S.D. Abortion Bill Takes Aim at 'Roe' & blog posts Abortion Manual as response

[Completely off topic]

Interestingly enough, one of my professors this year is the lawyer from the Roe v. Wade case. She's an interesting and thoughtful lady and even though I disagree with almost everything she says it's interesting to hear from someone who has shaped the history of our country.

[/off topic]

 

Okay, call me crazy, but isn't privacy a substantive due process issue? The shaky privacy grouds you speak of were set up in Griswold, so it's not like the court made that stuff up. Pregnancy is an important exception for mootness, but to say that this is the only impact that Roe has is not exactly accurate.

 

Weddington is cool. She spoke at UH last week. She received 6 death threats that day. Gotta love a "pro-life" death threat.

 

Privacy rights are derived from the 4th amendment. Due process is the 6th amendment. But yes they are interrelated as are most of the amendments in one way or another. You're right privacy is derived from the Griswold decision but the legal analysis of Roe v. Wade was in my personal opinion somewhat questionable. The point is that it set a legal standard that prohibited the regulation of most abortions strictly on privacy grounds which seems like a bit of a stretch.

Second, Roe v. Wade functionally became irrelevant. Planned Parenthood v. Casey introduced a new standard for abortion regulation. The new standard is whether or not a law creates an "undue burden" for the mother. It has nothing to do with privacy rights anymore but instead deals with an actual legal standard that is applied systematically in the courts today. Read the decision and you'll see that the justices practically threw out much of the basis of the original decision.

Don't get me wrong. I'm as pro-choice as many others on this board. I just feel from a strictly legal perspective, Roe v. Wade was a questionable decision.

 

Actually, Griswold states that the right to privacy is based on the "penumbra" of the Bill of Rights as a whole. Also, the due process amendments are the 5th and 14th, not the 6th. The 6th is the right to a trial, and the 4th is the right against warrantless search and seizure.

Casey does change the limits of abortion from the decision in Roe. However, it does not overturn Roe. Roe is still good law, and the S.D. Abortion Bill won't be able to meet the Casey standard, so S.D. will have to overturn both Roe and Casey to be Constitutional.

No more shaky than any other Substantive Due Process case. You just got me on the wrong day. We're covering Roe in Constitutional Law this week.

 

You're right, i'm stupid. My bad i meant to mention the 5th. I've actually been researching 4th and 5th amendment cases pretty frequently this year so I feel somewhat stupid for forgetting this. And yes Griswold was based on multiple amendments but the 4th amendment is the key issue based on past readings of some of the justices.

Exactly, but the point is that Roe as a legal standard is irrelevant today. Justices don't evaluate abortion laws in a privacy context anymore. Its strictly the Casey standard that is key and while you and I and the state of South Dakota agree that this definitely doesnt meet the Casey standard, the point is that this provides a legal challenge to Casey and potentially the possibility of overturning the case. (Although I strongly doubt that could ever happen)

I'm sure that we agree on almost everything except whether or not Roe is a shaky decision. In my personal opinion, I felt that the basis of Roe specifically was shaky. And I understand that other due process cases have been vague as well simply because the constitution and the subsequent amendments aren't very clear on this subject. I just think that 1) Roe is irrelevant in the abortion debate as a legal standard today and 2) The basis of privacy to justify abortion was a questionable standard.

 

Actually, your opinion on abortion does mean something to me. I wish that people like us could come together on a reasonable compromise so that we could concentrate on reducing the number of abortions performed in this country. Such a compromise is out there, but the intransigence shown by both sides makes reaching such agreements difficult. I understand that you have strong beliefs on this, but a little compromise on this issue could go a LONG way towards reducing (in the short term) and ultimately eliminating (in the long term) abortion in this country.

Abortion policy was judged based on its relation to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The woman who now advocates against abortion now has a right to her change of heart, but a change of heart has no bearing on the legal justification of Roe, nor to the other decisions handed down by the court.

There is no baby. It is a fetus and as long as it relies on sustenance from the woman's womb, it is her choice what to do with it.

Except that in order to tell whether it has been "dun," those charged with upholding the law will have to invade people's privacy even more than they now do with drug laws.

Well, I think that in order to ban a practice, such a ban should have the support of more than a bare majority of the elected officials. I would be satisfied if bans required a 50% vote of the populace, though, since elected officials are notoriously more willing to ban things (like drugs, abortion, gambling, etc.) for political gain.

No, your personal views show clearly how outrageous your desires are in this area. MadMax, someone whose opinions on abortion I respect and admire greatly, advocates for going after doctors in the event of an abortion ban, but would leave the mother out of the legal proceedings. Your extreme opinion shows that your statements are extreme and reduce the validity of those statements.

For example, David Duke has extreme views and as such, the validity of his statements is questionable. Pretty basic stuff.

