Bodily autonomy is not a constitutional right, but self defense is?
> Even Ruth Bader Ginsberg was on record saying that the decision was flawed!
A misrepresentation of what RBG was getting at. She was very much of the opinion that legislatively it should have been codified as a right. She's right, but it's pie in the sky, as much as her desire to be replaced by a woman President.
> today's decision went out of it's way to say that it is not meant to apply to any of those other issues that you mentioned.
Thomas specifically called out those decisions as being up for review. Alito mentioned it in his leaked opinion. (it may have been bargained out of the opinion, or maybe he chose not to be explicit as to not raise pressure in the political sphere, which seems likely given the nature of this court) Four of the justices who voted against Roe today within the past decade are on the record as saying that this was settled law. They are liars, and people are right to mistrust the court.
> She was very much of the opinion that legislatively it should have been codified as a right.
These positions are not in conflict, and seem to be supported with quotes:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/05/06/ruth-bader...
I have my own personal feelings on abortion, but as far as laws on it go I honestly don't care one way or another. So if all of these Congresspeople want to come out and say that the majority of the country wants abortion to be legal nationwide, then they need to DO THEIR FUCKING JOBS and pass a law to make it so.
To get enough Senate votes to pass a constitutional amendment, you're looking at 75% of the country voting for Democrats. Not going to happen. The Senate imbalance is ridiculous.
A constitutional amendment ought to have support from more than one party, not just Democrats. You might be able to get that if you took a more oblique approach, for example with an amendment explicitly upholding the natural right to control over one's own body, as opposed to one narrowly focused on allowing abortion.
[0] Assuming fetuses had rights, of course, which is obviously absurd. That requires the capability for deliberate action and the ability and willingness to take responsibility for the effects of your actions on others. Without that you may be alive and biologically "human" but you're still more an animal than a person--at any age.
These are lines of arguments they already use. A constitutional right to bodily autonomy doesn't change the math at all.
The whole point of the amendment is to make it explicit that they don't. That isn't how rights work anyway; it's never a matter of priority, one right vs. another. Any positive action which would infringe on someone else's rights is forbidden, including in particular using someone else's property, including their body, without their consent. But merely not doing anything for them--non-action--is always an option. The fetus is the one taking from the mother--that's the action. The mother merely wants this to stop. There is no conflict of rights. The fetus's rights, such as they are, are not being infringed.
> even though the mother has a right to bodily autonomy she would be committing murder
This line of argumentation would prove far too much. Refusing to serve as someone else's life support system is not murder. And again, the point of the amendment would be to make that explicit.
This is exactly how rights work, how they're debated and how the supreme court rules. Like the constitution says you have freedom of speech, but you don't have an absolute right to freedom of speech. You cannot go on someone else's property and start yelling because they have the right to kick you off, violating your right to freedom of speech.
What you're trying to do is frame it in a way that makes sense to yourself, which is great, but is not how things are decided by the judiciary. Which is my entire point: It doesn't matter if you explicitly say bodily autonomy is sacred in a constitutional amendment because ultimately the supreme court is whom interprets that. The only way you could in theory do something like this would be to have an amendment that outright says abortion is legal, but that wouldn't pass for obvious reasons.
You really need to go and try to debate more pro-life individuals because these are all things I've encountered while debating them. The idea that this line of thinking is 'too much' when that's literally what's happening in places like my current state of Texas means you really need to experience what's actually going on.
No, that does not in any way violate your right to freedom of speech. You aren't being punished for the speech. It doesn't even matter whether you were speaking. You were violating their rights with respect to their property by trespassing, which is exactly why they can kick you out. As I said before—any action which infringes on another's rights is forbidden. That includes actions which involve speech, when they also infringe on others' rights. It's not a right to speak, it's simply recognition that speaking, per se, does not infringe on others' rights and consequently is not a just basis for punishment.
