It's also very much the "surely the face-eating leopards party won't let leopards eat my face!" mindset.
I've heard anecdotal reports from some people who have more conservative family members than I that some of them are actually starting to realize that there won't be the "reasonable exceptions" they were just assuming would exist, and getting genuinely worried.
[0]: https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progre...
There are plenty of people who oppose abortion that are appalled at something like this or the Texas bounty hunting law. If we continue to try and paint each other group as a monolithic enemy other division will continue to rise and polarization will increase and the effects will be devestating.
(Edited to add: there is a separate frustration of the poster of people claiming that diverting reproductive justice to state determination is reasonable. The poster is saying they are frustrated with that statement because it ignore the above fact. I also don’t think this is painting anyone with a broad brush… it is painting specific people’s specific argument as being myopic.)
Then perhaps the other group should not have monolithically spent decades fighting against and removing human rights from people I care about.
So you can worry or you can act.
And to be frank, I don't care if they're unhappy to be lumped together. Lie with dogs and all that.
This is a bit... difficult to take seriously. They are being painted by the general actions at large that they are causing. If you want them to be seen in their best light, try to get their best light into the spotlight.
"large pulled back" belies the fact that the motives are ulterior.
> consequences are largely left up to the people who choose to use those things
In the case of banning abortion, you're denying choice and autonomy. You're saying a woman HAS to give birth even if it wasn't her choice. Even if she was raped. Even if she's 10 years old.
If you don't find that stance appalling, I don't know what to say.
Forcing a birth of a badly unwanted human being, who is going to suffer through life being badly unwanted, is a rather different thing.
And forcing a woman to keep carrying a pregnancy which is dangerous to her life (and thus to the prospective baby's life anyway) is not just indifference, it's a direct opposite of care.
Speaking of things that aren't related. I don't see how those things being legal is even somewhat related to making abortion illegal or making it legal to bounty hunt women. You're going to have to explain that connection to me a bit more.
I understand this is an emotional issue but until everyone can agree to at least have a discussion about this without getting overemotional we can't have any discussion or compromise only polarization and that eventually leads to shooting and a civil war.
I mean my own sister told me she hopes my 2 year old daughter gets raped because of my position on this issue. Doesn't that strike anyone else as something that would deplorable under other circumstances but we excuse it right now because we believe the cause is righteous?
This is how fanatics and extremists are made.
Some things are not compromise-able.
> I mean my own sister told me she hopes my 2 year old daughter gets raped because of my position on this issue. Doesn't that strike anyone else as something that would deplorable under other circumstances but we excuse it right now because we believe the cause is righteous?
Source that “we” excuse wishing harm on another person for no reason, and an innocent toddler at that? It is so deplorable that I would need considerable proof to believe it even occurred, especially from an aunt to a niece.
I don't know about that; I think it is possible to oppose abortion, but not seek to do so via legal remedies. Like opposing drinking or smoking, or game microtransactions, or IoT devices.
One can be in favor of abortions for medical necessity or when the choice to get pregnant was not consensual while still being wildly opposed to abortions for convenience reasons.
If we're not talking about expanding government along these lines then maybe we should just leave the choice to the people immediately involved.
There absolutely are misogynists and hypocrites among the pro-life/anti-choice movement, but not everyone in that movement is at the extreme. Those of us who want abortion to be legal nationwide must acknowledge the ethical complexity of terminating an unwanted pregnancy.
According to your morals, perhaps. But I don't share your morals. As far as I'm concerned, if it can't breathe on its own it's not a baby. Likewise if it hasn't been gestated long enough that it can be cared for in the NICU.
We tried to be reasonable and limit abortion access to the end of the second trimester, but that wasn't good enough for some people. No, some of these assholes want to ban abortion after six weeks when some women can go that long before even realizing they're pregnant.
I'm sick of "acknowledging the ethical complexity". Our opposition doesn't, and that's why they keep kicking our fucking asses.
https://www.marchofdimes.org/complications/premature-babies....
When you miss your period, and take a pregnancy test, the "start of pregnancy" is apparently considered to have been the start of your last period. That means that at the earliest time you could be generally expected to find out you're pregnant, you are considered to have been pregnant for 4-5 weeks.
Then, of course, you'll need to make a decision about what to do about it, contact a doctor, and have a procedure scheduled...and in states with restrictive abortion laws, you can bet that that's going to be more difficult and time-consuming than it needs to be.
The cruelty of it all is the point.
