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Plenty of uproar after Roe v Wade overturning, even here in the EU but.. The real shame is leaving lawmaking to the courts due to political opportunism. I am f

Plenty of uproar after Roe v Wade overturning, even here in the EU but.. The real shame is leaving lawmaking to the courts due to political opportunism. I am fully in favor of legalized abortion, but why was it never codified in law? Not a priority according to democratic politicians. Not a priority. So, you reap what you sow if you ask me. I learned that many countries, including my own, made, and make that mistake as well. On many topics.

Toxygene 4y ago
> [...] why was it never codified in law? The findings of the SCOTUS in Roe v. Wade was: The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's liberty to abort her fetus. [1] In other words, *the SCOTUS finding said* abortion was codified in law -- the U.S. Constitution. Edit: clarified the summary to attribute the finding to the SCOTUS and not to my opinion [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade
- hef19898 4y ago
  Except it was not as the SCOTUS just ruled.
  - Toxygene 4y ago
    The question was not about the most recent finding of the SCOTUS. The question was, why wasn't abortion codified into law since Roe v. Wade.
    - Mordisquitos 4y ago
      If the right to an abortion was already codified in law by the U.S. Constitution, why was a ruling on Roe v. Wade even necessary?
      - Toxygene 4y ago
        I was incorrect in that assertion. Abortion was not codified until Roe v. Wade.
      - falcolas 4y ago
        It's not explicitly codified. But that doesn't mean it's not a right. Which is why we have opinions ruling the day. And if we read Thomas' opinion on the matter, contraception, gay marrage, etc. are all on the chopping block to come. And that doesn't even cover the "Voting Rights Act of 1965" kerfluffel that's also about to hit.
        hef19898 4y ago
        From a distance, it seems like some States will get the go from SCOTS to revert everything back to Jim Crow / pre-Civil Rights movement. Pretty scary actually, even for non-Americans.
- Teknoman117 4y ago
  > that protects a pregnant woman's liberty to abort her fetus. Unfortunately the 14th amendment does not explicitly say that. Therefore we've been operating off of the court's previous interpretation of the 14th amendment, which has now changed. So unless Congress can pass legislation legalizing it federally without any ambiguity, it's going to be left up to the states.
  - cogman10 4y ago
    The 9th amendment says you don't have to explicitly state a right.
    - falcolas 4y ago
      You're correct. But that means it's up to the courts to decide what is a right. One SCOTUS ruled that privacy - bodily autonomy - was a right. The current SCOTUS ruled that it is not. Their logic is dodgy, but that doesn't matter, sadly. The ball is in Congress' court now.
  - orwin 4y ago
    I don't really understand the ramifications. If you have a vegetative child, are you obligated to keep them on life support for the rest of his life? My grandmother died last month. We chose to keep her under morphine despite the fact that she couldn't take her heart medecine anymore, and to not install another IV (she refused to be taken out of her home and to be sent to a hospital the day prior). Would we have been able to do that? I know worse! a very young and talented violonist, friend of my parents when i was a kid, suffered a weird disease that would excite her nerves, hurting her even when staying still. The pain was so high her brain was shut down most of the days until she took her own life. If this disease triggers in an infant not able to speak yet (and who won't be able to learn, ever), what happen? I'm pretty sure this is debilitating, so the infant would need life support for at least ten years, and then be unable to learn anything, only suffering or being dosed with morphine. Would letting this infant off life support be prosecuted? This is really interesting philosophically. I am a negative utilitarist of sort (Karl Popper is the base of half my opinions tbh),so the answer to all the questions are evident. For classical utilitarists or deontologists though, those should be really interesting. Where do you draw the line?
hef19898 4y ago
Also Europe based, I see that as big over sight. I am absolutely sure, so, that the republicans will use there judicative power to fullest extent together with a majority in the House should they get said majority. And they will throw out the filibuster in the senate with the blink of an eye if it serves them. The democrats on the other hand are way to tame.
- treis 4y ago
  >the republicans will use there judicative power to fullest extent Sure, but it's still better to make them do it rather than establishing that the Federal government can regulate abortion.
jdcarr 4y ago
I think there’s more preventing the passage of a law protecting an individuals right to abortion than whether it was a matter of political priority. To pass such a law would require 60 votes in the senate AIUI. Given that this has been a massive part of the republican platform there’s no way ten senators would flip in the current senate. It could have been passed in the Obama years but I wonder if the public would have had the appetite for it with the assumption that Roe vs Wade would have remained. Let sleeping dogs lie and all that What this shows to me is the intentional inability for the senate to pass anything but the least offensive bipartisan bills and force other institutions such as the courts to intervene. However as we’ve seen the courts have their own agenda too
- odessacubbage 4y ago
  the legislature as an institution is not really designed or intended to pass 'offensive' bills, it is supposed to reflect the consensus of the states which should hopefully reflect the will of the public at least to some degree. it should also be considered the same gridlock barring federal abortion rights also prevents a federal abortion ban so those who blame all political failures on the filibuster should really keep that in mind. if the people of tennessee, mississippi arkansas etc decide that legal abortion is a defining issue then their representatives would in kind be expected to reflect those values on the floor. while that precludes short-term solutions (once again, as intended) i do not believe that it is a political impossibility as is so often claimed. however, for the first time in a long while, democrats will be required to actually 'do politics'
- origin_path 4y ago
