can travel out of state, and 2. drugs are available online and there are drugs that can provide medical abortions - perhaps those can be put together. That said, in talking with a colleague this morning, we agreed that if the state does go completely crazy and manages to secede, we just want enough notice to sell our property so we can leave.
• dimator 4y ago
  The real question is, what kind of draconian laws will they start hatching to make abortion tourism (flying to a state where it's legal, then coming back) illegal. How do you legislate that? Are people still free to go to another state if they want? Are they getting arrested as soon as they come back? The next case they'll hear is about Mississippi v Some Nonprofit That Pays For Abortion Flights.
  • windows2020 4y ago
    You don't legislate that. That's the point of states.
    • ncallaway 4y ago
      And if they do legislate it? Since they are already trying? What then?
    • kadoban 4y ago
      They absolutely will and already are. There will be loopholes or lax enforcement for the rich and white, but the poor and non-white will have those options restricted and prosecuted.
    • showerst 4y ago
      There are already bills introduced in four state legislatures to do that, and more are surely on the way.
    • DesiLurker 4y ago
      Oh you sweet summer child!
  • curiousllama 4y ago
    This is a good point - it's how the Texas law was written. And not just travel - self managed abortions are cheap, safe, and the most common of all abortions nowadays. They can just mail you the pills, and its literally safer than ibuprofen. You're going to see a lot of cases about "Can [provider, citizen, org] in [Legal_State, Legal Country] provide [medical care, advice, money, other_help] to [person, organization] in [Illegal_State]"
• nabla9 4y ago
  The Roe v. Wade established certain rights to privacy. This decision overturns the argument that Roe v. Wade was based upon and rights it established. Overturning Roe v. Wade opens the door for banning contraception, interference with the right to marry (interracial relationships can be banned), family relationships, right to intimacy, the right to personal control of medical treatment. It will even have data collection limit consequences.
• qalmakka 4y ago
  This is the final chapter of a decade-long saga which basically boils down to the Republicans obtaining votes from Evangelicals and other Christian denominations in order to give them what they wanted. In exchange for that, they would use their power to cut taxes, regulations and let the riches become richer and richer at the expense of everyone else. I hope that whomever supported this ruling is happy right now, and I'd like to remind them that, while Jesus Christ never gave to abortion the slightest mention, he was quite vocal about the fact that greed was not compatible with salvation. I'd like to see Evangelicals and other Christians being as vocal for social justice as they were for abortions and same sex marriage, but I guess they do care about putting woman back in the kitchen as indentured servants more than they do about social justice.
  • voisin 4y ago
    > I hope that whomever supported this ruling is happy right now, and I'd like to remind them that, while Jesus Christ never gave to abortion the slightest mention, he was quite vocal about the fact that greed was not compatible with salvation. I'd like to see Evangelicals and other Christians being as vocal for social justice as they were for abortions and same sex marriage, but I guess they do care more about putting woman back in the kitchen as indentured servants more than they do about social justice. It isn’t about religion. It’s about power and control. We need to stop pretending it has anything to do with Jesus and everything to do with power over others. Nietzsche is more relevant here than Jesus.
    • qorrect 4y ago
      What possible argument against abortion exists besides "religion" ?
    • emilsedgh 4y ago
      What enabled this is large populations who voted republican purely for this cause due to religious reasons.
      • boeingUH60 4y ago
• schappim 4y ago
  Previous: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31862197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31862197
• major505 4y ago
  I`m not american, but lets be honest. Is not a constitution right because is not in the constitution. States can now do their onw diligence about the subject. So it`s not the end of the word for pro-choise people.
  • invokestatic 4y ago
    It's actually written in the Constitution that we as Americans enjoy many rights that aren't explicitly written in the text. It's in the 9th amendment and 14th amendment due process clause. The 14th, to me, encompasses everything that it means to be American: self-autonomy. The right to marry outside our race, the right to choose our sexual partner, the right to birth control are established in the due process clause.
    • newaccount2021 4y ago
    • rhinoceraptor 4y ago
      The issue there is the reactionaries who claim to be 'textualists' and 'originalists' have all but decided the ninth amendment is meaningless. Scalia said, "the Constitution's refusal to 'deny or disparage' other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them, and even farther removed from authorizing judges to identify what they might be, and to enforce the judges' list against laws duly enacted by the people". Of course, anyone with a brain can see that Scalia was the first to abandon textualism or the reactionary idea that judges should not engage in 'judicial activism' whenever they came in conflict with conservative policy.
      • Chris2048 4y ago
        How does this relate to this issue? I don't see that the SCOTUS has contradicted the 9th by saying what isn't in the constitution.
    • lesstyzing 4y ago
      If the constitution is so vague that different judges will interpret it completely differently (and it "encompasses everything that it means to be American"), you need to fix the constitution. Having judges interpret vague things the way the people of the day want is a recipe for...exactly what's happening now.
• bigmattystyles 4y ago
  I’m surprised there’s been no call for a general strike. I think we would have seen one had Trump successfully illegally seized power and when the draft opinion leaked I was expecting rumblings of the idea of a general strike to start.
  • ncallaway 4y ago
    I would thoroughly support a general strike. I would both participate, and donate to strike support funds.
• nabla9 4y ago
  Not just abortion. The Roe v. Wade established certain rights to privacy. Overturning Roe v. Wade opens the door for banning contraception, banning interracial relationships, messing with family relationships, right to intimacy, the right to personal control of medical treatment.
• duped 4y ago
  I'm tired of having the minority religious and bigoted views dominate politics and starve us of progress. Regardless of what the "right" ruling is on the law, or the roles of the different branches of government, the practical impact of this ruling is millions of Americans denied the right to healthcare while simultaneously being denied free access to any democratic process to secure it.
  • lesstyzing 4y ago
    >> I'm tired of having the minority religious and bigoted views dominate politics and starve us of progress. Is it minority views? Surely, when it comes down to states legislating this, people can make their opinion heard at the ballet box. And if a majority of people in a state vote conservative and abortion is restricted then we are legislating based on the wants of the majority. It will be interesting to see if this is an important enough issue for some conservative voters to swing them (and states) to the democrats.
    • joshstrange 4y ago
      > Is it minority views? Yes, unquestionably, the vast majority of Americans support the right to abortion. That said you can do a lot with gerrymandering, suppressing voters, and our archaic electoral college that gives people more/less voting power based on the state they live in.
      • andrewclunn 4y ago
        Define "pro-life" as "no abortions ever" and it's a minority opinion. Define "pro-choice" as "abortions at any stage of pregnancy for any reason" and it's a minority opinion. Saying your side is the clear majority on this issue proves nothing other than you are in an echo chamber.
        • softcactus 4y ago
          You are objectively wrong. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/06/americas-abortion-quandary/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/06/americas-abo...
• cm277 4y ago
  It hurts me to say this, but American democracy is broken. Checks and balances have been twisted to subvert true democratic rule. We should stop worshipping the Founders and their intent, and aim for a Second American Republic, built around the tested and true practices of mature European republics (that have done a lot more revisions than our 1.0.33 release...): - Parliamentary democracy, two chambered if need be, with slowly changing electoral maps (drawn from the Census and controlled by judges, not politicians) - Ban on non-government funding of political parties. Money raised comes from the government or small donations. - Parliament/senate majority is enough. Enough of that 19th century filibuster nonsense. - Faster constitutional amendment cycles that don't require supermajorities - No assinine lifetime appointments to anything. A 10- or 12-year term and a healthy pension are controls enough Law is code: it needs to be easy to change when it's not working and it needs good change processes when it does change. But we cant be running a modern economy and society on 250 year old COBOL...
  • pluc 4y ago
    No abortion rights and a shooting every other day. Good luck attracting talent if you keep this up. You're gonna run yourselves right out of the game.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• areoform 4y ago
  Scientists have shirked their responsibility around abortion. The vacuum and silence around this topic helped push towards this day. The "viability" debate, or the re-branded "when does this ball of cells become a person" debate, has been monopolized by philosophers and religious people. And as a result many women will die due to botched abortions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerri_Santoro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerri_Santoro or the inability to get one in the case of complications (which are fairly common) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar . We can absolutely arrive, with a reasonable degree of certainty, when the ball of cells is capable of executing the processes we associate with consciousness. We can track the development of the neocortex, and monitor its activity to derive an answer to the consciousness question. We can do so via careful observation, and comparison with equivalent brain damaged patients, including those that we otherwise pull the plug on. For what is the moral difference (from a consequentialist, utilitarian standpoint) between taking previously conscious humans with minimal brain function off of life support and an abortion of a non-sentient and non-conscious fetus? There is none, except for the fact that, in the case of a uterus, a human being is forced to act as life support. Science can answer these questions. And do so with greater precision and accuracy over time. We can draw a map and arrive at a more enlightened conclusion. But the act of doing so, of so clearly putting a line down in the sand, makes most scientists uncomfortable. So they don't. And now many people will die because we created the vacuum that irrational belief filled. We stopped engaging. They never stopped fighting.
  • onychomys 4y ago
    Sure, blame the biologists instead of the religious goofballs who think that something becomes human at the instant of gametic fusion.
    • mjh2539 4y ago
      I mean it's got to be something; if it's not (a) human, then what could it possibly be?
      • 4y ago
• krnlpnc 4y ago
  It's depressing to watch the USA continually fail to keep up with the progress of other first world countries. Often times even taking steps backwards like this. There are so many actual issues deserving of this attention. In what universe is removing rights a priority?
  • ceilingcorner 4y ago
    Most other first world nations have more restrictive laws on abortion. Yes, even Western Europe.
  • InTheArena 4y ago
    You are aware that the US position was maximalist and far in excess of all but 4 European states? Or that this doesn't actually make abortion illegal?
  • Mindless2112 4y ago
    > Only seven of the 59 countries allow elective abortions after 20 weeks, the group found: Canada, China, Netherlands, North Korea, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/09/is-the-united-states-one-of-seven-countries-that-allow-elective-abortions-after-20-weeks-of-pregnancy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/...
• kryogen1c 4y ago
  What a disappointing showing from HN. 120 comments and so little substantive discussion or truth-searching. Everyone rushing to share their feelings and no one trying listen. I have thoughts I'd like to discuss, but apparently this isn't the place to do it.
  • fullshark 4y ago
    The only place you might see substantial discussion is a message board for legal scholars/students. The next week minimum online in almost all americancentric forums is going to be about primal screaming from one side, and arrogant gloating from the other.
  • ceilingcorner 4y ago
    Yes frankly this website is not capable of entertaining certain contrarian ideas. Which of course are only contrarian in the narrow societal bubbles they occupy. I blame the downvote mechanism for rewarding echo chambers and punishing outlier opinions. /Shrug.