How does Constitutional case law factor into the question of mass baby murder?
Consider:
You watch someone die in front of you while you hold in your hands the thing that could save their life, but refuse to give it. Is that murder? Maybe, possibly, there's an argument that it's something else but I'm comfortable with this. Should a person be allowed to do it? Again maybe, but I'm ok with no, that's a bad crime, they shouldn't be allowed to do it.
You watch someone die in front of you while the thing that could save them comes from your own body. A blood transfusion, say, or whatever, a fingernail clipping, it doesn't matter really. This is morally the same transgression as the first example. But in this case we have clearly and consistently decided that you are allowed to make this choice. It may be evil but it is not a crime.
If you don't allow the second choice, then you open the door to things like medical experiments on nonconsenting people and organ harvesting. The boundary around bodily autonomy needs to be firm or you permit atrocities.
Abortion may be murder! You can believe it is. But the fact that the life depends on the body of another person means they have the choice not to render aid.
Which "these people" are you referring to? Roe was remarkable in its ability to unify disparate groups: evangelicals and Catholics who oppose abortion categorically, right-leaning independents who support some level of abortion but want more restrictions than Roe allows, and Constitutionalists who find Roe incomprehensible as an assertion of Constitutional law.
Now that Roe is gone, some of those folks will indeed try to "make abortion access illegal nationwide." But hardly everyone who opposed Roe to begin with: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/05/06/wide-partis.... Just 13% of Republicans are true believers who think abortion should be categorically illegal. The vast majority, 38% think it should be "legal in all or most cases." Most fall in the mushy middle.
In their mind they think they're fighting Satan.
One party unanimously voted in favor of it.
The other party voted 96% against it.
I'll leave which party is which as an exercise to the reader.
Don't get me wrong. There is definitely an abortion rights disaster in progress. It's just that this disaster was manufactured only to distract from a larger, more powerful, disaster.
Have you noticed how expensive everything is lately?
And how will this debacle affect your vote?
Have you noticed that supply and demand can change prices? Such as supply of young people performing labor in an aging country demanding ever more labor, or international conflicts and responses to infectious diseases disrupting supply chains. And of course, the government’s monetary response, but the point is that unless you have a source for a conspiracy, I do not see why it should merit consideration.
Voting itself is a sham. I'm provided with the choice of a baboon and chimp for a leader, alternately I can stand for elections for a troop of monkeys, what can I say?
Yes, and it makes me angry that so many commenters on this and other forums said, "Well, they have a point. It should be left to the states." As if women whose lives are at risk can wait for their judicial philosophy to cleanly play out; as if the raped 10 year old being forced to travel out of state to have an abortion was just how it goes while we figure out how to get the book keeping figured out; as if the woman who was forced to carry a dead fetus inside her for weeks because the hospital didn't want to risk being sued was just one of those tragic, unforeseeable, unavoidable victims of our imperfect democracy.
These are lives we're talking about here. And it's only going to get worse. Sorry to use a cliche, but wake the fuck up y'all.
No other developed country has approached the abortion issue by saying "pfft the rules don't matter." The EU Court of Human Rights just last year refused to recognize a universal right to elective abortions. In every European country where abortion is legal, advocates of abortion made their case to the people, and the people decided whether to allow it and under what circumstances. In some cases it took a long time--Ireland legalized it just in 2018. But that's how civilized societies operate.
Your thinking is how third world countries operate. They say "lives are at stake" (or something similarly weighty) and use that to justify ignoring the legal process. As someone from one of those countries let me tell you that you do not want to go down that road. The rules are more important than anything else. They are more important than any individual lives. Because the rules are what make civilization possible. If you disregard the rules on issues that you deem sufficiently important to you, that frees the other side to ignore the rules on issues they deem sufficiently important to them, and it goes quickly downhill from there.
For example, Colorado and other states have legalized weed. They don't need to wax poetic about separation of powers etc to defend their position, because everyone understands that this is exactly what the Federal system was designed for. To allow states to augment their economies and taxation systems as they see fit (going back to colonial era reasoning).
Throughout US history the most vocal proponents of states rights have been those who attempt to limit personal liberties. They first use the constitution as a jumping board, arguing that "it's not explicitly stated in the constitution!" because the constitution is limited and vague (The founding fathers intentionally kicked the can down the road for racial issues). Technically, the regressives are right here, but they are hiding behind legalism to protect their abhorrent viewpoints.
"If it's so popular then just vote on it then!"
