More Dobbs reflections
[NOTE: I was originally planning to write today about the McCraw testimony on Uvalde. But other news intervened, and I’m postponing that, probably for tomorrow instead.]
I agree with Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection that the leak of the Dobbs ruling has at least somewhat diffused the reaction. That doesn’t mean the response on the part of the left won’t still be very very intense and rageful, perhaps even violent. But that was always a given, and other people have had two months to think about it.
The left – for example, AOC – will try to stir up the pro-abortion crowds. But how big will those crowds be, and what will they actually be doing? Will they become violent, and if so how violent, and will the local police restrain them and will the DOJ try them? We already had a person trying to assassinate Kavanaugh over the prospect of Roe’s being overturned, and that person is being prosecuted. But the people who protested at Kavanaugh’s house have not been arrested as far as I know, and that was a crime as well.
Then there are the political repercussions. The left, which loves to tell us how much they adore democracy, cannot abide the idea of people in each state having the right to decide about abortion for their own state. No, the left wants to dictate to others what to do – after all, as AOC says, “elections are not enough” for the left to get exactly what it wants, at least elections haven’t gotten them that so far. But aside from leftists – who weren’t going to vote Republican anyway, what votes have been changed by the Dobbs ruling?
I don’t know, but previous polls haven’t indicated it will be many. It seems to me the effect will be to intensity the left’s rage, but it was already very intense. Plus, on the right, there might be quite a few people who don’t usually vote because they think that Republicans and Democrats form a big “uniparty,” and the Dobbs ruling could in fact energize some of them who would not otherwise have voted to vote in 2022, enough of them to counterbalance some votes on the other side. It’s possible, anyway.
And then there’s Biden. Here’s some of what the Great Unifier had to say:
“It’s a realization of an extreme ideology and a tragic error by the Supreme Court, in my view,” he stated. “With this decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court shows how extreme it is, how far removed they are from the majority of this country.”
But though Biden urged protesters to be “peaceful, peaceful, peaceful” and proclaimed that “threats and intimidation are not speech,” what he still did not do is expressly condemn the actions of 26-year-old Nicholas John Roske, who was arrested in the early morning hours of June 8th after an admitted attempt at assassinating Justice Brett Kavanaugh ahead of today’s ruling. Nor did he expressly condemn the acts of intimidation and violence by pro-abortion radicals that have taken place in churches and at pro-life centers across the country over the last couple of months.
Is it extreme to let each state decide about abortion?
Biden is both a Catholic and a Democrat, but he’s appalled by pro-life and democratic perspectives.
Paolo P. – Well Biden is appalled today but he’s also been appalled in the opposite direction before, so….. Let’s just say he’s a little erratic.
The ruling on Roe and Dobbs is on sound legal footing, and is a corrective action in that regard I think (I say this not having read either the decision or the dissent).
Although this has triggered emotive outbursts on the Left, I don’t think there’s as much gas in that tank as they would have us believe. There’s no legal under-pinning to resort to, just 50 years of stare decisis which momentum has now been stopped pretty decisively as noted above. What does the Progressive Left have in their toolbox besides organized tantrums? People in Blue States will still have access, maybe even up to 9 months. People in Blue Cities within Red States will just duke it out at the state election level. This is their new reality.
Most people are going to figure out that this is not an end to abortion, it’s just an end to its protective umbrella. Now it’s down to the states. My greatest fear is that the Prairie Hard-Rock Baptist conservatives that now populate within State Legislatures and Governorships are going to interpret this as a message directly from God to ban all abortions, and that would be a huge, I mean, Yuuge mistake in the upcoming 2022 and 2024 elections.
They had better pay attention to their political base, not their church family. Most people recognize that abortion is wrong, and those same people also recognize that the human condition prevails across society – and it’s better to have a safety valve to regulate the sad stories. And they’re parents, with children who don’t always make mature choices. Wise conservatives will recognize that a much Bigger Tent awaits those with the wisdom to leave some kind of meaningful option available for those stuck In Trouble. Of course, that would be out of character for the Church A-goin’, Bible-totin’, Chamber O’ Commerce Establishment RINO imbeciles that we all know and love to hate.
Now that Biden has revealed his “cheat sheets” to the world, the real question is not what the “Great Unifier” said, but who wrote the script for him.
In regard to Dem rabble-rousers, has Chuck Schumer shot off his mouth yet?
Pretty sad when a ruling returning the country to the constitutional system we’ve had for 235 years is labeled “an extreme ideology.” Our Bill of Rights guarantees certain rights which were held to pre-exist our government, and prohibits the government from interfering with those. The “right” to an abortion is not one of them. This is a state-level matter.