  • rvz 4y ago
    > Everyone rushing to share their feelings and no one trying listen. There you go. It is also quite clear that the Supreme Court of the United States doesn't care about their feelings. All you get here is reactionary takes, outrage, screeching and a mixture of trillions of emotions on display.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• Glyptodon 4y ago
  The 1st amendment is so valuable against the state imposition of religious dogma...
• coffeeblack 4y ago
  • philosopher1234 4y ago
    Let’s repeal the second amendment then. Let the states decide.
    • peteradio 4y ago
      Nothing preventing you from trying but its a pretty tall order.
      • philosopher1234 4y ago
        Do you willfully misunderstand my point? I’m demonstrating the lie.
        • peteradio 4y ago
          Nothing willful about my stupidity. The lie is what? States rights above all? Nobody made that claim.
          • philosopher1234 4y ago
            With you on your first point.
        • coffeeblack 4y ago
          No, you are not.
    • vinyl7 4y ago
      2nd amendment is a right codified in the constitution. Abortion is not in the constitution, which is what this ruling states. If congress wants to legalize abortion, then that's their job...to make laws. The supreme court does not make laws.
• blinkingled 4y ago
  Biggest thing to me is the message this sends - that there is no settled law really - I think the notion that nothing is legally set in stone and change is only a relatively easy matter of installing supreme court justices siding with your beliefs - that's gotta have some chilling consequences down the line for the country as a whole. Greater progress requires building upon smaller progress, a settled foundation. If the foundation is constantly under churn you can reasonably expect constant regression.
  • bambax 4y ago
    Yes, I think that's true. The Justices should stop imvoking the constitution in long legal ramblings and just say: "Our predecessors thought one way. We're different people and we think another way. Also, if you don't like it you can fuck off." It would be so much more honest.
  • charwalker 4y ago
    Constant regression is the point, for some 35% of the population.
  • cryptonector 4y ago
    Plessy v. Ferguson was settled law. Until it wasn't. And it was rightly overturned after decades of injustice. I bet there were many in the 50s who cried about settled law. Basically, the stare decisis argument is very limited, and the best anyone can hope for is that stare decisis is time-limited. Plessy lasted 64 years, while Roe lasted 50. So stare decisis seems to mean "for a few decades", which I think is fair. Stare decisis is neutral as to the content of court decisions. It can be used to sustain rightly and badly decided rulings for decades. And the court can ultimately overturn its past decisions rightly and wrongly. They can fail in the past, they can fail in the present, and they can fail in the future.
    • blinkingled 4y ago
      Fair point of course - but the devil really is in the details - of how far we stretch, how often, which way we change - towards correcting or regressing, and on what is open to debate vs what is not. This combined with the other things opened up for debate - same sex marriage, inter-racial marriage, contraception etc. makes one feel like everything including slavery being illegal/immoral can be soon up for discussion.
• lesstyzing 4y ago
  Looking at this ruling and the one a few days ago on arms - could someone explain to me why they're wrong legally? FYI I'm not American and personally am in favour of legalised abortion + severe gun restrictions. My understanding is these rulings are both based on the constitution. The one on guns seems really straightforward: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." I know this can be interpreted differently but to me it reads that nobody should be restricted from arming themselves. Regarding abortion, what aspect of the constitution would cover it? I'm asking in good faith here btw. Edit: separately, it is insane to me that these big decisions can be completely split along political lines. A 'supreme court' should be apolitical. There are so many issues with the way the US Supreme Court works. It needs total reform. You should be able to trust a court to make a decision based on the law, not their personal preferences.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • indymike 4y ago
    > Regarding abortion, what aspect of the constitution would cover it? The US Constitution does not contain the word abortion, and so decisions by the Court on abortion either way are only indirectly guided by applying other parts of the Constitution.
    • InTheArena 4y ago
      Except this is not the way the consitution is actually written: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." To the people == legislative branch. to the states means the states legislative branch.
      • mywittyname 4y ago
        The Constitution also says, > [The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; Which is the go-to argument for federal control over things. If you pay for it, and buy it from another state, then the feds can regulate it. It seems perfectly legal to make a federal law that states don't have the power to block access to medications produced in elsewhere. Nor do they have the power to prosecute people for buying such medications, regardless of the effects, from businesses which have locations in multiple states.
• bambax 4y ago
  The fact that the same institution (SCOTUS), reading the same text (US Constitution) could conclude that abortion is a right, then isn't, tells us much of what we need to know about said institution, text... and certainly "historicism" as well. It's all arbitrary; clever and well-read people spending a lot of time justifying and rationalizing their predjudice.
  • fassssst 4y ago
    It's about power over women and always was.
  • InTheArena 4y ago
    Which is why I think that making this decision should be done via a legislative branch instead, rather then unelected partisan, unaccountable, lifetime appointed judges.
  • cryptonector 4y ago
    Yeah, it's a bunch of humans with opinions.
    • mattnewton 4y ago
      always has been :/
  • absolutelymild 4y ago
    Well said. This reversal really exposes the court as a political entity imo. The Supreme Court just ruled that abortion is a question for the states, but concealed weapons laws aren’t. What’s more likely, that this all fits into some complex theory of states rights, or that it’s republican majority siding with the republican party?
• voisin 4y ago
  So why doesn’t Biden change the size of the court to stack it with liberals?
  • jfk13 4y ago
    And then what will the next president from the other side do...?
    • mywittyname 4y ago
      It's probably not a bad idea to have a gigantic SCOTUS.
  • LanceH 4y ago
    Could such an effort be challenged and go through the courts? Would the decision of whether it could be challenged go through the courts?
  • stuckinhell 4y ago
    Because its a huge balancing act, if 25% of population (no matter political beliefs) views the government as illegitimate it leads to chaos. Our current technological civilization is EXTREMELY fragile. 5 attackers in 2014 took down a CA power grid and caused millions in damages. They were never caught. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/05/272015606/sniper-attack-on-calif-power-station-raises-terrorism-fears https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/05/272015606...
• Markoff 4y ago
  [flagged]
  • jasonlotito 4y ago
    There was no US government mandate forcing people to get vaccinated.
    • Markoff 4y ago
      sure, it was "only" states enforcing it (as if it would make any difference for someone living there), exactly same as it's now only states deciding whether they wanna ban abortion or not, you are arguing against yourself and not realizing it
  • myvoiceismypass 4y ago
    Do you have the right to light your body on fire in a crowded room? It’s your body after all.
    • Markoff 4y ago
      Do you have the right to straight up kill other developing life in your body? It's your body after all, same stupid logic. Btw I'm pro choice, just don't like hypocrisy of people who have no problem with forcing unwanted vaccination, but then have problem with forced unwanted pregnancy.
      • rxhernandez 4y ago
        > Do you have the right to straight up kill other developing life in your body? It's your body after all, same stupid logic. Precisely what do you think is happening when you are given medication to kill off something that is making you sick?
        • Markoff 4y ago
          You are killing viruses/bacteria, not future human life. Are you able to distinguish between them? Seems quite difficult for some "liberals"/"democrats".
• darkteflon 4y ago
  Roe vs Wade was the very first case we studied in first-year jurisprudence at law school 20-odd years ago, _half a world away_, in Australia. Devastating to see this outcome. Reinforces the sense that we’ve somehow ended up in a deeply weird timeline.
• IndySun 4y ago
  USA... Abortion illegal - Gov says you must have the kid. Guns legal - The biggest killer of kids in USA. From the country that self-proclaims as the greatest this is a low.
• lweber 4y ago
  Move to Europe. If you work and/or live in the US your taxes are supporting this system.
  • bambax 4y ago
    If you're American your taxes are supporting this, wherever you go. For it to be different, you need to renounce citizenship.
  • laverya 4y ago
    Most of the USA will still have more permissive abortion laws than Europe even after the removal of Roe v. Wade. [0] Most of the EU restricts abortion after 12 weeks - which is what the law at issue in this case does. 0: https://hwfo.substack.com/p/us-europe-abortion-law-comparisons https://hwfo.substack.com/p/us-europe-abortion-law-compariso...
• andsoitis 4y ago
  What are the implications for IVF?
• deviantbit 4y ago
  Everyone is acting like this banned abortion, which it didn't. It is up to the state you live in. If you don't like the state's laws, then move. If you don't want to move, then when you get pregnant, go to a state where it is legal. American's cannot be inconvenienced. These 1st world problems are terrible.
  • Miner49er 4y ago
    That's the whole problem though, many Americans can't afford to move or even travel to another state for an abortion. And there's nothing stopping states from criminalizing traveling out of state for an abortion.
    • zeroonetwothree 4y ago
      Actually two things stop states from doing that: right to travel and dormant commerce clause
  • beeboop 4y ago
    A 2020 study showed that nearly 70% of Americans have less than $1,000 stashed away in their bank accounts. 40% have less than $300. How are these people supposed to afford to take time off work, drive to another state, have an invasive medical procedure performed, and then drive back home and potentially miss another day of work for recovery? If they have difficulty doing that, imagine how much more difficult it'd be to literally move to another state, lose all your friends and family connections, displace your kids from their school and friends, lose your support network, and have to find new employment? All for the sake of something that should be a protected right. Your perspective is really lacking compassion.
  • mywittyname 4y ago
    > go to a state where it is legal. Except there are laws that allow one state to prosecute abortions in another. And SCOTUS will absolutely uphold these laws. They've already upheld the right for private citizens to sue people that they believe have had one.
• katabasis 4y ago
  If Republicans take back congress and the presidency in the next election cycles, a national abortion ban becomes a serious possibility. This is not just a "red states" issue. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/us/anti-abortion-movement-roe-v-wade.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/us/anti-abortion-movement...
  • zeroonetwothree 4y ago
    They would have to get rid of the filibuster, which seems unlikely.
    • seventynine 4y ago
      I'm not so sure. I predict they will torch the filibuster and enact laws that entrench their power for decades. The problem is already that they are barely accountable to voters.
  • wilsonnb3 4y ago
    A federal abortion ban (or legalization) may be unconstitutional. Depends on how effectively they can link it to interstate commerce or one of the other powers given to the federal government in the constitution. Also depends on how the current supreme court feels about the commerce clause. I am not sure if they have ruled on anything involving that recently.
• krnlpnc 4y ago
  "My body my choice" a favorite phrase of conservative anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. How hypocritical that this belief doesn't apply to someone else's right to choose.
  • npteljes 4y ago
    It becomes less hypocritical if you consider that they think that the fetus is another's body. It then becomes an issue of deciding upon someone else's life - which would be murder of course. One thing I think they don't get, or care about, is the personal and societal consequences of having to keep unwanted pregnancies - mainly how much it makes life more difficult for everyone involved. And that with the difficulty, it comes degraded social relationships, unhappiness, substance abuse and crime. Another thing I think they miss is that lots of people will have abortions regardless. Affluent people will have the safe abortions, and the less fortunate will have risky, potentially life-threatening, horrible abortions. Where there's a will, there's a way, so again, crime increases, and the desperate women's health will be in danger, becase the procedure has to go unchecked.
