Re-enslave the women
The Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito circulated inside the court and obtained by POLITICO.
The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
But even now – women’s organizations are still talking about “people who get pregnant.”
Any Justice who signs onto this opinion is fueling the harm and violence that will happen to people who become pregnant in this country.
Holy shit! Knifed from both sides at once!
Mike, the justices that would sign this are so full of righteousness that they would either project blame for any harm into the woman (of course), but would entirely absolve themselves of any responsibility in any case.
I read a long time back an analysis of Roberts written abortion opinions that expressed the view that he was seeking to incrementally erode the basis for Roe until the time was reached that it could be overturned. Since then of course, the Court has moved to the right. Not just in terms of majority, but also in the personal and political philosophy of the associate justices. Republican picks to Scotus in recent years have been selected almost entirely because of this single issue. The question will be whether Roberts holds true his original philosophy and principles, or whether shrugs his shoulders and votes for what he’s always wanted no matter.
I’m (morbidly) curious to read their reasoning, specifically as to the matter of why this is something that ought be left to the determination of each state rather than decided federally. If this be outside the federal purview, by what criteria do we judge something like controlled substance “scheduling” to be within it? I mean, I’m familiar with the argument that policy of national scope should be enacted via constitutional amendment, but …
I guess they waited until the Left no longer supported women. It’s the right time for them. If you try to mobilize against this overturning of precedent, the gender identity folks will all fire in the wrong direction.
The United States is lumbered with a 3-chamber parliament, each one stuffed full of careerist politicians. The Supreme Court is the Third Chamber. Its decision to deny women the choice of abortion on demand might salve a few fundamentalist Christian and other consciences, but it also enhances the business prospects of backyard operators.
It would not surprise me at all to learn that a Supreme Court justice or two was running an abortion business as a sideline, or had invested heavily in one. It goes with the territory.
Excuse my ignorance of USA law, but surely the fault here lies not with the Rethugllicans, who were always going to do this as soon as they got the chance. The fault lies with the Nothingcrats who could have and should have, enshrined abortion in Black letter Law.
There is a severe problem in all progressive parties in the Anglosphere – they are so afraid of pushback that they leave themselves paralysed.
O for another leader like E. Gough Whitlam whose motto was “crash through or crash”.
Rev, there’s enough blame to go around. As my original comment implied, the “Women’s” Law Center not using the very word “women” shows the left is deranged, but that’s a fly speck compared to the Re-thugs’ breach of the right to mind our own bodies.
Reverend Brindley, there have been and still are a shocking number of Democrats who are anti-choice. The left has always walked a fine line on the issue. And many who are nominally pro-choice always have a “but”. “But” I don’t think it should be used for women to manage their sluthood”. (I’ve heard that actual argument.) “But” you have to admit, it is killing a baby. (I read that argument last month – no, I don’t have to admit that. There is a difference between an embryo and a baby.) “But” the anti-choice folks have a point. (No, they don’t.) “But” “But” “But”
The most recent D senator from my state, Nebraska, was Ben Nelson. He was instrumental in keeping abortion out of the ACA. Why? So he could get re-elected? No, he was an old man on the verge of retirement; he didn’t run again. In short, he’s a true believer – in magical fairy daddies who don’t like women to have control of their reproduction. Because our bodies belong to men. And, of course, to God, but God manifests his power through the men.
Even in Minnesota there are liberal Democrats who are Catholic and have blocked the wording of a right to abortion and birth control in the platform.
When 95% of the elected representatives of Party A support your position on a particular issue, and 95% of the elected representatives of Party B oppose your position on that issue*, blaming Party A for not getting your way on that issue is true Galaxy Brain Genius Thinking.
*–and the remaining 5% won’t lift a finger to help anyway
If the Catholic theologians followed their doctrines to their logical conclusions, all female parishioners would be called upon to bring their used tampons, underwear and anything else that might hold vestiges of menstrual bleeding to the priest for extreme unction, just in case they contained a discarded zygote of early embryo with is own immoral soul.
But down through the centuries of doctrinal refinements, disputes, congresses, councils, synods etc, this point appears to have been strangely ignored, thus leaving God knows how many little immortal souls unabsolved of their Original Sin, and floating about for all Eternity in Limbo.
It gets worse. With one wave of his magic wand plus a few pious words, any of the popes down through the ages could have rescued these lost billions of little souls. But none has, and they haven’t; which I can only put down to their being diverted by clerical politics at whatever level in the hierarchy. Or something.
Worse still. God could have stepped down a moment from his Heavenly throne and cleaned up this theological mess, then given some cleric or parishioner the news that He had done so via a visitation, sign or whatever. But that appears not to have occurred to Him.
Must have been too busy hunting down mutinous angels. We all know the bother they can cause.
I had better leave off now, before I have waded into theology too far and am in over my head. Could easily drown.
Omar, I doubt the popes were any more willing to contact menstrual blood than many other men. The fear of menstrual blood seems to be a driving force among men who hate women, and a not insignificant number of men who don’t hate women, but would never be caught dead buying tampons for their wife. (Neither of my husbands had that problem…though my husband won’t order a Croque Madame for fear of being seen as unmanly.)
Most of the men I know think that the joke about people who bleed every month without dying is funny. Quite a few of them defend rape jokes and sexist insults.
And right now, I’m finding it difficult to find an abortion group to donate to that doesn’t refer to “pregnant people” or “people who get pregnant”. If anyone knows one, please, pass on the information.