Unfortunately it's not so simple. At the Federal level, a filibuster proof majority is required in the Senate (non-proportional) as well as full control of all three branches of government (president and congress are also non-proportional, although in a different way). So it's incredibly difficult to pass overwhelmingly popular legislature/amendments in the US. Which is precisely why we have seen most of our civil rights gains over the last 50 years be accomplished through the court system. At the state level, there is no filibuster (mostly) and so there is no mechanism for a minority to halt legislation at the state level.
This kind of game has been played out for the last 200 years. Yes rules are important, but the reactionaries in US history have typically "meta-gamed" the flaws in our system that were overlooked by the founding fathers in order to preserve horrendous practices. That's not to say that there is no benefit to our checks and balances, but when it comes to things like civil rights, gay marriage, and abortion, the opposing side is mostly meta-gaming and exploiting checks and balances negatively.
To sum up, corruption in the third world occurs by circumventing the laws. Corruption in the US occurs when you put someone in a position of power to interpret the laws the way you want them to. If you need sources, I can provide.
> No other developed country has approached the abortion issue by saying "pfft the rules don't matter."
The Roe decision was not made on "rules don't matter" it was an extension of the due process clause in the 14th amendment. The overturning of it was made on interpretations of common law going back to the 14th century, the main point of argument being that there was "no innate protection of abortion as a fundamental right".
We’re already there. That’s already happened. Stare decisis — remember when all the justices who just ruled to overturn Roe called it “settled law”? Remember when the Republican Senate refused to consider Obama’s Supreme Court nominee? Remember when the courts gutted the voting rights act? Remember when the courts determined the outcome of Bush v Gore? The side that “won” this argument didn’t do it by playing by the rules. Because the court doesn’t have rules. The constitution doesn’t outline any of the philosophy that you are calling “rules.” So sitting back and saying “let’s just play by the rules” is handing a victory to a side that doesn’t care for them.
If you watch this youtube video of Kavanaugh answering questions I never get the idea that he says he won't overturn Roe v Wage, or that it is a binding or super precedent.
You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
The phrase is often used as if it's meant to suggest that they're fighting off federal government overreach. In fact, it's used exactly to allow them to have overreach over you, at the level that they can make it happen. When they get the opportunity to control it at the federal level, it will stop being "left to the states".
It's very much about denying individual liberties, using Orwellian language making it seem otherwise.
People in the US are able to freely travel between states, this isn't the case elsewhere in the world. Some things are crimes in some jurisdictions and not others, this is normal.
If you think it's inadequate, pass an amendment to the constitution, that's what the amendment process if for. If you think the process to too burdensome, encourage your state to secede.
Again, you ignore the actual realities of politics. Obama promised to codify Roe v Wade his first day in office. He then refused to, since it was better for democrats to keep it on as a political bargaining chip.
Now, what are US liberals supposed to do? Not vote and lose? Vote for the Republicans and see abortion criminalized federally? No, they have to vote for the Democrats again and maybe hope they finally try to pass their agenda. There is a false choice presented. It was urgent to the voters, but not to the politicians.
This is not a right that is specifically enumerated by the Constitution. The current Supreme Court has indicated that rights that are not specifically enumerated by the Constitution are subject to evaluation and curtailment.
Easier said than done, for many.
One really simple example of what the SCOTUS could do is they could rule that an unborn child - from the time of conception - is covered by the rights laid out in the 14th amendment.
Takes all choice back away from the state once more.
Do you know of countries with a federal government and where people can't travel freely between the member states? The ones I know don't have this problem so I'm not sure how that's something unique to the US.
Personal attacks are particularly not ok, so please don't post like that again.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
p.s. It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. That's another line at which we ban accounts (even if they're not breaking the other guidelines) - for past explanations, see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....
I'm not going to ban you right now because if I scroll back far enough in your commenting history I do see comments that are in line with the intention of the site, but if you'd please correct this going forward, we'd be grateful.
Note that this is in addition to what I said at the start of this comment—there are two separate issues here.
PS: I didn't post that comment.
The rule of law exists precisely because of the temptation to think with our "empathy" instead of our brains.
> The rule of law exists precisely because of the temptation to think with our "empathy" instead of our brains.
Assumptions galore are made here. First off, the rule of law exists because of power heirarchies. People create laws to protect THEMSELVES and THEIR interests. Monarchs didn't create laws for the benefit of everyone, neither do dictators. Furthermore many laws exist to augment our empathy. Speeding laws exist because many people are incapable of comprehending the danger they could pose to someone else. Animal cruelty is illegal because the majority of people understand it's wrong, and we will force that wisdom upon others who don't.