The major difference is that I would say that at least 99% of Americans support banning murder and punishing murderers. Those extreme situations may occur, but they are few and far between.

Less than half of Americans (far less by the numbers I have seen, around 33%) support an all-out ban on abortion. It should be obvious that most Americans don't consider abortion anywhere near as big an issue as murder, yet you would force your narrow, extreme viewpoint on the majority of Americans if you could.

It has everything to do with it. You (and people like you) spend time, money, and energy trying to get abortion banned when if you spent the same time, money, and energy on things that work, abortion numbers would decrease dramatically. If you would advocate for effective sex education and universal access to contraception as strongly as you do for an abortion ban, you could dramatically reduce unwanted pregnancies, which would reduce the number of abortions done each year.

BTW, abortion is not seen as "murdering a human being" to most of us.

SOME??? It is highly unlikely that abortion numbers would be reduced much at all in the event of an all-out ban. Abortion would be more expensive and dangerous, but nearly as prevalent as it is now. Abortion prohibition would be a paper ban that would further enrich criminal enterprises, kill more pregnant women, and would only reduce the number of abortions reported. At least now we KNOW how many abortions are performed every year. With a ban, we would not have those numbers. Now, we know the demographics, and thus some of the motivations for abortions. With a ban, we would not have those numbers.

Without those numbers and that knowledge, we would have no way to ACTUALLY reduce the number of abortions performed every year, but at least we would have an ineffective law on the books. :rolleyes.

 

this is where i start not understanding you.

because it's my understanding you're all for banning abortion past the first trimester (or at least past some time marker) unless its in cases where the mother's life is on the line. this statement above seems to contradict that.

it is convenient to call it a choice...but that growing thing comprised of cells, tissues and organs will rely on its mother for many years after it is pushed out of the womb. we do not base decisions on whether something is alive and deserving of rights based on whether or not it depends on someone else for its own sustenance.

in my view...the baby/fetus thing is semantics.

 

No, I just felt like I had to use extreme language. I do believe that as long as the fetus is in the womb, it is pretty much up to the mother what to do with it, but I have conflicting feelings once it starts approaching viability. The closer it gets to being viable, the less I think the mother has a say in whether it continues developing. Once it is viable and could survive outside the womb, I believe the mother should have no say unless there was a real threat to her life, and even then, we should try to extract the fetus without damaging it if possible.

No, it will rely on SOMEONE for many years, not specifically the mother. When we have the technology to extract a fetus from the womb and artificially bring it to term, there will be a reasonable expectation of an abortion ban since there will be an alternative that does not force a woman to use her body for something she does not want to use it for.

To an extent, I do. I don't think the mother should be forced to use her womb to bring a fetus to term unless the fetus could survive outside it. Once the fetus is viable, I believe the mother has fewer rights since the fetus could potentially be a "life" if it were removed from the womb at that point. At that point, I see it as reasonable to protect that "life" by not allowing the woman to abort it since it could survive without her womb.

Maybe so, but using the word "baby" is inflammatory in a way that "fetus" is not. StupidMoniker used the term "murdering a baby" to add weight to his opinion when, by definition, it is a fetus and not a baby. Semantics, yes, but when he tries to frame an issue as "murdering a baby," I will counter with facts every time.

 

Hypothetical question:

Assume that human beings were put on the endangered species list. At what point (do you think) would it be illegal to abort a fetus?

 

andy -- i just think the "facts" come out a bit cold. a rose by any other name is still a rose. if the "thing" is moments from birth, we'll call it a fetus. a minute later it takes its first breath in the world...now it's a baby and deserving of rights it didn't have 5 seconds earlier? these arbitrary lines with what I deem to be LIFE are what i struggle with the most. there's a respect for life that seems to be missing in all this.

 

we certainly protect the eggs of condors, for example. because we know what they will grow into. and we value what they grow into. you do the math.

 

What about turkey?

 

i don't think they're an endangered species yet.

 

Because we truly value what they grow into - dinner.

 

ok. and i'm drawing some distinctions between the lives of turkeys and the lives of human beings.

under the law, the life of a human being is protected.
under the law, the life of a california condor is protected.

under the law, the life of an unborn human being is NOT protected.
under the law, the life of an unborn california condor IS protected.

 

Screw the law.

 

rock on

 

But you see how contradictory the laws are. They protect one bird but not others. We condone some killing and denounce others. Our culture needs to have deep reverence for all life including turkeys. Then we will see abortions decline. Reliance on contradictory, violent laws is futile.

 

one step at a time. let's start with deep reverance for human life. i think that's an easier sell. i hope it is. i certainly value the lives of people more than i value the life of a turkey. i'm open to discussion on why i should value the life of a turkey on par with the life of a human. but let's start with the human life part first, if its ok.