    • krnlpnc 4y ago
      > with the difficulty, it comes degraded social relationships, unhappiness, substance abuse and crime. The cynic in me sees this as an intended effect. American companies want cheap labor and maintaining an impoverished working class helps provide it.
      • npteljes 4y ago
        I agree, I think they see it as a welcome side effect.
    • ausbah 4y ago
      even if you consider the fetus at any stage to be a living human being entitled to certain rights, it is in another body of which the "person inside" should have no say over because its not their body it would be like if you woke hooked up to another person who was relying on your body to survive. sure they're a person, but you never consented nor have to continue giving consent for them to use you in that manner
• InTheArena 4y ago
  Separate abortion from Roe v. Wade. The big challenge has been that Roe v. Wade was horribly decided. Even RBG thought so. Roe v wade gave the Supreme Court the right to make law without reference to any text in the constitution. Casey tried to change the justification but it still was a disaster. Sadly it is far from the only time the Supreme Court has made things up out of whole cloth that has had massive societal implications - see separate but equal, Dredd Scott, etc, bush v gore. Citizens United. Getting rid of roe v wade kicks the issues to legislatures. I may be the only hopeful one - but removing this from unelected, lifetime judges who seem to forget that a democracy is no place for kings and queens may ultimately result in abortion returning to the path it was on before roe v wade - a non-controversial issue decided by elected officials.
  • vitruvian_man 4y ago
    While I'm a strong supporter of abortion rights, I agree with this logic. If anything, this will force conservatives to solidify and clarify their views on abortion which will allow voters to decide where they land on the spectrum of abortion rights. Whereas before, conservatives just deferred to "abortion bad. look at supreme court decision". Also, is it not the case that most Americans support some abortion rights? Thus, this could force conservatives to move center on the abortion spectrum in order to appease their constituents.
    • joshstrange 4y ago
      As if any of the "abortion bad" people rail against it only because it was a supreme court decision. We'd see the same fervor if it was a law. I've never hear someone say "I'd be fine with abortion if it was a law instead of a supreme court decision". I'm sure you can find someone making that argument but the vast majority (90%+) don't care. In fact I bet you could say "The Roe v Wade law" and most people wouldn't bat an eyelash because they just consider it "established precedent" and law vs court decision is irrelevant for them.
      • troyvit 4y ago
        I can think of one person who said that: > The seven to two judgment in Roe v. Wade declared “violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” a Texas criminal abortion statute that intolerably shackled a woman’s autonomy; the Texas law “except[ed] from criminality only a life-saving procedure on behalf of the [pregnant woman].” Suppose the Court had stopped there, rightly declaring unconstitutional the most extreme brand of law in the nation, and had not gone on, as the Court did in Roe, to fashion a regime blanketing the subject, a set of rules that displaced virtually every state law then in force. Would there have been the twenty-year controversy we have witnessed[?] [1] https://time.com/5354490/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade/ https://time.com/5354490/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade/ (edited to add forgotten source)
• insickness 4y ago
  It's a shame the abortion debate is overtaken by radicals on both sides when the majority of Americans would prefer laws similar to most European nations: legal abortion within the first trimester.
  • joshstrange 4y ago
    > radicals on both sides Spare me... > legal abortion within the first trimester And one party is pushing to make it 6 weeks (or less) or no abortions at all. Tell me more about "both sides".
  • ausbah 4y ago
    its not really "both sides" when only one side is having a say in how the ruling is handed down
    • insickness 4y ago
      Yeah, that's how the supreme court works. Previously it was the other side who handed down a ruling.
      • ausbah 4y ago
        yes so right now there is no debate, its one side imposing their beliefs unilaterally. there is no "both sides" when only one side has power
        • insickness 4y ago
          Democrats control the House, Senate and Presidency. That's hardly one-sided.
          • ausbah 4y ago
            and conservatives control SCOTUS, which is the party we are discussing here.
• dorfsmay 4y ago
  Insightful article and interview with the least bias I've seen on this subject: https://quillette.com/2019/05/21/rethinking-abortion-advocacy/ https://quillette.com/2019/05/21/rethinking-abortion-advocac... https://m.soundcloud.com/therightsideirl/interview-coleman-hughes-01 https://m.soundcloud.com/therightsideirl/interview-coleman-h...
• tamaharbor 4y ago
  The Supreme Court never had the authority to even hear the original Roe v. Wade case. It has always been a states rights issue. Glad to see the current Supreme Court returning to the constitution and rule of law.
• gunfighthacksaw 4y ago
  I hate that even following supposed liberation we still feel we have the right to police vaginas and reproductive systems. I also hate that the pro-bodily freedom Americans have spent 50 years ignoring the shaky constitutional ground upon which this fundamental right lies. The right wing ghouls are ultimately responsible, but I also heap scorn on the Democrats who failed to solidify the right to abortion in law.
• MarkovChain242 4y ago
  Tip for savvy EU-based employers: you can save yourselves a lot of work when hiring US nationals that don't quite meet the European Work Visa requirements, by requesting a humanitarian visa for candidates that live in Florida and such instead. Abortion restrictions and associated death penalty pretty much make that a no-brainer.
• coliveira 4y ago
  Supreme Court has shoot itself in the foot. It they can overturn their own decisions based on political schemes, then we can overturn EVERYTHING they do, including this decision itself.
  • hotpotamus 4y ago
    I'm surprised this is news to anyone. Why do you think Republicans fought so hard to own the courts?
  • thehappypm 4y ago
    Overturning isn’t some new thing. And sometimes it’s hugely beneficial. Overturning precedent is how we got rid of separate-but-equal!
  • InTheArena 4y ago
    One can argue that the original Roe V. Wade had exactly this problem, and this is them fixing it.
  • metadat 4y ago
    Actually now SCOTUS just doesn't really mean anything, and no longer stands for anything consistent. They've undermined their own position.
• dogman144 4y ago
  All those red states that courted tech employees the last two years are about to get a challenging political period from that new donor base. Alabama has Huntsville, Texas has Austin, TN has chatt and Nashville, NC has Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, Florida has Miami/Tampa, AZ has Phoenix, CO has Denver (CO isn’t super red but it’s somewhere). This will get more interested and remote workers go deeper into small towns.
  • rrrrrrrrrrrryan 4y ago
    A large part of why the right has disproportionate political power is because left-leaning folks tend to cluster together geographically and dilute their votes. Now that they're beginning to spread out, this may change a bit.
• londgine 4y ago
  Regardless of my opinion on whether states should be able to restrict abortions, I really didn't like Roe vs. Wade. This should be a law that congress votes for/against and be held responsible for by their voters. I wonder how such a legal framework would work if the court could go to their respective law makers and say that the law is unclear in this case and require them to vote on it. Then, rather than Roe vs. Wade being passed in the first place, the supreme court would order congress to vote for/against a new law forbidding states from being able to restrict abortions.
  • generj 4y ago
    I like this proposed mechanism. Unfortunately it would require a constitutional amendment and so is unlikely to happen. But the benefits are obvious: No mucking around trying to interpret legislative intent, just get new legislative intent! If the executive steps into grey areas of the law, force Congress to clarify things. I do worry it would solidify the judiciary as a proto -legislature arguing the law back and forth with Congress. I’d also worry about other unforeseen consequences which would somehow cause worse problems then are existing system.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• laundromat69 4y ago
  • xdennis 4y ago
    Stop spamming this.
• GekkePrutser 4y ago
  So this raises some interesting questions. What if an American person wishing to have an abortion just travels to another country where it's legal to get it done? Can they be arrested upon return? If so, does that mean that all Europeans that had an abortion could be liable to prosecution in the US if they choose to visit? Not that I expect a huge impact to tourism etc. I've seen gay football fans willing to go to Qatar to watch their matches. Visiting a country that thinks they should die didn't seem to bother them :/
  • _blz2 4y ago
    Why would those women go to a different country instead of a different state?
    • GekkePrutser 4y ago
      Because Roe Vs Wade was overturned federally wasn't it? So it applies in all states?
      • _blz2 4y ago
        I'm not sure what 'overturned federally' means, but the decision shifts the matter of legality back to the states. There are tons of blue states where this is still legal.
        • GekkePrutser 4y ago
          Aha thanks, I was not aware of this. I'm not in the US (nor have I ever visited). But I saw some politicians in the news saying they wouldn't want to enforce it. So I assumed it was a law that all states had to obey. Sorry I was wrong.
      • zeroonetwothree 4y ago
        Only something like 20 states will have abortion illegal after this decision.
• laundromat69 4y ago
  • myvoiceismypass 4y ago
    What an insensitive fucking ridiculous comment
    • mythrwy 4y ago
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
• tcj_phx 4y ago
  I think the real issue is that states often make horrible health decisions for individuals. People's right to make decisions for themselves needs to be acknowledged and protected. I have a case pending in the United States Supreme Court that's fundamentally about Medical Freedom: https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/21-1493.html https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/do... (original PDF is readable: https://teslabox.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/220503-Petition-for-eservice.pdf https://teslabox.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/220503-Petit... ) tl/dr: my friend is forced by the State of Arizona to take prescription medications that do not help with her genetic condition of requiring methylated forms of Vitamin B-9 (she is harmed by foods with the shelf-stable food fortification folic acid). Her tendency to self-treat malnutrition-caused depression with substances (alcohol, mainly) is worsened by the psychiatric drugs forced on her. The FDA black box warning on one of them is for 'compulsive behavior'. Last January she was 'stabilized' with the medication that the Soviets used to re-educate their dissidents, when all she really needs is sobriety and an adequate diet. On May 8 2022 she escaped from her guardian's custody, choosing to live on the street instead of a care home. After my petition appeared on the SCOTUS docket I agreed to help her. She got a housekeeping job at that motel. Her manager had no idea her forced treatment with anti-psychotic medications had lapsed. While my petition is fundamentally about whether the States may perpetrate fraud on the United States Court, the core issue I presented is about medical freedom. From Page 21 [1]: > While it may not be this court’s place to tell doctors that they don’t always know what they’re doing, it is the requirement of Constitutional governance that doctors be required to respect bodily autonomy. If a citizen of the United States does not consent to being injected with the Soviets’ preferred medication for dissident re-education, doctors should not able to use the courts to force this, or any other drug, approved or experimental, on any person. > The principle of health freedom requires that people be allowed to make decisions for themselves, without coercion from others. If a person doesn’t want to have their brain electrocuted by their doctor, they shouldn’t be forced to endure this treatment. If a person is concerned they’ll have an adverse reaction to a medication or condition that the experts think is good for everyone, there can be no coercion against people making decisions for themselves, no matter their perceived competency [1] https://teslabox.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/220503-Petition-for-eservice.pdf#page=21 https://teslabox.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/220503-Petit... I'm now trying to whip up outrage on the internet about Arizona's use of the Soviet techniques of torture on our most vulnerable. But maybe Medicine is a sacred cow? How do I convince people that doctors and politicians should not be able to make medical decisions for anyone?