  Isn't that a contradiction? If it could have passed in the Obama years but was ignored, then it simply wasn't a priority to do so, which was the original point made. Obama years were pretty recent. Does the court have an agenda here, or is this the removal of a previous agenda? I don't understand these claims that the court is simply doing the same as before but right wing instead of left. They haven't changed things to make abortion illegal at the federal level. They've just removed a ruling based on shaky legal reasoning and kicked the decision back to where it was meant to be all along, which would seem to be lack of an agenda.
nequo 4y ago
> but why was it never codified in law? IANAL but in common law, precedent should guide the interpretation of the law. And the precedent was Roe v. Wade. Of course there's other precedent that we do effectively ignore, like Plessy v. Ferguson. So you're right, it should have been codified in law. But any such law would be erased by Congress too next year when everything turns red.
turndown 4y ago
>Not a priority according to democratic politicians. Not a priority. In the US, a ruling like this(ironic to say right now) is so much more ironclad than a law is in general, if people are going to come after it. Legal challenge after legal challenge slowly boils laws away until you have so many exceptions about portions of a law specifically struck down that the whole thing doesn't even make sense anymore. And of course, any time Republicans controlled the House/Senate they'd probably do something with it, just like every time a Republican is elected President they stop giving monetary support to organizations GMOs that provide abortion services in foreign countries. You can't really have laws about "controversial" things for very long.
- mvdwoord 4y ago
  This was overturned no? So is this now also more ironclad? And the whole point of elections and politics and lawmaking is to keep up with changing culture and norms? I see your point in practicality, but are they mutually exclusive?
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    >> In the US, a ruling like this(ironic to say right now) is so much more ironclad than a law is in general, if people are going to come after it. > This was overturned no? So is this now also more ironclad? Roe v. Wade was basically a backdoor constitutional amendment where seven judges bypassed the actual process for amending the constitution (and also ran ahead of the legislatures in all but a handful of states). The recent Dobbs opinion just nullifies that amendment. A lot of people seem to think that, since the constitution is so hard to amend through the prescribed process, they should be able to use the courts to get the amendments they want. The problem with that is that it explicitly politicized the court, burning up its legitimacy in the process. We're seeing the later stages of that (the next step is something to undermine the court's independence, like court packing or mass impeachment). It also foolishly relied on a fantasy that only one side could abuse the court in this way, and the other side would forever remain helpless.
    - falcolas 4y ago
PathOfEclipse 4y ago
https://www.dailywire.com/news/jessica-biel-takes-shot-at-america-appears-to-praise-france-over-abortion-theres-one-glaring-problem https://www.dailywire.com/news/jessica-biel-takes-shot-at-am... This article is illustrative of the ignorance, malice, and hypocrisy of America's social elite. Jessica Biel implies France has women's rights while the U.S. does not. And yet: * Neither France, nor any other nation I am aware of, provides a constitutional right to abortion. * The law upheld by the Dobbs decision is less restrictive on abortion than France's current abortion laws! Speaking of hypocrisy, We see rage from so many people who frequently bemoan the state of "our democracy" and at the same time could care less about democracy. They only care about winning. If they can win through democratic vote, fine. If they can win through a supreme court ruling, fine. If they can win via executive fiat, fine. All that matters is winning. From https://www.dailywire.com/news/wanda-sykes-mocks-middle-america-after-scotus-overturned-roe-those-states-in-the-middle-that-red-stuff-then-she-gets-ripped https://www.dailywire.com/news/wanda-sykes-mocks-middle-amer.... Wanda Sykes is basically asking for a wealth-based oligarchy to rule the U.S. All the folks in middle states need to "shut up" because the wealthy elites on the coasts are making all the money, so they should make all the decisions!
- mvdwoord 4y ago
  Good reads, thanks... I remember as a kid being baffled by our so called progressive country sending the abortion boat "women on waves" to Ireland to provide Irish women with abortions in international waters. Also activists shooting anti conception over the border with Poland. But isn't all of this antithetical to ever growing government structures? I get a feeling the world is heading towards a new fundamental discussion on this topic, and others, but I am afraid it will not be friendly discussions.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > Neither France, nor any other nation I am aware of, provides a constitutional right to abortion. I don't see why it has to be a constitutional right (constitutions aren't the only things that codify rights), but for what it's worth there's an ongoing proposal which will probably pass, overwhelmingly, to add abortion as a constitutional right in France.
coffeeblack 4y ago
Depends how you define adoration. Until heart beat? Third month? Sixth month? Until right before birth? I think most were fine with third month.
MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
The thing where politicians hold any sort of progressive legislation hostage with extortionate demands over unrelated issues is a common theme across countries. Like government funded Catholic schools in Canada. Something that shouldn't exist anymore but whoops it's in the constitution so it's going to be there forever now because no one would ever agree to just one change.
- halostatue 4y ago
  It can be changed. Quebec used to have to fund Protestant (probably Anglican) schools. At some point in the last few decades, their part of the Constitution was updated so that they have to fund English-language schools. Ontario currently doesn’t have the political will to change this, but it isn’t entirely immutable. (Interestingly, there are a few Protestant schools funded in some places in Ontario, where the majority of the population were French Catholic.) Quebec is in the process of making it difficult for anyone to attend English-language schools, but I see Quebec bills 21 and 96 potentially causing major pushback against the notwithstanding clause (hopefully it will kill the damned thing) and causing another round of people and companies to leave Quebec as they did because of René Lévesque and the PQ.
