[Politico] Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows

Nah I'd bet this came from one of the Conservatives via a clerk. I bet Roberts is lobbying one of them to reject Alito's opinion and in an effort to prevent this, someone leaked the opinion to demonstrate that the other five Conservatives had previously agreed to overturn Roe v. Wade. Its a way to force the other five to stick together.

The liberals don't gain anything from leaking this. The shock value of seeing this would have happened anyway when the actual opinion was released. There's some inter-Conservative war going on about the scope of the opinion.

 

And shame on the various security apparatuses of country if that ever happens again. Anti-abortion rights activists have been calling their shot and putting their playbook in the light for some time now. It's kind of stunning incompetence by pro-abortion rights activists to have things come this far. Actually, that's not completely fair. There's a general malaise and aversion to the ickyness of the issue when framed a certain way that prevents enough public support from gathering in all impactful arenas. That stated, the Right has organized and progressed well in state courts, state legislatures, and national courts to push their agenda this far.

Now, assuming there is a potential wave pushback against this decision, can pro-abortion rights activists garner this energy and push it to achieve political outcomes? That's democracy at work (with an understanding that gerrymandering can screw up functional representation).

 

I can buy into this theory. Roberts seemed to be the only one advocating for a slight definitional change to "undue burden." The problem is Roberts isn't the center of the court anymore...it'd be one hell of a strategic move.

 

Suicide for republicans, it’s their version of “biological males identifying as females should be able to compete against bio females”

 

Can’t say I’m surprised by this. I saw it coming back during the W Administration and told anyone who spit out “both sides are the same” that the big difference between Democrats and Republicans was who they’d appoint to the courts.

I know I’ve been ultra critical of moderates on here, but this is where the failure of many young progressives to vote has really screwed us over. As tepid as my feelings were about Biden, I knew that the nature of our winner-take-all voting system means that anything other than a vote for a Democrat is essentially a vote for a Republican. But a lot of liberal and progressive voters failed to realize that voting is more than a demonstration of your political beliefs - it’s also a calculated decision on which option is most likely to be the least harmful. It sucks but it won’t be changed by voting 3rd party - dong that only empowers the wrong side.

I hope this is a wake up call to the politically indifferent to just how close we are to slipping into a Christian authoritarian state.

 

Higher than that IIRC.

It's a complex question. Basically, no one likes late term abortions (outside of extreme cases of course) but no woman carries a baby around for 8 months and goes "Nah, don't want it!" and no doctor is willy nilly aborting that baby.

Most of the country supports early term abortions...which is most of the cases. There is a reasonable middle ground but unfortunately, many of these states are going to outright ban it.

We'll see what the consequences will be. I imagine they will lose any moderate voters, especially female voters.

 

Lol...they are definitely not done.



They've hinted at Obergfell for some time now and the recent gay-panic created around 'protecting' kids has been an attempt to soften the blow when they do it.

The 'states' rights people are always so odd to me. States rights do not get to be held over individual rights, I thought we decided this in a bloody civil war but I guess not.

 

to many on the left, the right to kill the unborn is more important than any other

no issue is more important to them

 

Not suicide if you aren't worried about elections anymore. We're in the endgame now.

 

It's complicated. I try to teach it to my students and even then, around 20% actually understand the process of how things evolved. One can still agree that an individual's constitutional rights should not be overruled by state law, and still think that abortion, gay marriage, and anti-sodomy laws aren't individual rights that should be protected. Actually, Lawrence, while overruling Bowers, wasn't the same. The grounds that Lawrence prevailed was actually about privacy and the right not to have big brother barge in your bedroom (with exceptions like rape) and arrest. I don't think Lawrence dealt with the equal protection claim. And what's crazy about Lawrence is that the Texas code is about gay sodomy, specifically aimed at homosexuals. There is a legally consistent viewpoint out there that could re-apply Bowers and uphold Lawrence on an equal protection claim. Getting lost in the minutiae.

Anyhow, yes, Civil War and Reconstruciton history is fascinating. And your speficic states' rights claims weren't ever really decided...it favored Congress for brief time, then swung back in the "redeemer" era for decades, then swung back again, and again, and again. The sovereign of this nation has been as convoluted as it has been since the founding era.