• karl11 4y ago
  The thing about abortion that most people seem not to understand is that the debate is fundamentally about answering "when does human life start?". One side believes it starts at conception, which equates any abortion with murder. The other side believes it starts at some point after that, which makes abortion up to that point a women's health / rights issue. Irreconcilable, but also toxic when the two sides never talk about what they actually disagree on, but instead call each other murderers or anti-women's rights or whatever.
  • softcactus 4y ago
    There is no answer of "when life begins". It's a game of semantics. Like Diogenes bringing a chicken to Plato, any set of traits you can give me to define life, I can find an exception that destroys your definition. Therefore the question should be "when is it ethical to terminate a fetus". Pro-choice voters have different answers for this question. The problem is pro-life hardliners who refuse to play ball whatsoever. They believe life begins at conception with no basis other than religion.
    • golergka 4y ago
      Absence of a correct answer doesn't mean that all answers are equally wrong. All we have to do is to become less wrong over time.
      • softcactus 4y ago
        What you are describing is science. The scientists can determine when life begins, but when life begins is ultimately irrelevant. The state already has no issue killing violent criminals, so even if scientists agree and say "a fetus is equivalent to a fully-developed human at 12 weeks", the question will still be "is it ethical to allow the mother to terminate that human beings life?". At which point you start comparing the value of an unborn human life to the cost that raising a child imposes on society. Again, pro-lifers wont engage with any of this discourse. The blame lies with them.
        • 4y ago
• tzm 4y ago
  Abortion tourism will emerge.
• manuelabeledo 4y ago
  This is a good occasion to remember that most people in the US thinks that abortion should be legal [0], thus this decision purely appeals the white evangelical minority. [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opini...
  • laverya 4y ago
    Do you have stats on views of abortion by trimester? Here's [0] one from last year, which finds that 54% of people think third trimester abortions should be illegal in all cases - (EDIT: presumably) including health of the mother - and 65% think most or all abortions should be illegal in the second trimester. 0: https://apnews.com/article/only-on-ap-us-supreme-court-abortion-religion-health-2c569aa7934233af8e00bef4520a8fa8 https://apnews.com/article/only-on-ap-us-supreme-court-abort...
    • manuelabeledo 4y ago
      > ... which finds that 54% of people think third trimester abortions should be illegal in all cases - including health of the mother - and 65% think most or all abortions should be illegal in the second trimester. I believe the poll from your source fails to make that distinction. From the article: > But Dr. Daniel Grossman, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco, who supports abortion rights, cited research showing that Americans viewed second-trimester abortions more empathetically when told about some of the reasons why women seek them. So if asked if abortions should be legal in the third trimester, most people would jump to say "no", without considering the context.
      • laverya 4y ago
        And now we're playing the game of polls, where depending on what additional information you provide, people respond differently. The general point of "people will respond differently if you ask about abortion in general vs third (or second) trimester abortions in particular" remains. I'm sure your overall polls would change if you said it meant that a nearly-due baby could be aborted at will, too.
• chx 4y ago
  On Jun 6, this blog post was written https://medium.com/eudaimonia-co/how-america-collapsed-and-became-a-fourth-world-country-db9829323a9a https://medium.com/eudaimonia-co/how-america-collapsed-and-b... describing how the three-world split post World War II became a four-world-split now. You have Western social democracies as first, Russia and China on the wings as second, developing as third and the two fallen countries being USA and UK as fourth. Worse than the third. The trajectory is not upwards but down. This is but another step ... down. More will follow. And no, voting won't save you for multiple reasons: one, Democrats won both chambers of Congress and the White House and look what they have achieved. Two, Republicans are relentlessly rigging the vote. Three, soon they won't accept the results anyways. All this to say: flee if you can.
• pmoriarty 4y ago
  This is just the first step towards the conservatives' ultimate goal: making abortion illegal nation-wide. They'll gleefully wave goodbye to "states' rights" when it suits them.
• ryanbytes 4y ago
  State rights baby!!!!!!!
• KerrAvon 4y ago
• westcort 4y ago
  This is a supreme court in search of the limits of its power. I hope they find what they are looking for.
• dredmorbius 4y ago
  There's a flood of stories on this. A sampling mostly gleaned from HN's New queue: Obviously a flood of articles and takes coming. I'm just catching what I can here.... SCOTUS ruling: <https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf> (PDF) EFF Statement on Dobbs ruling: <https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/effs-statement-dobbs-abortion-ruling https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/effs-statement-dobbs-a...> We’re Not Going Back to the Time Before Roe. We’re Going Somewhere Worse <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/07/04/we-are-not-going-back-to-the-time-before-roe-we-are-going-somewhere-worse https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/07/04/we-are-not-goi...> Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade, ending 50 years of federal abortion rights <https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/24/roe-v-wade-overturned-by-supreme-court-ending-federal-abortion-rights.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/24/roe-v-wade-overturned-by-sup...> Overturning Roe vs. Wade could affect IVF <https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-overturning-roe-v-wade-could-affect-ivf https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/how-overturning-roe-v-wa...> Obama Statement on the Draft Supreme Court Decision to Overturn Roe vs. Wade <https://barackobama.medium.com/my-statement-with-michelle-on-the-draft-supreme-court-decision-to-overturn-roe-v-wade-94c0ae0c541a https://barackobama.medium.com/my-statement-with-michelle-on...> Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade Abortion-Rights Ruling <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-24/supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade-abortion-rights-ruling https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-24/supreme-c...> (Use https://archive.today/ https://archive.today/ for paywall.) Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, ending right to abortion upheld for decades <https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1102305878/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade-decision-overturn https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1102305878/supreme-court-abor...> Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade; states can ban abortion <https://apnews.com/article/abortion-supreme-court-decision-854f60302f21c2c35129e58cf8d8a7b0 https://apnews.com/article/abortion-supreme-court-decision-8...> Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade <https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-overturns-abortion-rights-landmark-2022-06-24/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-overturns-...> Roe vs. Wade Overturned <https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-06-24/supreme-court-overturns-roe-vs-wade-frees-states-to-outlaw-abortion https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-06-24/supreme-co...>
• screye 4y ago
  I'll be the begrudging devils advocate for a decision that is sure to have devastating consequences for poor women in red states. It is good for unelected bodies like the Supreme Court to allow such dividing issues be figured out democratically. The US house has bled power to the other 3 institutions and of them, the judiciary is the least democratic. Ofc, my support for this change assumes that this Supreme Court will show restraint towards political activism (in either direction) in general. Call it naive, but I'll wait and see. States rights has always been a double edged sword. You can't have your cake and eat it too. The same state rights that allow gun control and homosexuality to be locally legalized before national concensus; also now lead to abortion legislation being a state issue. The sad part of democracy is that it aims to represent the views of the voting majority. If the voting majority truly cares about access to abortion then we will hopefully see enough democratic traction to give them the mandate needed. Now, the rural republican votes counting for more in the senate is a huge issue and threat to democracy that the US needs to figure out if it ever wants to represent the views of the people. But, the Supreme Court should not be responsible for managing dysfunction in other branches of govt. My personal opinion is that polarization has pushed both sides to be completely antagonistic towards each other. 'Own the libs, fuck the deplorables', no compromise. The jaded side of me says: vote in more moderates that are willing to strike compromises. Crazed jesus Republicans and hyperprogressive activists are terrible people to put into national office. They gain power by antagonizing and being unhelpful roadblocks for change, all while asking for the most stubbornly impossible outcomes. In the long run, history will have a dim view of this era of global polarization with all political sides to blame.
  • causi 4y ago
    This fight is not going to be over until the legislature formally defines what is and is not a person. I doubt that's going to happen because nobody wants to have that discussion.
    • car_analogy 4y ago
      There's a much better argument to legalizing abortion, that holds even if one considers fetuses as persons. In that just as one may not be forced to donate organs or even just blood to save someone else's life, by the same logic, one cannot be forced to bear a child. Of course this is an ethical, not legal argument, so I don't know how it would translate to US law.
• thomk 4y ago
  Less abortions + more guns = more deadly crime (soon). https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_eff...
• LudwigNagasena 4y ago
  The Supreme Court neither banned abortion nor prohibited the legislature from protecting the right to abortion. It merely decided that it is not currently protected by constitution, which to me seems completely correct. If most people agree that it should be a constitutional right, no one stops the legislature from adding the required amendment. And if most people can't agree on that, well, adding that wouldn't be democratic.
  • FpUser 4y ago
    >"If most people agree that it should be a constitutional right, no one stops the legislature from adding the required amendment. " Meanwhile bunch of states will make abortions illegal. I think Texas already has with some technicalities but correct me if I am wrong.
    • standardUser 4y ago
      40 million women in about 20 states just lost all legal access to abortions. Additional states will follow soon, but there is no "meanwhile" for a lot of the country. It's already done.
      • hihihihi1234 4y ago
        I don't think all 40 million women have lost "all" legal access. Eg Florida and Virginia are banning abortion after 15 weeks - which is actually less restrictive than in most of western Europe. Eg France bans abortion after 14 weeks; Norway bans it after 12 weeks.
        • ModernMech 4y ago
          For now. Desantis is already saying he will increase restrictions. Do you have any reason to believe this man, running for President in 2024, won’t race to claim he is the king of protecting fetuses? He’s not going to be able to stand on a stage next to anyone who claims they will restrict abortion in any and all cases, and he knows that. Pence was out yesterday calling for a blanket nationwide abortion ban. That’s were the GOP as a party will be in 2 years, and Florida will need to be there before then to shore up Desantis’ political position. Florida will not be a state where abortions happen soon enough.