  - lemmiwinks 4y ago
    > Quebec is in the process of making it difficult for anyone to attend English-language schools, Not true > and causing another round of people and companies to leave Quebec as they did because of René Lévesque and the PQ. How to tell me you're an angryphone without telling me you're an angryphone (and totally ignoring historical facts in the process)
    - halostatue 4y ago
      I don’t live in Quebec, and I’m also an immigrant to Canada. I’m looking at Bill 21 and seeing a legislature that does not understand secularity or religion. I’m looking at Bill 96 and seeing a legislature that is making hard decisions and getting them wrong. It is very clear that the Quebec legislative assembly knew that both Bill 21 and Bill 96 were undemocratic and wrong-headed from the beginning, since they preemptively invoked the notwithstanding clause to override charter rights (which they knew that both bills would walk all over). Not all of 96 is bad. I sympathize with the need to protect the French language and am not against legislative measures to do so. (The decision against Villeneuve’s restaurant "New Town" years ago was just silly, though.) However, there are clear negative messages being passed by other parts of 96 which make it extremely xenophobic (just like 21), such as ending services for new immigrants in any language other than French after six months. With respect to history…Toronto was not the preeminent city in Canada. That was Montréal, until the first referendum. Tens of thousands of anglophones left their homes in Quebec as they no longer felt welcome, and numerous businesses shifted their base of operations from Montréal to Toronto, and Toronto has benefited ever since. In recent years, Montréal has attracted a number of companies back to the point where I have worked with (as a vendor) a couple of companies that closed secondary headquarters in majority English Canada and forced their employees to move to Quebec in order to remain employed. I am hearing that some of those employees are now feeling (once again) unwelcome in Quebec, and those companies may be reconsidering their headquarters in Quebec because of the lack of consideration for charter rights by the current government. I love Quebec. I think that much should be done to protect the French language there. But I don’t think that preemptively violating charter rights is the right way to do it.
cogman10 4y ago
> I am fully in favor of legalized abortion, but why was it never codified in law? The US constitution made leeway for rights to be unenumerated, or not explicitly spelled out (9th amendment [1]) Up until this current supreme court, a right has never been removed. That was not standard jurisprudence. Now, however, we have radicals on the court who take the view that "if it's not in the text, it isn't protected" completely ignoring the 9th amendment and often only applying it when they favor the text ideologically (see: gun laws. Plenty of historical documents show that the 2nd amendment was about states being able to form militias and not arming individuals. It literally wasn't until about the 1990s that lobbying from the NRA successfully reinterpreted the amendment to mean "everyone gets a gun"). The next problem is that in order to pass new laws, you need to have a super-majority in the senate, a majority in the house, and the presidency to go along with the law. Pretty difficult when the republican party has decided they want absolutely no new laws and certainly no expansion of rights. (See: how hard they are fighting against the HR-1 the voter rights act [2]) But, of course, while abortion rights are wildly popular (~80% of the population supports them in some circumstances. ~50% in all circumstances [3]), we don't run the country as a democracy, but rather a representative republic. And that's the problem. While the people want this, the representatives do not. A combination of gerrymandering and voter suppression has angled them into a position where the population that elected them doesn't track with the general population. This is exactly the same issue with climate change. 60% of the population view it as a dangerous problem and 40% of the population view it as overblown. [4] That 40% ends up with a larger portion of power in the senate because any action to realistically curtail climate change ends up being filibustered. The issue america has is we have 1 party with the motto that "The scariest phrase is I'm from the government and I'm here to help" as such, they block any and all regulations and government actions they can feasibly stop. The setup of our government favors that strategy. Their voters don't CARE that they aren't passing laws, they prefer it that way. This kills the ability to compromise. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/ninth_amendment https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/ninth_amendment [2] https://cha.house.gov/hr-1-people-act https://cha.house.gov/hr-1-people-act [3] https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx [4] https://news.gallup.com/poll/1615/environment.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1615/environment.aspx
- 4y ago
adolph 4y ago
Also leaving old laws in when they are ruled null by a court. As a result, many states' laws changed immediately after Dobbs was ... (issued? enrolled? made in force?). It's like leaving data in memory such that a new pointer gets the old value. Pure crust.
cato_the_elder 4y ago
> why was it never codified in law Because a large part of the country is against late-stage abortions, and there is a need to keep a semblance of democracy?
- Buttons840 4y ago
  Roe v Wade said nothing about late-stage abortions.
  - benmmurphy 4y ago
    My understanding is the state of the law before Dobbs was that late term abortions couldn't be legally prevented if continuing the pregnancy put the woman's physical or mental health at risk. I think depending on how late the abortion is and how grave the danger is a lot of people will flip their position between permitting it and not permitting it.
- heartbeats 4y ago
  But in that case, what's the problem? If you can't get the legislation through because it isn't popular enough, that seems like a pretty solid case of "Won't fix: working as intended". Congress still has the ability to pass those laws, should they want to.
- klyrs 4y ago
  It's a federation, not a democracy. States themselves are federations of legislative districts, the borders of which are drawn by the same legislature (without, thanks to today's supreme court, the checks and balances of judicial oversight). In a democracy, sensible legislation that appeases a large majority is possible.
  - martinflack 4y ago