That's the natural right to freedom of speech. The 1st Amendment, of course, adds extra constraints against the government interfering with speech, which shouldn't even be necessary in the first place but that's what happens when you grant some privileged entity the power to "legitimately" infringe on people's rights with impunity–natural rights just aren't enough any more, you have to spell out when you're going to respect them and when you're going to ignore them. That's not something you have to worry about when you just do the right thing and respect natural rights all the time without making special exceptions.
> Which is my entire point: It doesn't matter if you explicitly say bodily autonomy is sacred in a constitutional amendment because ultimately the supreme court is whom interprets that.
If you assume from the start that the court will ignore the text of the law and the intent of those who ratified it and simply rule whichever way they want based on their personal feelings then I don't see any point in even having a Constitution. Or a legislature, for that matter. Or this discussion. So let's assume the court at least pretends to do its job and take the text and intent of the amendment into account. Anything less is just defeatism.
> The only way you could in theory do something like this would be to have an amendment that outright says abortion is legal, but that wouldn't pass for obvious reasons.
No, it doesn't need to mention abortion at all. An amendment stating that no person can be compelled to provide life-saving medical support to another against their will would have that effect without being specialized to just abortion. Sure, motivated individuals would try to argue their way around it, but there is no way to reconcile forcing a mother to continue a pregnancy with the mother not being compelled to serve as involuntary life support. Would the SCOTUS do their job and enforce it? Who knows. I don't have that much faith in them, to be honest. But if not, an amendment explicitly stating that abortion is a legal right wouldn't fare any better.
What's happening in Texas is equally absurd, of course. I fully expect it to get struck down eventually, if only because it involves interstate commerce and threatens the federal government's exclusive prerogatives, but it hasn't been in effect long enough yet to work through the system.
Of course she wouldn't have voted to overturn it, but I never said or meant to imply that she would have.
I'm talking about the government forcing a corporation to fire certain employees, not a corporation making that decision on it's own.
If you'd consider for a second, you can come up with some of your own to debunk your own previous hypothesis.
There are _countless_ examples where when you want to exist within society, you must act in order to prevent harms to others.
I accept your apology, though.
You can when the two ways have different contexts.
> force you to take injections of experimental immunotherapies
Leaving aside the misleading "experimental" part, the bodily rights context here was "being part of a society" - this was a huge public health crisis - people not having the vaccine impacted on a greater part of society than just themselves.
The bodily rights context for abortion is "a single person".
Two clearly different situations, no?
No. You either have bodily autonomy (My body, my choice!) or you don't. For the record I happen to support abortion (and in fact think society would be better off if many of the people in Washington DC had been aborted), but I oppose hypocrisy and logical fallacies.
You don't think there's any situations where the state (in its role of protecting society) might be ok overriding someone's bodily autonomy? That would preclude any vaccinations, prisons, etc., no?
This is using the power of the state to compel women to give birth to a child after having carried it for 9 years. Your right to alcohol and other risky behaviors is also revoked as that is child endangerment. Now what about the child for the next 18 years? That is truly constitutionally problematic.
Those women can simply get their abortion done in another state, they're not "forced" to give birth to a child in much the same way a person threatened with losing their job wasn't "forced" to get a vaccine. Hey, you said it.
And you're telling me that a vaccine which is obscenely safe, you are more likely to die from tripping down the stairs in your own home than you are to die from the vaccine, is totally the same as childbirth? Where nearly 1000 women die every year, many are left with serious conditions, where women are left in poverty where they can't care for those children.
Come on. Your position is beyond absurd.
It’s a matter of double standards here. People get all up in arms when you point out that you can still get an abortion if you just travel out of state. But if you point out that your only way to avoid taking a vaccine you don’t want is to lose your job, well no one is “forcing” you to take it! Likewise, I say it’s disingenuous to claim you’re forced to have an unwanted child. You just have to travel to another state. That’s a helluva lot easier to swallow than losing your job.
Just drop the phrase “forced to” around abortion is all I’m saying.
This is a disingenous line of argument and you demean yourself with it to support an absolutely brainwormed kind of conspiracism.