• jetsnoc 4y ago
  My great grandmother Julianna died in 1935 aborting herself with a coat hanger in Southern Idaho. She was born in 1915 and died in 1935. Twenty years old. I’m a fifth-generation Idahoan, my family moved to Idaho during the great Mormon exodus of Illinois. They were extremely impoverished. It was the Great Depression and in one of her letters, she writes about not even having the luxury of bone broth They were barely able to take care of their two children and she writes that it was better to save two children than let three starve. In her letters, she describes her guilt and the emotional pain she endured watching her two children be hungry. One of those children was my grandmother. She describes her concerns of being malnourished, she had been opting not to eat as much to let her two children eat, and how that would affect her unborn child. She wrote that her pregnancy was early enough that she could reconcile her faith in allowing her two other children to survive and that not giving birth to a malnourished child would also be the right thing to do for that child as well. In college ethics classes, I became enamored with her situation and had a dozen or more conversations with my grandmother, I read my great-grandmother's letters and heard the story as passed through the generations. I will always cherish those conversations with my grandmother. This of course ultimately developed my personal beliefs. I am thinking of her and my grandmother today. I’m in a same-sex marriage and my stomach dropped reading Clarence Thomas’s opinion and his reference to Obergefell. It wasn’t that long ago I wasn’t able to see my now-husband in the hospital — the emergency room - here in conservative Idaho. I do understand his opinion and context but even if legally sound, it affects me. We the people of the United States of America know how to edit our living constitution and make the rights that we want a constitutional guarantee. It seems impossible at the moment with the divisiveness, polarization and in-fighting but we know that religion is on the decline and you will see that represented in elections in the coming decades. It is possible, we just don’t know the path today. It can be done, but it won’t be easy. I’m sorry, this isn’t all that related to Hacker News. To relate it back, I guess I am saying that we’re hackers, we can hack society, we can hack belief systems, we can take unrelated ideas and bring them together to create something new just like we do inventing new categories of products. We can disrupt things through big ideas and through execution. If we want change, it will be a lot of hacking and hard work. After all, I think it was social / political hacking by the creators of this movement that got us here to today.
  • 4y ago
• cupofpython 4y ago
  the supreme court did not ban abortion. It removed abortion as a legal right. It means people cannot use the power of the federal government to overrule their own state legislature on the topic of abortion. If you understand how the US Government works, then you understand that the Supreme Court cannot establish ANYTHING by removing laws. (ie overturning previous decisions). What the Supreme court did was allow for the POSSIBILITY of a fully Catholic US State to practice Catholic religion with respect to abortion. It ALSO allows a fully Jewish state to practice Jewish religion however they want with respect to abortion. They actual problem caused by overturning Roe v Wade is that some states who's laws are already catholic will regain the power to stop abortions in their state. That's it. California, New York, etc, are absolutely and completely unaffected by this decision, for example.
  • timbit42 4y ago
    So theocracies? Huge doubt there are any states where every citizen is of the same religion.
    • cupofpython 4y ago
      well, voting majority - not exactly every citizen. The US is an agreement. It is more comparable to the EU than it is Spain, or France, etc. Each state is meant to have autonomy relatively similar to a country, but are united together for purposes of national defense and human rights. that was the initial premise. it's expanded from there, but the constitution was a compromise.. states did not want to join the union just to transfer power from a king to a federal government. The heart of the Republican platform is upholding that compromise. The heart of the Democratic platform is that was then, this is now, we are a single country and need to centralize more power.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    > If you understand how the US Government works, then you understand that the Supreme Court cannot establish ANYTHING by removing laws. (ie overturning previous decisions). This was actually part of the issue: > After cataloging a wealth of other information having no bearing on the meaning of the Constitution, the opinion concluded with a numbered set of rules much like those that might be found in a statute enacted by a legislature. For way too long the entire political argument in the US on way too many things has been punted to the Supremes to let the elected officials get out of any responsibility whatsoever.
• cmurf 4y ago
  On the one hand: Mifepristone + Misoprostol, you can get them mailed to you anywhere in the country, even if abortion is illegal in your state. https://twitter.com/AidAccessUSA https://twitter.com/AidAccessUSA On the other hand: I support impeaching these five justices for their deception claiming it was settled law before they were confirmed, rescinding a constitutional right purely for religious reasons, and thus violation of trust. This is the proper civil mechanism for accountability. And making Roe a federal statute.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• criddell 4y ago
  > The sad part of democracy is that it aims to represent the views of the voting majority. That's warped by the fact that rural votes count more than urban votes thanks to the electoral college.
  • green50 4y ago
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • troyvit 4y ago
    And the Senate. But another question I don't see answered much is, why are rural blocs so different in their moral stance from urban ones, and what can we learn from it?
    • cozzyd 4y ago
      Cultural path dependence? Rural voters in places like Vermont are maybe not so different in moral stance from urban voters.
    • throwaway5752 4y ago
      Nothing. There is no equivalency, there is nothing to learn from it. Rural block voters can go about not getting same-sex marriages and not getting abortions and it won't impact anyone else, just like other people having same sex marriages and getting abortions doesn't impact them, aside from their desire to control how other people live their lives. edit: My point - since it seems I was not clear - is "rural" people that object to the activities that Roe, Lawrence, Olbergefell, and Griswold allowed can individually decide to not do those things. They should not be able to compel other people to make the same decisions. Abortion was correctly determined to be a federal right. So are same-sex marriage, contraceptives access, and the choice to have oral or anal sex (that's literally what Thomas explicitly talks about wanting to overturn, the right to engage in "sodomy" as determined in Lawrence vs Texas). People that don't like these things should NOT DO THEM and leave the rest of us the hell alone.
• 3qz 4y ago
  This was inevitable. The law isn’t well justified. Abortion depends on privacy rights? It makes no sense…
• mmaunder 4y ago
  I strongly recommend reading Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s thoughts on Roe v Wade in 1992 - expressed about a year before she became a Supreme Court justice. She describes Roe as a “breathtaking” decision and as interrupting a process already underway. Her discussion starts on page 1198 in this PDF which is a rewarding read if you have the time. I’m not advocating either way - I merely hope to present Justice Ginsbergs eloquent views (in 1992) on the matter for further discussion here. https://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/ECM_PRO_059254.pdf https://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/ECM_PRO_059254.p...
  • incomplete 4y ago
    yeah, thanks for the link and i recall (from years ago) reading about her thoughts on the subject. roe v wade was a sweeping judgement that (depending on how you looked at it) guaranteed women's rights at the expense of state autonomy WRT laws. because of the states' rights issue, plus moral "conservatism", roe V wade was an easy target and i'm not surprised it was reversed. fwiw, i'm a lefty and think that this is a terrible decision w/consequences that won't take long to be felt around the country
    • the_solenoid 4y ago
      It should have been codified into law decades ago, but EVERYONE with few exceptions loves to fundraise off of it. Want to know how you know the US will backslide? I Said it a decade ago - when R's are willing to pull the trigger on Roe, it will be because they are going for everything.
      • cryptonector 4y ago
        That's an overly dramatic take. My prediction is that Republicans will now begin losing seats in red State legislatures precisely because of this decision.
        • mgkimsal 4y ago
          'now begin' If it happens, and it's because of this decision, I don't think it'll be felt for a while. Certainly I don't expect any backlash this election cycle, and probably no real consequences from this in 2024. I suspect that, to the extent negative effects are felt from this, there will be years of blaming those effects on 'liberal policies' and demonizing democrats some more. I'm pessimistic, but think we'll have a generation before there's any real backlash against the Republican Party over this issue (and by then, the party largely won't look the same as it does today anyway).
• immmmmm 4y ago
  A world leaded by creationism, neo-imperialism and capitalism now facing climate & pollution induced mass extinction. What a beautiful time to be alive.
• whatever1 4y ago
  We need the law to push human rights forward, even if 100% of the electorate does not agree with that. You cannot just put slavery on your municipality ballot and let the local residents vote on it.
• stuckinhell 4y ago
  Damn, I knew the forced vaccinations would came back to haunt us. Republicans keep throwing "my body, my choice" as meaningless because of it. I guarantee the hypocrisy around that radicalized millions of them.
  • ausbah 4y ago
    the US never had forced vaccinations
• belter 4y ago
  "How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape." Christopher Hitchens
• kyleblarson 4y ago
  What is the over under on the number of hours before the "fiery but mostly peaceful" riots begin?
• nus07 4y ago
  I fail to see what moderates can do in a two party system where gerrymandering is so heavily done that often Democrats have to win 3-1 to control any majority. At this point I see it as a fight between rich landowners+business owners+religion vs all the rest of the people . For a country where political lobbying and donations to effect legal decisions is common , I do not expect judgements to ever be fair. The battle between union and state rights only muddies the waters for legal speak.
  • zackees 4y ago
    • hackyhacky 4y ago
      This is backwards thinking. It's not a sports game, this is not about "winning" and "losing." The goal is not to have voters choose their representatives, not the other way around. In a contested or closely divided district, the representatives must adapt to appeal to a majority, resulting in a more moderate position. In a gerrymandered district, the politician can do anything they want, because they know they effectively won't lose. You're right that gerrymandering is not new, but it's gotten more aggressive, thanks to new technology and de facto sanctioning by SCOTUS.
      • the_lonely_road 4y ago
        This is blatantly untrue to the level of fear mongering. The politician can’t do whatever he wants. The election simply moves from republican candidate against democrat candidate to the primaries where the top 3 politicians from the dominant party are running against one another for the nomination. If they adopted policies the majority of their party didn’t like they would be replaced by another member of the party in the next election.
      • zackees 4y ago
        This isn’t about winning or losing? Then why do representatives say they “won” a race? Winning and losing appears to be the cornerstone of a democracy.
• matthewfelgate 4y ago
  Sorry but the USA is mental. Why have a unelected supreme court making political decisions?
  • timbit42 4y ago
    If it were elected it would be more political. Perhaps a better way would be to allow each party to prioritize a list of potential judges and appoint the one closest to the middle of each list.
  • remarkEon 4y ago
    I'm assuming you're not from here. I know the Opinion is >200 pages, but it's pretty clear that SCOTUS is doing exactly what you want: abortion regulations are returned to the State legislatures, where the people's elected representatives get to make them - not the Court.
  • rory 4y ago
    Agreed, the legislative branch should push through a right to abortion matching the European standard (12-14wks). If our politicians were less cynical and self-serving, this would have already happened in redundancy to Roe.
• shmde 4y ago
  USA is a third world country in a gucci belt. Change my mind.
• adamrezich 4y ago
  has anyone done a comparison chart of the various "trigger laws" in different states? I ask because the other day someone on twitter accused my state of being "anti-semetic" for not allowing abortions when the pregnant woman's life is at risk, and a quick google search revealed that this is actually false: 22-17-5.1. (Section effective on the date states are recognized by the United States Supreme Court to have the authority to prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy) Procurement of abortion prohibited--Exception to preserve life of pregnant female--Felony. Any person who administers to any pregnant female or who prescribes or procures for any pregnant female any medicine, drug, or substance or uses or employs any instrument or other means with intent thereby to procure an abortion, unless there is appropriate and reasonable medical judgment that performance of an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant female, is guilty of a Class 6 felony. (Section 7 of SL 2005, ch 187, as amended by SL 2005, ch 188, § 1, provides: "This Act is effective on the date that the states are recognized by the United States Supreme Court to have the authority to prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy.") Source: SL 2005, ch 187, § 6. https://sdlegislature.gov/Statutes/Codified_Laws/2047216 https://sdlegislature.gov/Statutes/Codified_Laws/2047216 are there any states where this is NOT the case?