 

The bolded seems contradictory to me, I don't doubt that people sincerely believe it though.

Well, it'll be interesting. I imagine if the blowback for this isn't strong enough we're going to see a pretty bold conservative court. In the end, it's up to the people to soundly reject this at the polls. It returns to the states so the goal of Pro-choice people will be to elect state legislators to fix it.

 

Going to try keep this short. If rights only come from people, then we have a democtratic process for that (Congress and state legislatures). If you believe that rights come from more than just people (natural rights, God given rights, rights found in the themes of the Constitution, the 9th Amendment), then how you operationalize that? There is disagreement among judges as some don't think the second category should even exist, in particular as it pertains to unenumerated rights. To me, the 9th Amendment is there for a reason and not just to be thrown away. But even if you do think unenumerated rights retained by the people exist, and cannot be infringed upon by neither federal nor state governments, then how do you get there? Because there's major disagreement on the how to part also.

For me, the better constitutional argument against abortion isn't the side that argues that unenumerated rights shouldn't exist. It's the arguments that say the constitutional pathways that connect abortion to privacy, equal protection, and liberty are not strong enough that hold the most credibility to me. I think it's a strategic error if the Right adopts the states' rights argument over the few trying to promote fetal personhood. I'm not saying fetal personhoold should be a constitutional right, but that has more long-term success potential in my opinion, because if you're the Right and you're putting all your eggs in the "abortion should just be decided by the people via their state representatives" basket, that argument only wins when the Right dominates state legislatures. Gerrymandering aside, that won't happen forever.

The world where we are headed seems to be one where massive variation will occur between states regarding abortion rights, gun rights (via the Texas twisted private liability law), gay rights. I think a better alternative compromise to that world is one where we vote national bounds to abortion where every state has to be the same in allowing abortion up to a certain time and every state has to ban abortion after a certain time. That could also be done through the courts if fetal personhood is accepted to some degree. I think it's a disingenuous argument that the Right makes when saying all they want is a popular vote on this matter. BS. If 51% wants to allow all abortion, does that make it good according to the beliefs of the Right?

 

What limits do you hope to place in the court someday?

 

Nonpartisan proposals that I've liked are term limits, supermajority requirements, limited shadow docket usage, and transparency promoting rules. Of course, most of those are difficult without a constitutional amendment.

 

Personally, I don't know how much of an effect this news will have on the midterms.

Either way, it will be very telling.

 

I'm not so sure. I also think that the justices value the confidentiality of the court way too much to threaten it with leak to sway votes, Everyone was prepared for the law to probably be upheld, and there was an expectation the court would just continue to erode any of the protections from Roe vs Wade. So even if Roberts got a majority in his favor, this would still have been the end game in practice within a few years. This decision just ends the conversation now and cleanly.

If anything this smells more like a softening of the blow. The decision just being dropped in mid to end June at the end of the session it would have been a shock to the system and much closer to the election and the campaign news cycle. By having a clerk leak it now, the outrage occurs earlier before many primaries even finish and well before most people pay attention to a non-Presidential election. So it buys more time for any backlash or political will to fizzle out by November. Then, issues such as inflation and potentially a stalling/bear economy can resurface and become more important voter issues.

The one possible problem is that the suburban woman portion of the electorate really helped Biden in 2020, and many of the vocal portions of that group have been furious about the how schools were handled during COVID and have blamed incumbents for it. Hard to know based on polling how much that anger is still a driving factor, but it definitely affected major state races in 2021. It would be interesting to see a poll if banning abortion sways that group in some fashion. It was hard to poll for that scenario before, because the average voter probably just didn't believe Roe would be overturned.

One downside for the pro-lifers, this decision as Alito has written is very straightforward for the average voter who is not versed in politics to understand. A more calculated eroding of the law like what was done to the banking bill, soft money, and voting rights is more complicated to explain and recognize its affects in a quick fashion.

 

Do you want a cookie?

 

Should or shouldn't has no bearing on the effect of the decision.

 

Abortion is an incredibly emotional and complicated topic.

But whoever leaked this must be found and punished.

 

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/05/03/ive-finished-reading-the-apparent-dobbs-draft-opinion/