On a federal law codifying Roe, or codifying an abortion ban, neither involves interstate commerce (except for Planned Parenthood selling baby parts across state lines). I don’t see how such a federal law, in either direction, would stand after this Dobbs ruling.
I despise Biden but I give him a little credit for “peaceful, peaceful, peaceful.” To my knowledge that’s the best he’s done so far on that. Previously he has seemed to leave the door open for not-peaceful.
Mac (8:27 pm), focus group tested, no doubt.
Paolo Pagliaro,
“Biden is both a Catholic and a democrat”
Biden is Catholic in Name Only. As is Pelosi and every other democrat who claims to be Catholic. Had Pope Francis any allegiance to the basic and relevant tenets of the faith he pretends to head, he’d excommunicate every one of them. With reinstatement reliant on their ability to relate the tenets in Catholicism that support for abortion violates.
The Constitution, the social compact, is written to two parties: “the People” and “our Posterity”. Civilized society has a compelling cause to discourage homicide…. elective abortion for social, redistributive, clinical, and fair weather causes.
That said, there is no mystery in sex and conception, a woman and man have four choices, and an equal right to self-defense through reconciliation. The wicked solution is neither a good nor exclusive choice.
The Twilight Amendment (i.e. emanations from penumbras) has been the quasi-legal social justification of diverse acts of mischief over the many trimesters… years.
Roe’s regrets. Ruth’s remorse. Republicans’ resolution…
The goal of copulation in all creatures on earth is to make of creatures on earth and it is in our DNA for all slimy, tiny, smelly things and big, old, large, elephant type things, that’s what we do and why we created. The fact that it feels good and it’s fun was also part of the drive to keep it going. It is real simple, when two human creatures copulate there is a chance they will make a baby or get some terrible, creepy, really bad disease that itches a lot. For most of mankind people understood there were consequences of the act and they were responsible for the outcome. I kind of happened to my mom in WWII and she gave me up for adoption because she was a young lovely 22 year old woman who was not in a position to have a child with being married to the father. That was the old days almost 80 years ago, now we think that little babies who are started in moms by dads and they are dads who copulate with the mom can be disposed of because they are not really people and in ‘Blue States’ up to the 40th week when they could have lived alone out of the mom before that.
What kind of a culture kills their offspring and especially if they are children of poor people who might cost the government more money if they are born alive and that is an argument I have heard from friends on the left for decades. Recreational sex is great if done with caution and care however any time men and women copulate without precautions they should agree to accept the possible consequences that they will have a wonderful child born of their actions.
Crap, out culture needs to grow up and learn how to grow responsible people, loving them from inception which has become a fuzzy Webster definition at this time.
Typing too fast with lots of typos and stuff but it is what it is.
Kate:
A constitutional amendment would be the way to go, but they don’t want to do that because they probably wouldn’t get enough support for it.
Old Texan:
Prior to the development of good birth control, a lot of cultures practiced infanticide. Sad but true.
Cornyn you say? That fellow is making quite a name for himself.
https://mobile.twitter.com/PapiTrumpo/status/1540453591500177408
Heh. AOC leads the crowd but …
Short but nsfw
>> The left, which loves to tell us how much they adore democracy, cannot abide the idea of people in each state having the right to decide about abortion for their own state. <<
Bingo. I don't have much of an opinion on abortion one way or another, but I'd rather have 200,000,000 people have a voice and be able to contribute to deciding what the law should be than just 5 people. Republicans tend to be republicans, but Democrats are increasingly not democrats.
It's also interesting that the man whose party compatriots openly discuss whether post-birth abortion is okay, and are trending towards having the support of birth-day abortions be a party litmus test, is calling the side that wants the legislatures of these several states decide the issue captive of "extreme ideology".
Plus, on the right, there might be quite a few people who don’t usually vote because they think that Republicans and Democrats form a big “uniparty,” and the Dobbs ruling could in fact energize some of them who would not otherwise have voted to vote in 2022, …
A factoid delivered by Dana Perino tonight: 60% of voters in the Virginia governor’s election who listed abortion as their #1 issue voted for Youngkin.
I tend to discount or underestimate the importance of intensity and motivation on the right.
_____
Aggie,
Many states already have trigger laws on the books. Missouri has already declared (or voted) their abortion trigger law to be in effect. So abortion there is now banned. While I don’t know the precise details, some of these bans are not 100% bans. Some exceptions exist in some states.
Not yet discussed, and likely not too relevant to 2022, but possibly more so in the future, involves Rep intensity & popularity.