• noasaservice 4y ago
  There's some really ugly things now opened up - now there are no more protections for states to force an abortion or sterilization. A lot of 'undesirables' were sterilized in the early 20th century America, to the point that even Hitler in his Mein Kamph wrote highly about the US program of mass sterilization. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/feb/06/race.usa https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/feb/06/race.usa . This reversal re-allows this possibility. In fact, according to what ICE was/is doing, is already happening to non-citizens at our borders https://forward.com/culture/454663/ice-hysterectomies-eugenics-hitler-forced-sterilization-american-history/ https://forward.com/culture/454663/ice-hysterectomies-eugeni... But next up is attacking Obergefell... So, if that's deemed unconstitutional, what happens to the gay and lesbian people who are married to same-sex partners? Are their marriages nullified? What of the legal issues in unwinding a marriage of X years? And people who are trans - will they then have to "marry in line with respect to their listed gender"? Can their gender be changed legally? Will this pathway be available for gay and lesbian same-sex partners so they can "legally become opposite of their gender" to then re-marry their partners?
  • malauxyeux 4y ago
    > What of the legal issues in unwinding a marriage of X years? In the case of a binational couple, does the non-citizen (now-former?) spouse get to keep living in the US? Or is the situation going to go back to how it was previously, with no federal recognition, even if legally married in "gay marriage" state? Married same-sex binational couples are minorities in a minority. They don't exist on the political radar unless a larger group takes up their cause. I fully expect them to get rolled here (again).
• ausbah 4y ago
  saying "SCOTUS didn't ban abortion" is at best useless semantic formality and at worst plain incorrect a number of state have laws that the automatically make abortion illegal as soon as Roe was overturned, those are now enacted. furthermore, the case behind this ruling was dealing with a state law the effectively outlawed abortions, despite previous precedent ruling against it. this rule is simply enabling such behavior indirectly. this allows gives the green light for abortion to be targeted at the federal level, something which Republicans will be happy to do ASAP to ignore the context of the surrounding case, and political motivations / backgrounds of the ruling justices is just ignorant. something like half of all states have now effectively illegal abortion
  • softcactus 4y ago
    The HN crowd never fails to surprise me. For all of the great discussions about software on here, threads like this one reek of ignorance of civics and history. The de facto outcome of this ruling is abortion banned in red states. It's clearly partisan hackery when we have: 1. A court full of Federalist Society members 2. A court full of Catholics (staunchly pro-life) 3. Who are using the old argument of "states rights" Three has historically been how the conservative minority defends its regressive legislation. They use the filibuster to prevent Federal legislation, then impose their will on minority groups within their state which has no filibuster. Anyone who has read about the history of the US should know this.
    • pcj-github 4y ago
      Agree 100%
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • portpecos 4y ago
      It’s almost as if the liberals didn’t even read this part the current court’s opinion. “The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives”
• timwaagh 4y ago
  The problem I see is that due to the former ruling there never has been any political decision on it ensuring us women go back to the fifties now
• dang 4y ago
  We changed the URL from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-abortion-supreme-court https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-abortion... (which is more of a feed) to what looks like a reasonable article. The ruling itself is at https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf, via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31863903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31863903.
• jandrese 4y ago
  What I find interesting is how for many many years people thought Roe would be safe because it was mostly useful as a political tool. A wedge to drive into voting blocks to make sure they stay Republican despite everything else they are doing. It was in nobody's interest to actually repeal it. What nobody expected was for decades of indoctrination to produce true believers that would actually be elected to the Supreme Court. So now we are in a situation where the dog has caught the car and it's not sure what happens now.
  • superdisk 4y ago
    What? Clarence Thomas is an old man.
  • cryptonector 4y ago
    Arguably Roe distorted national politics. This ruling might now distort local politics. It's going to be interesting. We might well see a multi-decade swing to the Democrats!
    • jandrese 4y ago
      I wouldn't count on a major Democratic victory out of this. The propaganda machine that has been feeding this issue for the past few decades is still alive and well, they will pivot to some other issue (CRT, Wokeism, Black Lives Burning Down Entire Cities, etc...) if they have to. Abortion was just something that polled really well with the base and so they went with it, but it's not the only game in town.
      • AlexandrB 4y ago
        > The propaganda machine that has been feeding this issue for the past few decades is still alive and well, they will pivot to some other issue (CRT, Wokeism, Black Lives Burning Down Entire Cities, etc...) if they have to. It already has. See all the hysterics about how any discussion of same sex relationships or trans identity around children is "grooming".
  • jmull 4y ago
• rich_sasha 4y ago
  I'm asking in good faith, and ask for answers in the same: in a pro-choice framework, why do in-womb Homo Sapiens Sapiens have no rights to be considered, vis a vis the rights of the mother? In this context, I'm not implying that an unborn human's rights override those of its mother, nor imply what the right balance should be (50:50? 20:80? 80:20?). But pro-choice arguments tend to assume that the in-womb human has no rights, since mother has the right to terminate the pregnancy basically without any good reason at all. I'd argue that where welfare of two beings is affected, you need to consider the rights of both. Is it clear that an unborn human has no rights? Perhaps this can be straightforwardly spelled out, or is obvious - in which case I'm curious to know what that argument is. If not, doesn't some kind of cautionary approach require that err on the side of caution in considering the rights of the unborn human? For example, if a healthy woman is pregnant with a healthy human, but decides to terminate the pregnancy for no extreme reason (health reasons I guess), what is the argument that says "the unborn human's right to mature and be born and live is non-existent or trumped by the mother's preferences"? There is a myriad of difficult scenarios that life can write, and for now I'm moving away from those. Not every pregnancy is terminated for life-threatening reasons, for example.
  • uniqueuid 4y ago
    Why should you first put on your own oxygen mask on a plane in the event of decompressing, before helping others? Because the damage is much greater otherwise. A child brought into this world under duress, to an unprepared mother and/or unprepared parents will have all the odds against him/her. There's a greater risk of dying. Of poverty. Of sickness. Of crime. It's not that the unborn has no rights. It's rather that these rights cannot be realized partially. It's either the full package or none. So just like the US electoral system, some people are in favor of abortion even if they are 49% in favor of the embryo.
    • rich_sasha 4y ago
      Right, but in living/walking humans, we tend to prioritise right to live over many other rights. We don't euthanise children in adverse material conditions, for example. These get, or most people agree should get, state help, foster parenting and so on. "Let's euthanise the child" is not on any menu of interventions.
• Jason_Protell 4y ago
  For those who say this is the logically correct decision, how exactly did you conclude that? - USA Constitution 14th Amendment Section 1 ...no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws... - The constitution clearly says that states cannot enforce laws that deprive citizens of their lives and liberties. Now, states have renewed authority to deprive at-risk women their right to life-saving medical procedures. Please explain to me how this doesn't violate 14A.
  • batmansmom1 4y ago
    If you believe that life begins at conception you could say that abortion deprives that "unborn person" of their right to life, as long as carrying the fetus to term would not put the life of the mother at risk.
    • gobrewers14 4y ago
      > If you believe that life begins at conception Someone believing life begins at conception is a reason for THEM to not get an abortion, it is not a reason for the government to outlaw it.
      • brigandish 4y ago
        To deprive someone of life is a crime, hence, someone who believes life begins at conception is advocating against unlawful killing, and crimes are certainly the purview of the state and society.
        • Jason_Protell 4y ago
          The issue here is that this belief is not based in reality. A fertilized egg is not a human.
• cmollis 4y ago
  When I was a child in the Catholic Church (70s and 80s) there was NEVER any political discussion that entered into the service (“..render unto caesar what is caesar’s..” or ‘separation of church and state’. Or, more probable, perhaps it was felt that it simply was not the forum for present-day politics. I don’t know). Since lapsed, A few years ago I was encouraged by a priest, as he enjoyed his fourth old fashioned, to attend a Mass. He noted that I might find it more ‘enlightening’ than I had in the past so I agreed (albeit reluctantly). What I witnessed was no less than a 45 minute diatribe on the dangers of abortion, casting various aspersions (ad hominem) on any political leader not on board with new political agenda of the Catholic Church. Frankly very little else. I hypocritically thought to myself ‘would Jesus be proud of this? Perhaps. But I certainly wasn’t. The addtional twisted irony was that the person I was with actually had an abortion. She sat quietly listening to this without seemingly the slightest bit of concern. She said that’s how all services are now. It occurred to me that all of this must have been carefully planned at the highest levels of both the church and political/financial benefactors that support it. A long and patient process put in motion years ago. I realize This is somewhat anecdotal but speaks to perhaps the planning that culminated in todays decision. This is about power and control operating under the auspices of religion. SCOTUS are just run-of-the-mill sycophants playing along.
  • lesstyzing 4y ago
    Why is it a surprise that the Catholic Church is against abortion? This list of religions that are ok with abolition is short. It would be quite a big thing for a catholic to turn a blind eye to and not consider when voting.
    • kgwxd 4y ago
    • giaour 4y ago
      > This list of religions that are ok with abolition is short. You are incorrect, but this is also a specious argument. The list of religious that were anti-slavery was short at the outset of the 19th century and a mile long by the outset of the 20th. Church doctrine is not immune to influence by popular sentiment.
• fight4ourrights 4y ago
• iancmceachern 4y ago
  I'm curious to ask some pro xhoice folks, respectfully, how they reconsile the fact that they believe abortion is murder, and also at the same time are seemingly pro military, war, and pro militarization of thr police. I'm genuinely curious how those two world views can coexist in the same mind. So a soldier who kills in the name of their country, even in a conflict that we can all agree was at best morally debatable, like the first Iraq war, or Vietnam. How is that different than a person getting an abortion to avoid a known bad outcome?
  • Jonnston 4y ago
    • iancmceachern 4y ago
      It's not that I can't fathom the general case you describe. A specific example: A rape victim is obviously traumatized by being raped and does not want to carry her aggressors child to term. In that case the enemy is inside her. It's the same in war. The single most important thing I learned from my grandfather and his time in WWII was that the individual combatants are not evil, or bad, they're following orders of bad, evil leaders. In war the poor foot soldier in front of your rifle is not the enemy, they are the same as you. I'm not comparing enemies in war to babies. I'm pointing out the nuanced humanity of it all and highlighting synergies or disconnects in our thinking around these complex, human subjects.