    > States themselves are federations of legislative districts The variety of ways that US States internally allow municipalities to have their own rules is actually quite interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_rule_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_rule_in_the_United_States
matthewdgreen 4y ago
The US's constitutional system doesn't work well in a polarized environment. There are too many veto points, two conflicting branches that can each claim to be "legitimately elected", and even the elected branches don't represent the popular will due to compromises made in the pre-modern era. We've papered over the effects of this paralysis by delegating power to the executive agencies and the Courts, but this era is now coming to an end. Some folks believe that as we remove those options our legislative system will be "forced" to work properly. But there's no evidence to support this: most Presidential democracies have collapsed into autocracy, and our own system has previously collapsed into secession and civil war.
- SllX 4y ago
  The most law that affects the most people day to day has always been State law. I wouldn’t expect any kind of legislation coming out of Congress on this (but many attempts both ways regardless), and I think if there were any that passed that would not actually help our politics. Not everything need be an Act of Congress. Every State has an elected legislature.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - falcolas 4y ago
    > The most law that affects the most people day to day has always been State law. So, I'd actually disagree. This argument isn't well thought out yet, but... until you're actually breaking local laws, most of the laws you interact with are actually interstate and international laws. Most of the businesses you interact with are either engaging in interstate or international commerce. For example, all of your interactions with Amazon are governed by Federal laws first and foremost. With state taxes being the notable exception. Even your rent, mortgage, power, water, internet... they're all private companies that are quite often multi-state or multi-national.
    - SllX 4y ago
      I appreciate you trying but no, the laws that affect your direct surroundings are State, because the State is the direct sovereign power over the land you live on whether you rent or own or squat. The streets around you are governed by State laws; the parks around you may have park hours and if not set directly by the State are governed by a State-empowered entity like your City (national parks are the obvious exception to this). The utilities you mentioned are typically local businesses, except maybe the banks and the ISPs and even the ISPs are operating with local charters and the bank branches are operating under local business rules. You don’t think about it because it’s so pervasive as to be invisible, but local and State laws are a massive influence in your daily life. The most regular encounter most people have with the Feds is the postal service. Even our “federal” elections are run by the States.
StewardMcOy 4y ago
American here. I think it's important to not characterize judicial review in the Row case as lawmaking. Although lots of anti-abortion advocates criticized Roe as legislating from the bench, the court was actually doing was checking the power of various state governments to take away individual rights. Judicial review has certainly been misused by the court in other cases to legislate, and the concept is anti-democratic to a problematic degree, but it is an important check on governments taking away individual liberties in the US constitutional system, at least in theory. In Roe, the court didn't write a law saying abortion was legal. It struck down laws stating that it was illegal. That's an important difference. It's also worth remembering that there was never a realistic chance of a nationwide right to abortion being passed through congress. There are a few reasons for it. Only about 15% of the country is against abortions in all circumstances, but they're a loud minority. Similarly, 20-30% of American are pro-choice under any circumstance. But the majority of Americans support abortion only in certain circumstances, and they tend not to care as much about it. [1] In cases where a majority doesn't have strong opinions, the US government doesn't really need to pay attention to the will of the voters. Politicians are rarely if ever punished for it. A similar dynamic played out with net neutrality during the last administration. Despite the public, including Republicans, being overwhelmingly for it, it was an issue they hardly cared about, and so the FCC was basically free to do whatever they wanted. The other reason is that voters who are anti-abortion are not equally distributed amongst the population. Some, mostly smaller states are vehemently anti-abortion. As such, the senate would never muster the 60 votes needed to pass legislation protecting the right. Without Roe, for the last 50 years, we'd basically have been in the situation we're in now: legal in some states, illegal in others, with states fighting each other over whether or not residents can cross state lines to get an abortion. 1: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
- mvdwoord 4y ago
  Thanks for this... I should read a bit more on this, but also wonder, what would be the problem with people deciding it is illegal in some states, and illegal in others? Although I find it should be legal, within certain limits, what's holding people back from voting, or moving to another state which more closely matches their politician views? Similar to the EU it is low friction to move state, right? When plenty of people apparently oppose abortion, why not let them..
notacoward 4y ago
> Not a priority according to democratic politicians. Hindsight (or the view from the sidelines) is always 20/20, isn't it? It wasn't codified into law because it didn't seem necessary while Roe v. Wade was still in place and there were so many other issues that also needed addressing. You know - wars, pandemics, economic downturns, that kind of thing. Which of these other issues would you have let slide so you could pass a highly contentious law with no immediate practical effect in an environment of razor-thin vote margins and staunch opposition? The Democrats would have gotten plenty of "friendly fire" for that too. Sure, in retrospect it seems like a giant missed opportunity, but we shouldn't pretend there weren't reasons at the time.
- falcolas 4y ago
  Especially since, in the words of many a Supreme Court candidate, "Roe is settled law." It's hard to build support when there doesn't appear to be an opposition (which, again with the hindsight, was wrong).

