Why did Roe v Wade rely on an unwritten right to privacy rather than the equal protection clause then?
Something to do with some bad uses of substantive due process stuff in early 1900s.
Just one comment away from implying that this case is straightforward, and you're bringing up esoteric case law from 100 years ago. I don't point this out to denigrate you, but to highlight just how complicated law can be, particularly when it comes to landmark SCOTUS decisions. I thought I heard on the news that the majority opinion was 90 pages long, but I can't find a reference. However detailed it was, for the next month, literally millions of people will be on Twitter making 280-character-limited reductio ad absurdum comments about it.
The draft is also a temporary measure. As with other wartime restrictions of civil liberties, like curfews or rationing, it would not be tolerated if continued outside the context of a war.
Do you have a historical example of that in the roughly 300 year history of the US? Do you anticipate on recent Supreme Court rulings that they will expand the idea of equality and not reinforce traditional Christian gender roles?
Gradual expansion of equal protection only makes sense if:
1. you are already protected
2. you benefit from unequal protection.
3. You want to appear "nice"
If you have a plan for full equality, sign me up. I have seen some calls for a general strike on Twitter today, but I am unpersuaded that will happen this week.
Here on ycombinator even getting people to understand that the value of their labor is being taken and their orgs are racist and sexist is not an easy sell.
The rulings underpinning several of these are called out as "up next" by Thomas' concurring opinion.
The Senate allows a minority to stop the majority from tweaking the laws in an iterative process, and holds the society back from doing things that require laws, like carbon tax or cap n trade, or even fixing clear bugs in ACA. We don’t have much internet relevant laws passed in the last twenty years, yet the internet and its conflicts have changed quite a lot since Napster. We can’t change the law to let people rebuild flood destroyed buildings on higher ground. All we do is tweak the budget numbers and appoint judges. It makes prospective solutions extremely tilted compared to even a good compromise of a law.
Until people find the middle ground or convince the other side, being stalled is not the worst solution. Dictatorship, civil war, and most other alternatives are worst than stalling legislation.
Take carbon tax as an example. I myself believe human action is destroying the environment and I want to reverse it. But I do not think carbon tax is the way, and I know many moderates on the same position as I am. How about removing all incentives first before imposing punishment? How about triple the nuclear plants, that are safer than never with newer tech, and make it impossible financially to justify carbon based electricity generation? There are dozens of ways to take the first steps without punishing people and getting more money in the government hands. Carbon tax is just shifting money from one hand to the other, and other bad actors will do something bad with it. I prefer to fix this with less money and less power to governments. And there you go. Better stalled than move forward in the wrong direction.
If two wolves and a sheep are deciding on lunch would the sheep consider only having two legs eaten a better deal for everyone?
It’s worth mentioning that the constitutionality of such a law seems highly questionable based on the current leanings of SCOTUS. States’ rights work both ways, and (not a lawyer) I would assume an incredibly broad interpretation of interstate commerce would be needed to hold up a federal ban on abortions.
They just overruled the NYC gun ban. They will pick and choose whatever they want
There is no analogous constitutional right for abortion. Roe v. Wade inferred it from a "right to privacy", which also does not exist in the text.
They have become openly partisan and will pick and choose whatever suits their political leanings. Once they got a majority on the court they no longer need to play ball with the other side
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Carhart#Concurrenc...
The legal theory almost explicitly allows for a federal ban in addition to the state bans that tieggered today.
No it doesn't
Here's the clause:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. 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."
Where is a guaranteed right to abortion in this? You said Roe "is fairly sound constitutional reasoning", but I don't see you reading a Roe from this without some serious mental gymnastics
Also:
> Note that a man is not required to donate blood to save an adult human, even if there is no risk to him. The equal protection clause extends that right to your own body to women, and that is fairly sound constitutional reasoning.
Donating blood != killing a fetus
If you consider equating the two "fairly sound constitutional reasoning" then that speaks for itself
I don't think that's the argument the earlier post is making. They are arguing that you cannot be compelled to do something to save some else's life even if it won't harm you, and doubly so without due process.
However, I think viewing someone's body as their own property is a better way to frame this. If you decide a fetus is trespassing in your body, where should the state intervene? The state couldn't force you to harbor someone in your home during a winter storm, even if you left your door unlocked and kicking them out would surely result in them freezing to death. If you believe that a fetus has adverse rights against the body it's growing inside of, then you need to make that case.
Choosing not to kill a fetus != saving someone else's life
Using the two interchangeably is like building a house on top of sand
Just as you have the right to defend your home with lethal force, you also have the right to evict by lethal force a fetus.
I don't think it does us any good to shy aways from the uncomfortable aspects of t he free exercise of these rights.
Ideally, people would successfully use other means of contraception and they VAST majority of the time they do. But there are myriad reasons someone may come to the decision that they cannot carry a child to term. I firmly believe that being compelled to do so violates security in one’s person. There’s a long tradition in English common law preceding the US constitution that holds basic the same concept to be true. Historically common law allowed abortion up to the “quickening”, which today we might call viability even though it differs a bit.
Fundamentally I don’t think the state should be able to tell you what to do with your own body. Many important rights flow naturally from this basic premise. I think this is a principled approach rather than working backwards from an outcome.
Obviously there are alternative options to safely get the starving child in your house help. You can easily call the police, CPS, etc to take care of it with no danger to your own body.
You cannot do the same with a fetus inside your body.
Moreover, there are a lot of places where we morally and legally permit people to kill, that doesn't mean that we like killing or condone it in general.
I think I remember the UN Charter on the Rights of the Child stating that (1) children are not the property of their parents and (2) parents have a responsibility for its well-being.
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Treaties/1990/09/19900902%2003-1...
A couple of comments on this:
1. The Convention document doesn't expressly address it, but instructs in several places that the rights enumerated exist for children 'from birth', implying they do not apply to a potential child before it's born.
2. The United States is a signatory, but did not ratify this, and is not subject to it.
(Obviously the conferring the status of personhood on the unborn is a subject of debate).
Note that a man is not required to donate blood to save an adult human, even if there is no risk to him. The equal protection clause extends that right to your own body to women, and that is fairly sound constitutional reasoning.
The constitution doesn’t mention a million specific things, but it protects our freedoms anyways.
A democracy is a place to gradually expand equal protection of the laws to all people. Each change seems radical to the people accustomed to undemocractic flaws, but the outcome has been very successful these last few hundred years.