      • Jonnston 4y ago
        I'm not saying that I hold these views myself, I think that these are straightforward generous readings that you can take of common conservative positions. Killing in war is bad, even evil, but there is no other way. It's a lesser evil than the alternative. Killing Germans in WW2 was bad, but the alternative was worse. Forcing a woman to carry a child to term is bad, even evil. It produces a great deal of suffering. The alternative is to kill an unborn child, which is worse. Therefore select the lesser of the two evils. Again, I don't subscribe to these views, but it seems like a pretty coherent position to me.
• alkjlkjawlr 4y ago
  [dead]
• askin4it 4y ago
  erections have consequences
  • askin4it 4y ago
    Dang, I thought it was funny.
• throwaway11789 4y ago
• jtthe13 4y ago
  Register and vote at all elections: https://www.vote.org/ https://www.vote.org/
• maximilianburke 4y ago
  I wonder how many of the people calling this the right legal decision are men.
• _dw7s 4y ago
  Leaving this here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770 as someone who lived through that. Also check out this film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Months,_3_Weeks_and_2_Days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Months,_3_Weeks_and_2_Days about the reality on the ground. Congratulations, America! Lots of states will now offer the same reproductive rights as communist Romania during the Cold War. So much freedom! Also, some US states will now have a stricter abortion law than even some fundamentalist islamic countries. What a great day for American liberty.
• whateveracct 4y ago
  These new Trump Justices pretty clearly put the Bible's values above the Constitution's. Especially Amy Coney Barrett. It's gonna be a rough few life sentences for those of us who think Christianity is asinine.
• alangibson 4y ago
  The consequences of this are sickening, but it's also true that the question of abortion rights was never settled due in large part to Roe. It's incredibly unfortunate that we'll now have this fight in an era where the Right is ascendant. We've got 20 years of diminishing women's rights to look forward to.
• throwaway11789 4y ago
• nullcipher 4y ago
  Sad sad day
• tibbydudeza 4y ago
  Welcome back to the dark ages America.
• alangibson 4y ago
  Thomas will be remembered as SCOTUSs right wing sleeper agent. He's been irrelevant legislative furniture for so long that people nearly forgot about him. Then his time finally came. Now Roe is overturned. Griswold and Obergefel may well be next. The only good that may come of this is a return to fighting issues out in the democratic sphere. Libs beloved Supreme Court won't save you now.
• smm11 4y ago
  I'm just glad it's down to the states to decide what's right for their state. Right?
  • Spivak 4y ago
    Really good point, but why stop there? Why not individual counties, or individual townships, or individual neighborhoods, or gasp individual people?
• greyhair 4y ago
  If your representatives in Congress would get off their butts and actually legislate, the court's "view" on the topic would be moot. The fact is, lazy hand wringing house and senate members have been dodging these issues (more than just abortion) and passing them off to the court system for fifty years, or more. They get good pay, they get good benefits, they should do their stinking jobs! This all ultimately falls to the ineffectual legislative branch.
• wdb 4y ago
  In my opinion this is one step backwards for the US
• fulvioterzapi 4y ago
  To be honest I am pretty fine with it. For a few reasons: 1) Abortion (in my opinion) should not be a constitutional right. I can't name a country that has abortion as a constitutional right. More generally: the constitution should care about super-general, universally-agreed values, let's leave everything else to the legislative branch! 2) Roe v. Wade was a bad decision. Before you downvote me, read the 14th Amendment: how the judges could infer from it at the time a right to abortion is beyond me! I can squint my eyes a lot, but the right is simply not there! Edit: downvoters, go read the 14th Amendment, and tell me if you can honestly read a right to abortion in there.
  • darknavi 4y ago
    > More generally: the constitution should care about super-general, universally-agreed values, let's leave everything else to the legislative branch! See: The 2nd amendment.
    • fulvioterzapi 4y ago
      Indeed, even though I generally support guns rights, I think they should be regulated by state law. However, notice the difference: the 2nd Amendment is extremely clear in granting the right to bear arms, whereas the 14th Amendment needs to be twisted in an almost comical way to get out of it a right to abortion.
• justinzollars 4y ago
  Lots of anti-Catholic comments and anti-Christian comments here. To blame this on Christians/Catholics is singling out a religion, a protected group similar to blaming Blacks or Jews. In fact its exactly the same - its literally a protected class.
  • bettysdiagnose 4y ago
    Why shouldn't they be blamed? Christianity in the USA is nothing like being black or Jewish in the USA.
    • justinzollars 4y ago
      If you are condoning this, what is your name? It's literally a violation of Law. https://www.senate.ca.gov/content/protected-classes https://www.senate.ca.gov/content/protected-classes
      • Kye 4y ago
        What does people on a forum criticizing other people have to do with Title VII protections? This has nothing to do with employment.
• Zigurd 4y ago
  There is a reason this decision is so backward-looking and out of touch with the general trend in favor of the rights of women globally. This is the fulfillment of a religious fundamentalist, dominionist agenda. That's invisible to most people in the tech industry because tech is mostly irreligious. The nation as a whole is increasingly irreligious. Don't argue the case. Marginalize the dominionists. Neutralize their effectiveness. Exclude them from institutions and communities. Dominionism is a movement closely related to white supremacism and the American flavor of fascism. It is as fundamentally dangerous as those related movements. Debating dominionists is just as useless as debating neonazis, and for the same reasons.
• aaplok 4y ago
  I remember reading an article back in 2015-16 where the author argued that Trump's election was exactly about Ros vs Wade. Specifically they explained that a number of SCOTUS judges were expected to be appointed during the term. Once enough conservative judges were in place, one of the conservative States was going to pass a law with the express goal that it be challenged in front of the SCOTUS,so that they could overturn Roe vs Wade. That is precisely what happened. I wish I had kept that article, given how impressively prescient it was. Sadly I don't even know where to start looking. There is a lot that blows my mind with this. The level of planning involved, and the willingness by the American right to set the country on fire to be able to control women's right is just amazing.
• pcj-github 4y ago
  Dissenting opinion (which I agree) starts on page 148 of the PDF: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf
• Comevius 4y ago
  This will debilitate and kill and a lot of women in conservative states, and it opens the door to potentially eradicating the self-autonomy of tens of millions of non-desirable people (women, racial and ethnic minorities, sexual minorities). Just another day of religious extremists and fascists crawling out of the woodwork, pretending to have a moral high ground. A lot of people here don't even know or care about how pregnancy works, what an embryo or a fetus is, or how extremely risky pregnancy is for humans because it evolved to be a crazy biological war. https://aeon.co/essays/why-pregnancy-is-a-biological-war-between-mother-and-baby https://aeon.co/essays/why-pregnancy-is-a-biological-war-bet...
• lamontcg 4y ago
  We're going to wind up breaking up The Union one way or another in the coming years. Time to start planning on how violently we do that or not -- to consider this unthinkable is going to be the path of more violence and not less. To all the centrists who are trying to spin all this as nothing to get worried about -- either you're secretly perfectly happy with everything going on and you're not much of a centrist in reality, or else you're still in denial that you've lost. Political polarization is here to stay and will only get worse, and centrists equating what the right is doing now with the "far left lunacy" of universal health care share a massive chunk of the blame even though they'll never accept it.
• imchillyb 4y ago
  > The issue reverts to the states, many of which have taken steps to curtail or ban abortions. Sounds like people need to get off their asses and vote now. Voting is more important now that it's ever been before. It's up to individual states how they want to treat abortion and related services. This ruling isn't an end to anything, unless the populace doesn't care enough to grass-roots the effort to change their state's laws. Now, go vote. Voting is the only say we have in this tumultuous country.
• mikewarot 4y ago
  I almost lost my wife due to the Catholic Hospital's policy against D&C procedures. Had the OBGYN not put his career on the line, and over-riding the prohibition on the procedure, she would have died. Now that same hurdle can become risking prison. A few years later, we were blessed with a child who is doing well. I would have neither if not for Roe v. Wade. This isn't about abortion, it's about denying healthcare!
  • seydor 4y ago
    i m very happy for you but this is about abortion, a right that every civilized person should enjoy. i m not even american but this is bad
    • danity 4y ago
      The U.S. should pass a law rather than relying on a court decision. Roe v Wade was a poor decision from a legal standpoint. For example, why were abortions in the first trimester considered due process under the 14th amendment but in the last 2 trimesters they were not? The court should not be creating the law, the legislature should be doing that. Pass a law in the U.S. legislature and that will take precedence over state law (see the Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution).
      • nickff 4y ago
        It would be difficult to pass a pro-choice (or pro-abortion) federal law which complied with the constitution, as the 'right' doesn't fall under any of the enumerated powers, and seems to be clearly within the power of the states. It seems like the only way to have a federal right to abortion is to have a constitutional right (like Roe v. Wade).
        • dahfizz 4y ago
          > It seems like the only way to have a federal right to abortion is to have a constitutional right (like Roe v. Wade). A constitutional amendment would be ideal, but seems very unlikely. I don't see why the Congress couldn't write laws guaranteeing access to abortion, though. We have laws in that vein, like the ADA.
• eointierney 4y ago
  • DesiLurker 4y ago
    this is the conservative slight-of-hand democrats & intellectuals don't understand. Invoking originalism on a 250year old document is in very basic fundamental terms anchoring social progress to 2 centuries old thought. Add to that the Senate's massive favoring of 'underpopulated states' plus filibuster 60 and you basically get a deep understanding of the state US is in today.
• Saint_Genet 4y ago
  If I was a woman, I’d be deleting my period tracker right about now. It’s absolutely going to be subpoenaed and used in court
• dang 4y ago
  This thread has 3000 comments and will probably end up with a lot more. If you want to read them all, you need to click 'More' at the bottom of the page, or like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31862258&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31862258&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31862258&p=3 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31862258&p=3 [etc.] If you're adding comments or intending to, please make sure you're up on the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
• TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  For anyone struggling with how to meaningfully help, I decided to make a donation to the Yellowhammer fund. I have no association with them (see my comment history and profile, I am a robotics engineer in California) but I searched for abortion funds that serve the South where people will be hit hardest by this, and found them. https://www.yellowhammerfund.org/ https://www.yellowhammerfund.org/ In their words: "The Yellowhammer Fund is a 501(c)3 abortion fund and reproductive justice organization serving Alabama, Mississippi, and the Deep South. We envision a society in which reproductive decisions are made free from coercion, shame, or state interference, a society in which individuals and communities have autonomy in making healthy choices regarding their bodies and their futures. We commit ourselves to community education and empowerment, policy advocacy, and the development of systems of mutual aid to ensure that our friends, families, and neighbors never go without the things they need."