Toxygene 4y ago

> [...] why was it never codified in law? The findings of the SCOTUS in Roe v. Wade was: The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's liberty to abort her fetus. [1] In other words, *the SCOTUS finding said* abortion was codified in law -- the U.S. Constitution. Edit: clarified the summary to attribute the finding to the SCOTUS and not to my opinion [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade

hef19898 4y ago
Except it was not as the SCOTUS just ruled.
- Toxygene 4y ago
  The question was not about the most recent finding of the SCOTUS. The question was, why wasn't abortion codified into law since Roe v. Wade.
  - Mordisquitos 4y ago
    If the right to an abortion was already codified in law by the U.S. Constitution, why was a ruling on Roe v. Wade even necessary?
    - Toxygene 4y ago
      I was incorrect in that assertion. Abortion was not codified until Roe v. Wade.
    - falcolas 4y ago
      It's not explicitly codified. But that doesn't mean it's not a right. Which is why we have opinions ruling the day. And if we read Thomas' opinion on the matter, contraception, gay marrage, etc. are all on the chopping block to come. And that doesn't even cover the "Voting Rights Act of 1965" kerfluffel that's also about to hit.
      - hef19898 4y ago
        From a distance, it seems like some States will get the go from SCOTS to revert everything back to Jim Crow / pre-Civil Rights movement. Pretty scary actually, even for non-Americans.
Teknoman117 4y ago
> that protects a pregnant woman's liberty to abort her fetus. Unfortunately the 14th amendment does not explicitly say that. Therefore we've been operating off of the court's previous interpretation of the 14th amendment, which has now changed. So unless Congress can pass legislation legalizing it federally without any ambiguity, it's going to be left up to the states.
- cogman10 4y ago
  The 9th amendment says you don't have to explicitly state a right.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    You're correct. But that means it's up to the courts to decide what is a right. One SCOTUS ruled that privacy - bodily autonomy - was a right. The current SCOTUS ruled that it is not. Their logic is dodgy, but that doesn't matter, sadly. The ball is in Congress' court now.
- orwin 4y ago
  I don't really understand the ramifications. If you have a vegetative child, are you obligated to keep them on life support for the rest of his life? My grandmother died last month. We chose to keep her under morphine despite the fact that she couldn't take her heart medecine anymore, and to not install another IV (she refused to be taken out of her home and to be sent to a hospital the day prior). Would we have been able to do that? I know worse! a very young and talented violonist, friend of my parents when i was a kid, suffered a weird disease that would excite her nerves, hurting her even when staying still. The pain was so high her brain was shut down most of the days until she took her own life. If this disease triggers in an infant not able to speak yet (and who won't be able to learn, ever), what happen? I'm pretty sure this is debilitating, so the infant would need life support for at least ten years, and then be unable to learn anything, only suffering or being dosed with morphine. Would letting this infant off life support be prosecuted? This is really interesting philosophically. I am a negative utilitarist of sort (Karl Popper is the base of half my opinions tbh),so the answer to all the questions are evident. For classical utilitarists or deontologists though, those should be really interesting. Where do you draw the line?

hef19898 4y ago

Also Europe based, I see that as big over sight. I am absolutely sure, so, that the republicans will use there judicative power to fullest extent together with a majority in the House should they get said majority. And they will throw out the filibuster in the senate with the blink of an eye if it serves them. The democrats on the other hand are way to tame.

treis 4y ago
>the republicans will use there judicative power to fullest extent Sure, but it's still better to make them do it rather than establishing that the Federal government can regulate abortion.

jdcarr 4y ago

I think there’s more preventing the passage of a law protecting an individuals right to abortion than whether it was a matter of political priority. To pass such a law would require 60 votes in the senate AIUI. Given that this has been a massive part of the republican platform there’s no way ten senators would flip in the current senate. It could have been passed in the Obama years but I wonder if the public would have had the appetite for it with the assumption that Roe vs Wade would have remained. Let sleeping dogs lie and all that What this shows to me is the intentional inability for the senate to pass anything but the least offensive bipartisan bills and force other institutions such as the courts to intervene. However as we’ve seen the courts have their own agenda too

odessacubbage 4y ago
the legislature as an institution is not really designed or intended to pass 'offensive' bills, it is supposed to reflect the consensus of the states which should hopefully reflect the will of the public at least to some degree. it should also be considered the same gridlock barring federal abortion rights also prevents a federal abortion ban so those who blame all political failures on the filibuster should really keep that in mind. if the people of tennessee, mississippi arkansas etc decide that legal abortion is a defining issue then their representatives would in kind be expected to reflect those values on the floor. while that precludes short-term solutions (once again, as intended) i do not believe that it is a political impossibility as is so often claimed. however, for the first time in a long while, democrats will be required to actually 'do politics'
origin_path 4y ago
Isn't that a contradiction? If it could have passed in the Obama years but was ignored, then it simply wasn't a priority to do so, which was the original point made. Obama years were pretty recent. Does the court have an agenda here, or is this the removal of a previous agenda? I don't understand these claims that the court is simply doing the same as before but right wing instead of left. They haven't changed things to make abortion illegal at the federal level. They've just removed a ruling based on shaky legal reasoning and kicked the decision back to where it was meant to be all along, which would seem to be lack of an agenda.