First, are you aware that the right for individuals to bear arms was not considered a right by judicial opinion for most of US history until 2008? For instance, in US v Miller 1939 it was decided one didn’t have a right to own sawed off shotguns because it bore no “reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.” You see, many read the amendment as the right for states to have a militia, not the right for individuals to bear arms for self defense. In fact, I believe most founding father documents support that interpretation. Interpretation matters as much as the document itself.
Second, the US government hasn’t tried to force injections of experimental immunotherapies. It was no longer experimental after it achieved approval. No US government mandated the vaccine besides in situations where vaccines are already mandated. They strongly encouraged through rewards, but they always provided alternatives to requiring vaccination. For example, masking and testing have been at times adequate alternatives. The government has required vaccines for public school and the military for decades (centuries?), and it has been widely regarded as saving millions of lives, so it’s very weird that it’s an issue now. Oh right, culture war.
I don't see what antivax has to do with anything
Actual that’s what all these cases were about. Roe v Wade- some states wanted to treat abortion as murder and control women’s bodily autonomy. Lawrence was about keeping sodomy laws which could be used to legally discriminate against gay people. Griselwald is clearly about social views on contraception.
> egregiously bad ruling to be thrown out. And despite your fear mongering, today's decision went out of it's way to say that it is not meant to apply to any of those other issues that you mentioned.
The main opinion did not rule this out, or if I did I absolutely missed it. Thomas’ solo concurring opinion calls these cases out by name as worthy of reconsideration by the court - “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”
It’s hard to take this argument seriously at all. It feels like you are not paying attention, saying everything is fine while the 14th amendment is on fire.
He went further than that, he explicitly called them out as "errors in need of correction".
Thomas's opinion pretty specifically cited some of those other cases. It wasn't joined by all the others who voted with him, but then again, Kavanaugh claimed that Roe v. Wade was "settled law" during his confirmation hearing, which clearly doesn't seem to be what he's saying now. I'm not surprised that this is his real view, and I won't be in a few years if suddenly he also votes against some of those other rulings.
There isn’t any actual legal teeth there anymore as far as I can tell. Countless examples of presidents, justices, etc walking past perjury charges.
"The right to abortion is not explicitly defined in the Constitution, and therefore does not exist."
"The right to _purchase_ firearms is not explicitly defined in the Constitution, but somehow must also exist, because how could you bear arms without it?"
The sad reality is that this shit is all just twisted to convenience.
Why did Thomas exclude interracial marriage as a state decision, while calling out same-sex marriage as being a state decision?
Why do several Supreme Court Justices state that they are originalists, and the Constitution is sacrosanct, when the people who wrote it said that it wasn't, and was to be "reviewed and updated to the needs of the times as a living document"?
Roe was a "creative" interpretation. Upholding the 2nd Amendment is far from that.
But not "interpret in lieu of meaningful review". Look at 4A. It's gone to SCOTUS a huge number of times. But no review has ever taken place of it.
So did the ninth amendment, FWIW: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Appelate courts decide on what a "right" is. That's arguably their most important function. Huge, huge chunks of modern constitutional law are based on subjects not enumerated in the constitution. The constitution doesn't speak about miscegenation laws, or miranda rights, etc... Yet those are still "rights" that you'd be awfully horrified to have destroyed, right?
This argument doesn't really work, basically. The argument you're making is, if you really think about it, not what you actually want.
I have some bad news for you. SCOTUS blew that one up yesterday. <sad trombone>
And there is, as of yesterday, no remedy for violations of your right to remain silent. So, you better hope your lawyer can have anything you say suppressed before trial.
Explain this, please. You still have the right to remain silent, you still have the right to an attorney. The police still have to stop questioning you when you invoke these rights. Literally the only thing that changed was the notification requirement. That's it.
Basically, the Court removed any remedy against state actors who fail to uphold your right to remain silent.
Prior to Vega, if the state ignored your right to remain silent, you could seek redress with the courts.
Post Vega, that right to seek redress no longer exists.
On paper we still have the right. But, we have to no way to hold the state accountable when it fails to uphold that right. Is a right really a right if the state can ignore it with impunity?