> the temptation to think with our "empathy" instead of our brains
Where do you think empathy comes from if not our brains? Empathy is a tool of reason, not orthogonal to it. Would you praise someone for only using one of their senses? Or would you think they are ridiculous for constructing a worldview based only around their sense of smell? Thinking that empathy is somehow a trait to be overcome and not a tool is the same as eating soap regardless of how it tastes, because it "smells good". Empathy allows us to consider the conditions and experiences of those outside of our immediate sphere of influence. In a democracy this is especially invaluable, since individuals make decisions that influence society at large.
The inability to see outside of your every day experience is not logical or rational, it's the exact opposite. Empirical evidence can be a great tool for analyzing macro trends, but empathy allows us to better understand the causality.
My second paragraph expands upon the reason and justice aspect.
Also the current constitutional crisis we are in demolishes the legalist justification anyways. States being able to ban travel to other states for abortion, states allowing private citizens to sue others for getting abortions in other states. States limiting access to websites that are legal in other states and limiting the first amendment.
Because repealing Roe was done on an ideological basis it has caused a cascade of problems around how much power states should have, one that has been largely settled since the Civil War.
As for the people not in South Carolina, they should work to pass an amendment or secede from the union, those are the only legal options if you believe in how the federal government is supposed to work (maybe there's a 3rd option to kick out SC?).
It's not legal to secede from the US, we fought an entire war because it was not a right of the states. Most of what you say ignores the reality of our political system, voter suppression, who draw districts, filibuster, etc. Which makes it more difficult than "just vote". Which is why the Republicans went the route of Supreme Court justice appointment, so they could legislate via the court.
“We could have acknowledged it was bad reasoning in a legal context but not a human rights and that a fix would just create the same status quo and left it.” — sane people
Agreed; this was a political flex to remind the proles grandpa is still sitting in the corner rambling nonsense.
Was this motive ever hidden?
Abortion should be illegal. I hope each state passes laws criminalizing it. That has always been the goal.
The ‘judicial philosophy’ crap emerged due TO roe V. wade. The decision made a mockery of the constitution.
The millions upon millions of people working and praying and picketing and voting on this issue for the past 40 years we’re doing it to save babies… not to defend some abstract philosophy.
If one ‘bans’ murder, the legislatures and courts will need to grapple with killing in self-defense, pulling the plug on a brain-dead vegetable, administering drugs in some cases that have a high risk of death, assisting in a suicide, accidentally causing a death vs intentionally, etc.
This isn’t new.
Each state crafts it’s own laws to address these things, each prosecutor uses his discretion in applying them, each jury or grand jury weighs in, each judge crafts a sentence taking these things into consideration, etc.
In short your edge cases are nothing new… every law is over and under inclusive. The judicial system as a whole has been dealing with these issues for centuries.
If you don't investigate every miscarriage, what's the criteria for getting the state involved? Do you wait for family or neighbors to report a crime? Do you track medical appointments and make a judgement as to when a birth was expected and didn't happen?
I'm not sure you've thought this through.
Every felony charge goes through a grand jury.
Indeed, every death is investigated to some extent. Every county has a coroner, some states have full-blown inquests after each death.
Do you think when grandma dies of old age she’s just taken to a funeral home and that’s that?
There’s more to it.
If something looks suspicious, it’s kicked up to the next level. If questions remain, it’s kicked up another level.
I don’t mean to sound rude, but you seem to have little experience with the day-to-day legal processes surrounding every death. You may be more familiar with a crime like arson. As you MAY know, every single structure fire is investigated. Some turn out to be arson. Some don’t. These processes exist, always have existed, and I think you’re straining.
>I’m not sure you’ve thought this through.
I’ve been doing this for a living for over 25 years.
Whether your pro-choice or pro-life isn’t my concern. God bless you either way. But, the criminal process regarding abortion existed for centuries prior to Roe v. Wade. It’s really not as complicated as you make out.
This basically tells you everything you need to know. These people want to put women in jail and they don't care about niceties like "inter-state commerce" because in their mind they're fighting Al Capone. I hope commenters on here stop minimizing what these groups are trying to achieve. The reversal or Roe was not about "kicking it back to the states", it was the first step in trying to make abortion access illegal nationwide.