nequo 4y ago

> but why was it never codified in law? IANAL but in common law, precedent should guide the interpretation of the law. And the precedent was Roe v. Wade. Of course there's other precedent that we do effectively ignore, like Plessy v. Ferguson. So you're right, it should have been codified in law. But any such law would be erased by Congress too next year when everything turns red.

turndown 4y ago

>Not a priority according to democratic politicians. Not a priority. In the US, a ruling like this(ironic to say right now) is so much more ironclad than a law is in general, if people are going to come after it. Legal challenge after legal challenge slowly boils laws away until you have so many exceptions about portions of a law specifically struck down that the whole thing doesn't even make sense anymore. And of course, any time Republicans controlled the House/Senate they'd probably do something with it, just like every time a Republican is elected President they stop giving monetary support to organizations GMOs that provide abortion services in foreign countries. You can't really have laws about "controversial" things for very long.

mvdwoord 4y ago
This was overturned no? So is this now also more ironclad? And the whole point of elections and politics and lawmaking is to keep up with changing culture and norms? I see your point in practicality, but are they mutually exclusive?
- tablespoon 4y ago
  >> In the US, a ruling like this(ironic to say right now) is so much more ironclad than a law is in general, if people are going to come after it. > This was overturned no? So is this now also more ironclad? Roe v. Wade was basically a backdoor constitutional amendment where seven judges bypassed the actual process for amending the constitution (and also ran ahead of the legislatures in all but a handful of states). The recent Dobbs opinion just nullifies that amendment. A lot of people seem to think that, since the constitution is so hard to amend through the prescribed process, they should be able to use the courts to get the amendments they want. The problem with that is that it explicitly politicized the court, burning up its legitimacy in the process. We're seeing the later stages of that (the next step is something to undermine the court's independence, like court packing or mass impeachment). It also foolishly relied on a fantasy that only one side could abuse the court in this way, and the other side would forever remain helpless.
  - falcolas 4y ago

PathOfEclipse 4y ago

https://www.dailywire.com/news/jessica-biel-takes-shot-at-america-appears-to-praise-france-over-abortion-theres-one-glaring-problem https://www.dailywire.com/news/jessica-biel-takes-shot-at-am... This article is illustrative of the ignorance, malice, and hypocrisy of America's social elite. Jessica Biel implies France has women's rights while the U.S. does not. And yet: * Neither France, nor any other nation I am aware of, provides a constitutional right to abortion. * The law upheld by the Dobbs decision is less restrictive on abortion than France's current abortion laws! Speaking of hypocrisy, We see rage from so many people who frequently bemoan the state of "our democracy" and at the same time could care less about democracy. They only care about winning. If they can win through democratic vote, fine. If they can win through a supreme court ruling, fine. If they can win via executive fiat, fine. All that matters is winning. From https://www.dailywire.com/news/wanda-sykes-mocks-middle-america-after-scotus-overturned-roe-those-states-in-the-middle-that-red-stuff-then-she-gets-ripped https://www.dailywire.com/news/wanda-sykes-mocks-middle-amer.... Wanda Sykes is basically asking for a wealth-based oligarchy to rule the U.S. All the folks in middle states need to "shut up" because the wealthy elites on the coasts are making all the money, so they should make all the decisions!

mvdwoord 4y ago
Good reads, thanks... I remember as a kid being baffled by our so called progressive country sending the abortion boat "women on waves" to Ireland to provide Irish women with abortions in international waters. Also activists shooting anti conception over the border with Poland. But isn't all of this antithetical to ever growing government structures? I get a feeling the world is heading towards a new fundamental discussion on this topic, and others, but I am afraid it will not be friendly discussions.
sofixa 4y ago
> Neither France, nor any other nation I am aware of, provides a constitutional right to abortion. I don't see why it has to be a constitutional right (constitutions aren't the only things that codify rights), but for what it's worth there's an ongoing proposal which will probably pass, overwhelmingly, to add abortion as a constitutional right in France.

coffeeblack 4y ago

Depends how you define adoration. Until heart beat? Third month? Sixth month? Until right before birth? I think most were fine with third month.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago

The thing where politicians hold any sort of progressive legislation hostage with extortionate demands over unrelated issues is a common theme across countries. Like government funded Catholic schools in Canada. Something that shouldn't exist anymore but whoops it's in the constitution so it's going to be there forever now because no one would ever agree to just one change.