• SCAQTony 4y ago
  There are 13 Circuit Courts in the United States. With that in mind they should have one judge from each serve on the Supreme Court. The current Supreme Court is full of partisans with questionable qualifications and backgrounds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_courts_of_appeals#:~:text=The%20courts%20of%20appeals%20are,and%20the%20U.S.%20Court%20of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_courts_of_appeal...
• Sakos 4y ago
  • DangitBobby 4y ago
    At least there is a discussion here.
    • Sakos 4y ago
      I don't feel like there's any point in discussing the issue with people who care so little about the suffering of others.
• NonNefarious 4y ago
  Gee, no shit. It dominates the mainstream news. Why post it on a tech-news site?
  • NonNefarious 4y ago
    Yes, mod facts down, Redditors.
    • NonNefarious 4y ago
      Dig a deeper hole, butt-hurt losers.
• bloomingeek 4y ago
  Now let's see if far right leaning adults start lining up in droves for foster/adoption care classes. This will let them put their time/money where their mouths are. Cause and affect: you don't want abortion, you now have to take care of those who are not wanted.
  • abvdasker 4y ago
    They obviously won't. The Republican Party is explicitly opposed to expansion of the social safety net which would support the children from unwanted pregnancies. Outlawing abortion has nothing to do with protecting children. It's about exerting religious control over women and that's it.
• mkw2000 4y ago
  it is really sad how many people chime in on this issue with zero knowledge of the fact that some people NEED to get an abortion for health reasons
• trasz 4y ago
  Perhaps it’s time to stop politely tolerating fringe ideas just because they are backed by some religion. Being against abortion rights is a moral equivalent of antivax.
• fredgrott 4y ago
  A lot of people are missing a very important core issue What Alito and others did by over turning a previous supreme court ruling is open the bad box in that any time a majority changes on the supreme court there will be an attempt to over turn past rulings not based upon law but based on feelings of the court. the only sliver lining is that there is growing evidence that at least 3 supreme court justice might be impeached by year-end.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• 838812052807016 4y ago
  Can anyone provide a summary of the logic behind this decision? Preferably with references to the source document.
• johnny313 4y ago
  I found this discussion of unenumerated rights [0] to be helpful in explaining how a right to privacy was derived from the US constitution, and how difficult it is to establish a "test" for unenumerated rights. [The Griswold case] says the penumbras around the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendment create a right to privacy. So what they're getting at — a penumbra is just a shadow, right? — is that these textual provisions cast these shadows. And those shadows, which all contain this notion of privacy overlap with each other such that they coalesce into a right in its own right, so that the right to privacy under which the right to contraception is protected is derived from the shadows of actual textual provisions. Very disconcerting that the rights to contraception, same sex marriage, and consensual adult sexual relationships are up for debate because they are not explicitly enumerated in the constitution. [0] https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/05/31/the-fragility-of-unenumerated-rights https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/05/31/the-fragility-of-une...
• pseingatl 4y ago
  Is anyone bothered by the court's dissembling after the leak? "It's not final." True, but misleading. "No decision has been made yet." True, but misleading. The court voted to overturn Roe. The Chief Justice assigned Alito to write the brief. That was before the leak. At the time the leak was made, the court had already decided the case and lied about it.
• aaron695 4y ago
• pseingatl 4y ago
  If there can be federal anti-drug laws, there can now be federal anti-abortion laws. It won't be merely a "States will decide issue." McConnell is already writing the legislation.
• bshoemaker 4y ago
  I have grown to hate edgy comments that are like "Well actually now it is just a state's issue and Roe v Wade was poorly decided!". You're not edgy & insightful. The impact of this decision isn't just pushing pieces around a chess board. It's scared women & girls around the country, it's women dying who wouldn't have otherwise.
  • ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
    There was 40 years for abortion to be codified in law. Blame the legislators, not the court.
    • karpierz 4y ago
      There was no need to codify it into law, as it was already law! That's the whole point of a court ruling! Roe v. Wade determined that the Constitution itself implied abortion as a right, meaning that there already was a law on the books which protected abortion.
      • ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
        It's not the job of the court to make laws. At one point the court decided that abortion fell under the 14th A, then they decided it didn't. Congress should have made access to an abortion a real law.
        • karpierz 4y ago
          It's the job of the court to interpret the consequences of the existing laws. At one point, the court determined that access to abortion was a right, according to the 14th amendment. Meaning, that the 14th amendment was, among other things, a law that granted the right to access abortion services. Later, the court decided to override their precedent, and declare that the 14th amendment did not grant the right to access abortion services. I think you need to define what a "real law" is, and how the 14th amendment doesn't qualify in this context.
  • 4y ago
• unsui 4y ago
  Reading the various discussions on HN, it is obvious that HN skews male. The vast majority of threads are either regarding the interpretation of legal frameworks and their implications, or asserting a-priori values on start of life and following the rational implications thereof. No-where do I see any discussions, or even caring about, how this affects women directly: the ability to govern their own bodies, their reproductive (and civil) rights. Or just the fact that they are de-jure 2nd-class citizens.
  • AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
    I often hear about "my body - my choice". But after spending nine months in woman's body the child becomes the part of her life for twenty next years. Should it rather be "my life - my choice"?
    • lolinder 4y ago
      There are millions of parents who long to adopt a baby[0]. Having a baby does not necessarily imply raising them. [0] https://www.americanadoptions.com/pregnant/waiting_adoptive_families https://www.americanadoptions.com/pregnant/waiting_adoptive_...
      • notch656a 4y ago
        If the other parent doesn't consent to an adoption it usually can't happen. Then you either have to raise the child directly through your labor (custody) or indirectly through your labor (child support). There are lots of people raising children against their will with no mechanism to relieve them of that duty, even if they revoke consent to raise the child in any form.
  • xwdv 4y ago
    HN is about technical, objective things and those other points you mentioned are mostly emotional subjective topics. It would be strange to see them discussed here at any significant length.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• Agamus 4y ago
  My first thought when I read the news: "Dang. Poor Dang".
• Kye 4y ago
  I remember all the times I was called a poor sport for bringing up Brendan Eich's support of Prop 8 right here on HN, any time Brave came up. "You won! Take the W and move on." There is no win when the same people who supported Prop 8 were working hard to prevent marriage equality, and end it once it happened, and working hard to fight the very underpinnings for it and other rulings like Roe vs. Wade. This is why I refused to move on for so long, but eventually the downvotes and flags and screaming won over, and I gave up. And we lost. For now.
• wellthisisgreat 4y ago
  People who are responsible for this are evil scumbags and a blight on a society. There is simply no other way to put this.
• anm89 4y ago
  The problem with the modern left is that they aggressively want to win every battle and don't even know what war they are fighting. As long as they can yell and scream and cancel and grieve, they don't seem to be too focused on having cohesive goals or policy. And this is what that looks like. The supreme court doesn't fit into their model because they can't cancel it on twitter. So they just moved on to other stuff they could cancel. Reap what you sow.
• swayvil 4y ago
  This is a distraction. Pure and simple. A distraction from rampant inflation, censorship, who's responsible, etc.
• jarbus 4y ago
  I'm consistently surprised at how many people, both in these threads and irl, assert there is no "grey area", and argue that a fetus goes from being 0% baby to 100% baby the instant it is born and no sooner. To me, there is a very clear "gradient" where it goes from being 0% baby to 100% baby over the course of 8-9 months, the percentage ticking up every day or so. Many people can't imagine a 5-month old fetus being viewed as "alive".
• cyphercat 4y ago
  What a travesty! What these pro life nuts don't understand is that if I can't have sex without consequences, my Friday nights will be ruined! A woman should have the right to choose whether or not to sleep with whoever and whenever! Support the right to choose!
• anonymouswacker 4y ago
  More work needs to be done, but this is a start.
• 8bitsrule 4y ago
  I've tended to respect the USSC most of my life. No longer. This sickening retrograde decision bodes much ill for Freedom. Coming at a time when we're already reeling from the after-effects of multiple blows, shows how little empathy the court can feel and how little it cares for majority opinion. What grievous suffering will it inflict next? What is the aim, if not the tragic end of a once-great story?
• scrumlord 4y ago
• michaelsbradley 4y ago
  On the feast day of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Year of Our Lord 2022, a small but important victory in defense of the sanctity of human life and the dignity of every human person. Much of the good fight remains to be fought! Let us work diligently to greatly support and treasure – as individuals, local communities, and nations – every woman carrying an unborn child, and continue supporting them and their families as they raise those children to join us as mature brothers and sisters in human society.
  • shamiln 4y ago
    Then surely you support universal healthcare and right for that pregnancy to be terminated by cause if it harms another’s life.
• cspliego 4y ago
  Good.
• quietthrow 4y ago
• JabavuAdams 4y ago
  So, is it possible to make a US 2.0 without civil war?
• Tiktaalik 4y ago
  Kinda feels like a bit of a “bail out” signal to me. Even if the Democrats somehow get their act together enough to legalize abortion it’s going to take a long time. On this tech focused forum people have portable skills in high demand. As WFH continues to be normalized there’s probably more opportunities than ever to work for US companies from elsewhere. You can move to Canada and you’ll be in the top 5% of earners easily. You can still vote in us elections and donate to help turn things around, but in the meantime set yourself and your ancestors up for better success elsewhere in case things don’t. There’s no real downside aside from forgoing the absurdly high wages of Silicon Valley, but you’d still be highly paid.
• keithalewis 4y ago
  I find the whole matter insulting and demeaning toward women. They should, of course, have complete say over their body. They have control, except in the case of rape, over who they have sex with and whether or not they want to use contraceptives. Just like every person, they should be responsible and accoutable for their actions.
• SergeAx 4y ago
  Okay, I have a prediction. According to polls, the end of democratic majority in Congress was almost inevitable. Now, democrats will put a federal abortion law on their banner. The elections is due this November, the timing is just right. Thus, they will persuade non-partisan voters to vote for them. They will strengthen their majority in Congress and will have a 60/40 majority in Senate, which gives them an ability to overthrow a filibuster[1]. Then the world is their playground. Electoral laws, gun control laws - you name it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster
• bookyue 4y ago
  Why the US government always violates human rights?
• streamlining 4y ago
• belter 4y ago
  “...Start with my record, my respect for precedent, my belief that it is rooted in the Constitution, and my commitment and its importance to the rule of law...” “...I understand precedent and I understand the importance of overturning it...” “...Roe is 45 years old, it has been reaffirmed many times, lots of people care about it a great deal, and I’ve tried to demonstrate I understand real-world consequences...” “...I am a don’t-rock-the-boat kind of judge. I believe in stability and in the Team of Nine...” Brett M. Kavanaugh
• mrlonglong 4y ago
  IMPEACH Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett for lying or misleading the Senate before their appointment to the US Supreme Court NOW!
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]