” the importance of intensity and motivation on the right.”
Large numbers of pro-life folk are also big gov’t, fine with lots of regulation, not so happy about gun rights folk. Abortion is their biggest cause, and just about the only reason they vote Rep – if abortion is a states issue, many of them will drift away from voting Rep in national elections.
100, or 10,000 are “many”, but how many in this case is very unclear; unlikely to be “most”.
The gay marriage fight was mostly an abortion fight by proxy. There won’t be as much anti-gay marriage effort as there has been for anti-abortion, but there will be some.
I’d guess first will be state opposition to t-women competing in women’s sport.
On a federal law codifying Roe, or codifying an abortion ban, neither involves interstate commerce (except for Planned Parenthood selling baby parts across state lines). I don’t see how such a federal law, in either direction, would stand after this Dobbs ruling.
A federal law codifying Roe would incorporate the assumption that the state governments’ franchise to exercise their general police power is contingent on federal permission – i.e. that general police power actually resides in the central government. That’s a Napoleonic conception that has no place in this country. It should have no place in any country with a population that is sufficient in its size and in the breadth of its distribution to sustain regional government.
While we’re at it, commerce clause jurisprudence has been sh!t since around about 1937. See Richard Epstein’s discussions penned for general audiences.
Cornyn you say? That fellow is making quite a name for himself.
If the Republicans in Congress weren’t boobs, they’d have a unified and consistent opinion about federal provision and financing of primary and secondary schooling – that it’s for military families, reservation Indians, and a few other specialty clientele who typically account for < 3% of all school age youth. They'd have a unified and consistent opinion about federal provision and financing of tertiary schooling – that it be limited to ROTC, veterans' benefits, and niche clientele and that in a typical year its beneficiaries wouldn't account for more than about 10% of all students in tertiary institutions. They'd have a unified and consistent opinion about the federal Department of Education – that its statistical agencies be sent to the Labor Department, that anti-trust and consumer protection law applicable to educational corporations be the province of the Federal Trade Commission, and that the rest of its functions be discontinued and its employees be put out on the curb. Instead, the Fredocon Donorist Party under Leader-for-Life Bitc* McConnell stumbles around in the house LBJ built.
The gay marriage fight was mostly an abortion fight by proxy.
It wasn’t.
Had Pope Francis any allegiance to the basic and relevant tenets of the faith he pretends to head, he’d excommunicate every one of them.
No, their local ordinaries would do that.
My greatest fear is that the Prairie Hard-Rock Baptist conservatives that now populate within State Legislatures and Governorships are going to interpret this as a message directly from God to ban all abortions, and that would be a huge, I mean, Yuuge mistake in the upcoming 2022 and 2024 elections.
You should fear other things.
You probably mean “defused” the reaction.
Liberal progressives consider Justice Clarence Thomas the modern day equivalent of Justice Roger B. Taney (of Dred Scott infamy).
Thomas’ two recent opinions, on the right to carry a gun and on this abortion case, just provide leftists further proof that Thomas is enemy #1 ; in their eyes, maybe even worse than Trump.
Supposedly the demokrats are going to their rears kicked in the next congressional elections. But given how the dumpublicans are adept at self destruction I will speculate that this recent court ruling will grease the skids for this to occur.
And now we have the possibility of a Trump vs. DeSantis showdown .
For the benefit of the country, these two had better figure out a way not to run against each other.
The only thing AOC cares about is political power and its accumulation. This is a fundraising and voter motivation tool for her and her peers in politics. Rank and file democrats are ignorant and ill informed enough to go along with it all. The first eight stories in today’s Boston Globe (email) are about the reversing of Roe. It is not until the fifth that they admit a woman’s ability to choose abortion in Massachusetts, and other states including all of the New England states, is unaffected by the ruling. Every other story is written in such a way as to spark outrage. We’ll see if it is effective at improving Democrat political results.
“You should fear other things.”
Well…Identifying a political mistake is not the same thing as living under a fear, however cryptic and dramatically foreboding. What I prefer to avoid repeating is the same cultural dynamic that led us into the Roe vs Wade world in the first place, where we’ve been stuck to the tarbaby for 50 years. Have you enjoyed it, especially the past 10 or so nouveau – Progressive Puritanical years? They didn’t come out of nowhere.