halostatue 4y ago
It can be changed. Quebec used to have to fund Protestant (probably Anglican) schools. At some point in the last few decades, their part of the Constitution was updated so that they have to fund English-language schools. Ontario currently doesn’t have the political will to change this, but it isn’t entirely immutable. (Interestingly, there are a few Protestant schools funded in some places in Ontario, where the majority of the population were French Catholic.) Quebec is in the process of making it difficult for anyone to attend English-language schools, but I see Quebec bills 21 and 96 potentially causing major pushback against the notwithstanding clause (hopefully it will kill the damned thing) and causing another round of people and companies to leave Quebec as they did because of René Lévesque and the PQ.
- lemmiwinks 4y ago
  > Quebec is in the process of making it difficult for anyone to attend English-language schools, Not true > and causing another round of people and companies to leave Quebec as they did because of René Lévesque and the PQ. How to tell me you're an angryphone without telling me you're an angryphone (and totally ignoring historical facts in the process)
  - halostatue 4y ago
    I don’t live in Quebec, and I’m also an immigrant to Canada. I’m looking at Bill 21 and seeing a legislature that does not understand secularity or religion. I’m looking at Bill 96 and seeing a legislature that is making hard decisions and getting them wrong. It is very clear that the Quebec legislative assembly knew that both Bill 21 and Bill 96 were undemocratic and wrong-headed from the beginning, since they preemptively invoked the notwithstanding clause to override charter rights (which they knew that both bills would walk all over). Not all of 96 is bad. I sympathize with the need to protect the French language and am not against legislative measures to do so. (The decision against Villeneuve’s restaurant "New Town" years ago was just silly, though.) However, there are clear negative messages being passed by other parts of 96 which make it extremely xenophobic (just like 21), such as ending services for new immigrants in any language other than French after six months. With respect to history…Toronto was not the preeminent city in Canada. That was Montréal, until the first referendum. Tens of thousands of anglophones left their homes in Quebec as they no longer felt welcome, and numerous businesses shifted their base of operations from Montréal to Toronto, and Toronto has benefited ever since. In recent years, Montréal has attracted a number of companies back to the point where I have worked with (as a vendor) a couple of companies that closed secondary headquarters in majority English Canada and forced their employees to move to Quebec in order to remain employed. I am hearing that some of those employees are now feeling (once again) unwelcome in Quebec, and those companies may be reconsidering their headquarters in Quebec because of the lack of consideration for charter rights by the current government. I love Quebec. I think that much should be done to protect the French language there. But I don’t think that preemptively violating charter rights is the right way to do it.

cogman10 4y ago

> I am fully in favor of legalized abortion, but why was it never codified in law? The US constitution made leeway for rights to be unenumerated, or not explicitly spelled out (9th amendment [1]) Up until this current supreme court, a right has never been removed. That was not standard jurisprudence. Now, however, we have radicals on the court who take the view that "if it's not in the text, it isn't protected" completely ignoring the 9th amendment and often only applying it when they favor the text ideologically (see: gun laws. Plenty of historical documents show that the 2nd amendment was about states being able to form militias and not arming individuals. It literally wasn't until about the 1990s that lobbying from the NRA successfully reinterpreted the amendment to mean "everyone gets a gun"). The next problem is that in order to pass new laws, you need to have a super-majority in the senate, a majority in the house, and the presidency to go along with the law. Pretty difficult when the republican party has decided they want absolutely no new laws and certainly no expansion of rights. (See: how hard they are fighting against the HR-1 the voter rights act [2]) But, of course, while abortion rights are wildly popular (~80% of the population supports them in some circumstances. ~50% in all circumstances [3]), we don't run the country as a democracy, but rather a representative republic. And that's the problem. While the people want this, the representatives do not. A combination of gerrymandering and voter suppression has angled them into a position where the population that elected them doesn't track with the general population. This is exactly the same issue with climate change. 60% of the population view it as a dangerous problem and 40% of the population view it as overblown. [4] That 40% ends up with a larger portion of power in the senate because any action to realistically curtail climate change ends up being filibustered. The issue america has is we have 1 party with the motto that "The scariest phrase is I'm from the government and I'm here to help" as such, they block any and all regulations and government actions they can feasibly stop. The setup of our government favors that strategy. Their voters don't CARE that they aren't passing laws, they prefer it that way. This kills the ability to compromise. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/ninth_amendment https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/ninth_amendment [2] https://cha.house.gov/hr-1-people-act https://cha.house.gov/hr-1-people-act [3] https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx [4] https://news.gallup.com/poll/1615/environment.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1615/environment.aspx

4y ago

adolph 4y ago

Also leaving old laws in when they are ruled null by a court. As a result, many states' laws changed immediately after Dobbs was ... (issued? enrolled? made in force?). It's like leaving data in memory such that a new pointer gets the old value. Pure crust.

cato_the_elder 4y ago

> why was it never codified in law Because a large part of the country is against late-stage abortions, and there is a need to keep a semblance of democracy?