You can still sue a cop who continues questioning you after you have invoked your right to remain silent. Literally nothing about that has changed. The one specific thing that has changed is that you can't sue a cop simply for failing to read you your rights.
That does not impact your right to remain silent, or any remedies available in case of violation of it, in any way.
And my response: I have some bad news for you. SCOTUS blew that one up yesterday.
There is no longer a right to be Mirandized. That's what I said.
Officer Vega locked Tekoh in a room and threaten him and his family in order to coerce a confession.
That confession was used in the trial.
Are you saying there is some other way to recover damages from Vega? At best, had Tekoh been found guilty, he was looking at years of appeals. He still wouldn't have been able to sue Vega under the current ruling.
As I said above, yes, you still have the right to remain silence. But you no longer have a way to seek redress against a LEO who ignores that right.
Oh you read the whole judgement?
Perhaps you missed this nugget on page 118
> For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell.
Are you going to amend your comment now?
what thomas did is a little gauche, the court generally avoids opining on cases that aren't actually in front of them because the facts and specifics of the case matter, but, yeah, the votes are probably there, thomas just likes to say the quiet part out loud.
who do you think is going to vote against it? thomas, who has outright stated he's a yes? kavanaugh, who said roe was "settled law"? Barrett, the actual handmaiden cultist? Alito?
"Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Bodily autonomy is more complex than just womb to birth. So, at what age is a mother no longer required to use their body to provide life for a child? ie. If a 4 year old needs a blood transfusion, can the state force the mother to provide their blood for their child? What about a kidney transplant? When does the states interest in the potential life of a child end?
Bodily autonomy aside, since Rowe v. Wade was primarily a decision about medical privacy, and was part of the foundations of many other precedents and laws, is HIPA still valid? What is the new line between medical privacy rights and free speech rights.
.
And it got thrown out for precisely this reason. Although cocaine can be prescribed in very limited circumstances, my doctor cannot just write me a prescription for cocaine. That's a "medical privacy" issue too, right?
> is HIPA still valid?
Don't be absurd.
Second, I think you have a very deep misunderstanding of how all of this works. HIPAA is not in any danger whatsoever, and really has nothing to do with Roe.
You realize that this goes against the right of the federal government to regulate the states re abortion?
Historically, yes, they can. The BoR didn't initially restrict state action, only federal action.
Simply going "Oh, there are more rights" isn't a good answer. I'm pro-choice myself, but Roe vs Wade was terrible legislation, and is a fantastic example of tactical victory, strategic defeat.
This.
All this controversy could end right now by simple having congress... pass a law.
That's what they are supposed (and paid) to do. Maybe if they spent less time trading stocks...
Really, why is the ninth amendment even there if it's supposed to be ignored?
The court explained in great detail why the right to abortion is not an unenumerated right.
What we actually saw was the end of stare decisis. Any excuse is good enough now. For almost three hundred years, the court only overruled itself in areas of overwhelming public consensus. Now? It's just politics, man.
I genuinely don't understand all the HN libertarians lining up on the site of Government Power here. This is absolutely a libertarian issue. Is it just knee-jerk tribalism? Have you guys all decided you don't really care so much about individual rights? Or is it just that you don't have a uterus and are disinclined to align yourself with those who do?
Abortion is murder, life in prison for violators, no exceptions.
There's nothing in the ruling that I'm aware of that would prevent Congress from passing a law on it. But I haven't read the whole ruling, and I'm certainly not an expert. So I'm open to being shown otherwise.
To me (and six Supreme Court Justices) the Constitution says you have the right to keep (own) and bear (carry) arms (firearms) and because of this, laws that put an undue burden on this right are unconstitutional.
The real tragedy here is that it took 50 years for this egregiously bad ruling to be thrown out. And despite your fear mongering, today's decision went out of it's way to say that it is not meant to apply to any of those other issues that you mentioned.
The Supreme Court's job is to interpret the Constitution, not to invent rights.