I haven’t enjoyed it – but I can already see the talking heads leaping into the breech to seize control of the microphones in this New World. They’re the new Puritans, the same flavor that didn’t want contraception, abortion, or even sex to be under discussion, like ever. I’m not satisfied to watch a new set of extremist views manifest itself as the latest blight on our culture, and I’m betting much of America isn’t, either. It would be a big mistake for Conservatives to over-emphasize this part of their message, while Democrats at the same time are going to be moderating theirs. Independent voters are going to be swinging elections again.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t like abortion and wouldn’t want it for anybody. But thinking it’s wrong and not wanting anyone to have to suffer the consequences of that choice is different to being determined that it ought to be strictly banned for everybody, no exceptions, no deviations, and no choices left to the person having to suffer the consequences. It’s the polar extreme opposite to where we’ve just been, letting babies die after birth simply because they’re not wanted: Tyrannical.
https://quillette.com/2022/06/24/the-tragedy-of-the-unwanted-child-what-ancient-cultures-did-before-abortion/
I mentioned this earlier today at Althouse. The problem for the left right now, in regards to abortion, is that feminism has lost focus, lost cohesion. Instead of unifying over abortion, the biggest questions right now involve determining who a woman is. The reality is that women born with penises will never need an abortion, because they can’t get pregnant. If they support abortion, it is symbolic, and not personal. As worrisome to them is whether female hygiene products should be provided in men’s bathrooms. How exclusionary – focusing on abortion, which only affects women born with wombs. Shouldn’t feminists be focused on issues that affect all women? Abortion is, in the end, a heteronormative issue, and therefore is not an inclusionary.
I am not arguing that I believe any of this, but rather that the left have backed themselves into a corner here where they cannot expend as much of their emotions and resources in the defense of abortions.
Don’t get me wrong
I haven’t gotten you wrong, Aggie. You’re animated by things that are not real outside your imagination.
All sorts of talking heads and rabble-rousing politicians are now bringing up the issue of the other “privacy” SCOTUS decisions, like same-sex marriage and contraception, are up for grabs.
I don’t see it. IANAL (thank DOYC), but the difference between abortion and the other cases is that abortion is a conflict of individual rights (baby vs mom), while the others are a conflict between an individual (and their* rights) and the power of the state.
OldTexan,
“What kind of a culture kills their offspring…”
A sick, profoundly selfish, suicidal one. One unwilling to accept consequence because they have rejected personal accountability for their actions.
“Prior to the development of good birth control, a lot of cultures practiced infanticide. Sad but true.” neo
I suspect that to be the primary reason why God commanded the Israelite’s to slaughter the tribes occupying the land of Canaan. Their cultures were a cancer that had to be removed and there was no other way. Just as there was no way to ‘live and let live’ with the Aztec culture.
Tom Grey,
“Large numbers of pro-life folk are also big gov’t, fine with lots of regulation, not so happy about gun rights folk. Abortion is their biggest cause, and just about the only reason they vote Rep – if abortion is a states issue, many of them will drift away from voting Rep in national elections.”
Once again, “It’s the economy stupid!”
“The gay marriage fight was mostly an abortion fight by proxy. “
The gay marriage fight was solely about forcing cultural acceptance of homosexuality.
Art Deco at 6:37 am,
OK. I imagine that Pope Francis’ tolerance of a ‘clean sweep’ would be required.
Bruce Hayden,
“The reality is that women born with penises will never need an abortion, because they can’t get pregnant.”
Not to quibble but arguably the reality is that a ‘wo’man has never been born with a penis. Hermaphrodites being neither “fish nor foul”.
Art Deco on June 25, 2022 at 6:21 am
Good comment. Do you have a link to the Epstein material that works? I found a bunch of broken links.
“What kind of a culture kills their offspring…”
A sick, profoundly selfish, suicidal one.”
Sorry that made me laugh, not because of the statement, but of what happened to me last night in a FB exchange with the usual screaming, left women who are beside themselves. One of them called me a “selfish SOB” LOL. The projection is strong in those.
You interacted on Facebook with a Screaming Odd B*itch who thought you were selfish?
“It’s an odd world after all. It’s an odd world after all. ….”
The Facebook song? But then there is Twitter?
You interacted on Facebook with a Screaming Odd B*itch who thought you were selfish?
“It’s an odd world after all. It’s an odd world after all.”
The Facebook song? But then there is Twitter?
Regarding Obergefell, didn’t Judge Stevens pull the rationalizations for his decision out of his penumbra?
A new fundamental right (foundation for a progressive society, don’t ya know) built on sand? That’s the neat thing about a living breathing Constitution, it can be so usefull. Although not nearly as nimble as a pen and a phone. 🙂
The Supreme Court declared Liberal states can have just about any abortion policy they want and the Left is apoplectic. I had understood Progessives didn’t care about Red states. Now they act like they care a lot!