Buttons840 4y ago
Roe v Wade said nothing about late-stage abortions.
- benmmurphy 4y ago
  My understanding is the state of the law before Dobbs was that late term abortions couldn't be legally prevented if continuing the pregnancy put the woman's physical or mental health at risk. I think depending on how late the abortion is and how grave the danger is a lot of people will flip their position between permitting it and not permitting it.
heartbeats 4y ago
But in that case, what's the problem? If you can't get the legislation through because it isn't popular enough, that seems like a pretty solid case of "Won't fix: working as intended". Congress still has the ability to pass those laws, should they want to.
klyrs 4y ago
It's a federation, not a democracy. States themselves are federations of legislative districts, the borders of which are drawn by the same legislature (without, thanks to today's supreme court, the checks and balances of judicial oversight). In a democracy, sensible legislation that appeases a large majority is possible.
- martinflack 4y ago
  > States themselves are federations of legislative districts The variety of ways that US States internally allow municipalities to have their own rules is actually quite interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_rule_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_rule_in_the_United_States

matthewdgreen 4y ago

The US's constitutional system doesn't work well in a polarized environment. There are too many veto points, two conflicting branches that can each claim to be "legitimately elected", and even the elected branches don't represent the popular will due to compromises made in the pre-modern era. We've papered over the effects of this paralysis by delegating power to the executive agencies and the Courts, but this era is now coming to an end. Some folks believe that as we remove those options our legislative system will be "forced" to work properly. But there's no evidence to support this: most Presidential democracies have collapsed into autocracy, and our own system has previously collapsed into secession and civil war.

SllX 4y ago
The most law that affects the most people day to day has always been State law. I wouldn’t expect any kind of legislation coming out of Congress on this (but many attempts both ways regardless), and I think if there were any that passed that would not actually help our politics. Not everything need be an Act of Congress. Every State has an elected legislature.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- falcolas 4y ago
  > The most law that affects the most people day to day has always been State law. So, I'd actually disagree. This argument isn't well thought out yet, but... until you're actually breaking local laws, most of the laws you interact with are actually interstate and international laws. Most of the businesses you interact with are either engaging in interstate or international commerce. For example, all of your interactions with Amazon are governed by Federal laws first and foremost. With state taxes being the notable exception. Even your rent, mortgage, power, water, internet... they're all private companies that are quite often multi-state or multi-national.
  - SllX 4y ago
    I appreciate you trying but no, the laws that affect your direct surroundings are State, because the State is the direct sovereign power over the land you live on whether you rent or own or squat. The streets around you are governed by State laws; the parks around you may have park hours and if not set directly by the State are governed by a State-empowered entity like your City (national parks are the obvious exception to this). The utilities you mentioned are typically local businesses, except maybe the banks and the ISPs and even the ISPs are operating with local charters and the bank branches are operating under local business rules. You don’t think about it because it’s so pervasive as to be invisible, but local and State laws are a massive influence in your daily life. The most regular encounter most people have with the Feds is the postal service. Even our “federal” elections are run by the States.

StewardMcOy 4y ago

American here. I think it's important to not characterize judicial review in the Row case as lawmaking. Although lots of anti-abortion advocates criticized Roe as legislating from the bench, the court was actually doing was checking the power of various state governments to take away individual rights. Judicial review has certainly been misused by the court in other cases to legislate, and the concept is anti-democratic to a problematic degree, but it is an important check on governments taking away individual liberties in the US constitutional system, at least in theory. In Roe, the court didn't write a law saying abortion was legal. It struck down laws stating that it was illegal. That's an important difference. It's also worth remembering that there was never a realistic chance of a nationwide right to abortion being passed through congress. There are a few reasons for it. Only about 15% of the country is against abortions in all circumstances, but they're a loud minority. Similarly, 20-30% of American are pro-choice under any circumstance. But the majority of Americans support abortion only in certain circumstances, and they tend not to care as much about it. [1] In cases where a majority doesn't have strong opinions, the US government doesn't really need to pay attention to the will of the voters. Politicians are rarely if ever punished for it. A similar dynamic played out with net neutrality during the last administration. Despite the public, including Republicans, being overwhelmingly for it, it was an issue they hardly cared about, and so the FCC was basically free to do whatever they wanted. The other reason is that voters who are anti-abortion are not equally distributed amongst the population. Some, mostly smaller states are vehemently anti-abortion. As such, the senate would never muster the 60 votes needed to pass legislation protecting the right. Without Roe, for the last 50 years, we'd basically have been in the situation we're in now: legal in some states, illegal in others, with states fighting each other over whether or not residents can cross state lines to get an abortion. 1: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx

mvdwoord 4y ago
Thanks for this... I should read a bit more on this, but also wonder, what would be the problem with people deciding it is illegal in some states, and illegal in others? Although I find it should be legal, within certain limits, what's holding people back from voting, or moving to another state which more closely matches their politician views? Similar to the EU it is low friction to move state, right? When plenty of people apparently oppose abortion, why not let them..

notacoward 4y ago

> Not a priority according to democratic politicians. Hindsight (or the view from the sidelines) is always 20/20, isn't it? It wasn't codified into law because it didn't seem necessary while Roe v. Wade was still in place and there were so many other issues that also needed addressing. You know - wars, pandemics, economic downturns, that kind of thing. Which of these other issues would you have let slide so you could pass a highly contentious law with no immediate practical effect in an environment of razor-thin vote margins and staunch opposition? The Democrats would have gotten plenty of "friendly fire" for that too. Sure, in retrospect it seems like a giant missed opportunity, but we shouldn't pretend there weren't reasons at the time.

falcolas 4y ago
Especially since, in the words of many a Supreme Court candidate, "Roe is settled law." It's hard to build support when there doesn't appear to be an opposition (which, again with the hindsight, was wrong).