So weird. So immature
Most peculiar, Disney, a company whose business depends on a growing supply of children has declared their support for people having fewer children! Investors have noticed.
yes, they say that, then they make the economy worse, they disarm the people, but let the gangsters roam free, then they attack the family, it started with ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ and it ends with ‘bake the cake’ or go bankrupt, Yes Disney is burning it’s seedcorn in a dumpster fire, Dick’s sporting goods is following suit, alienating another group of customers,
While we’re at it, has anyone in the Bush family expressed an interest in Dobbs? I find three Twitter accounts with George W Bush’s name on them. One looks like a parody account, one hasn’t been updated since 2010, and one is associated with his ‘presidential center’ and is silent.
buddhaha:
YOU don’t see it. I don’t see it. They probably don’t “see it” either – in other words, they probably know it won’t happen. That’s not even remotely the point. It is demagoguery in order to scare voters. They are using fear of the right as a tool to drum up enthusiasm for voting for them in 2022.
@ buddhaha & Neo
If I understand correctly, Justice Thomas is perfectly willing to go to the mat on same-sex marriage and contraception not because they are “privacy” decisions, but because they depend on the phantom construct of “substantive due process” to enshrine non-existent “constitutional” rights aka federal control & leftist power grabs.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/06/thoughts-on-the-dobbs-decision.php
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3535841-thomas-calls-for-overturning-precedents-on-contraceptives-lgbtq-rights/
Contraception I consider to be a personal decision, amply regulate-able statutorily, either with bans or accessibility, and NOT an issue that rises to Constitutional status. Privileging it in that fashion ended in serial harassment of Catholic nuns for not providing contraception to — I’m still not even sure who.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/02/what-kind-of-bully-harasses-nuns/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=also-from-author&utm_term=first
I have no problem with: decriminalizing homosexuality; declining to socially persecute anyone of the LGBTQetc persuasion so long as they aren’t actively persecuting me*; and banning actual economic discrimination — after all, who cares if their store clerk or plumber is gay?
I used to not care about teachers, so long as kids had no clue about their personal lives. That has changed.
However, “marriage” has a definition that existed for many good reasons over millennia, and same-sex partnerships are not marriages. I can see that having a patchwork of state laws on SSM is unworkable federally, but IMO the upper limit should have been with legally recognizing domestic partnerships (statutorily) and leaving “marriage” alone. If some churches want to symbolically unite people outside of the traditional (aka common-law) definition, that’s their prerogative, but it’s still not marriage.
*As miguel said, “it started with ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ and it ends with ‘bake the cake’ or go bankrupt”
@ Aggie – the Quillette article did a fair job of retailing the history of infanticide, but the bottom line is that whether the mother chooses early abortion, late abortion, neonatal abortion aka instant infanticide, exposure (as in Roman and Greek antiquity), or abandonment to foundling institutions with low expectations of survival – the baby still ends up dead.
Also, the problems that he assesses as being the necessary reasons that mothers choose some method of not having a child to raise are, to a great extent, ameliorated in modern society aka US and Western nations, and could be in others if politicians quit politicizing humane assistance to their people.
Back when the feminist movement first began to bruit abortion as their raison d’être, I considered all of their arguments (those that they were willing to present publicly; Sanger’s support of euthanasia had been memory-holed by the 1970s) and could see that there were ways to get around the situations that they considered existential problems requiring abortion as the sole solution. However, MY solutions required a great deal more personal and societal “work” to implement, and that was anathema.
BTW, to all of those abortion proponents lamenting some potential horrifying return to “unsafe” procedures: does the name Kermit Gosnell ring a bell?
https://www.lifenews.com/2014/04/02/just-discovered-letter-shows-margaret-sanger-was-part-of-euthanasia-society/
https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/19/10-years-after-the-fbi-found-abortionist-kermit-gosnells-house-of-horrors-it-could-still-happen-again/
Note: There is a good discussion in the comments to the Quillette post, including the observation that the author nowhere mentions adoption as a solution for the mother who does not wish to raise the child herself.
Not wanting to be pregnant for nine months is clearly one of the reasons for choosing abortion, but I’ve never understood the rationale for killing it once all the work is done when there are alternatives available.
I had thought that Planned Parenthood and the abortionists never mention adoption, but turns out I was wrong. Whether they advocate persuasively for that option is possibly debatable.
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/pregnancy/considering-adoption
One of the favorite pro-abortion arguments for a while now has been that all conservatives are hypocrites to oppose abortion while declining to make taxpayers responsible for the care and feeding of children from cradle to death. And yet increasingly we see pro-life pregnancy support centers firebombed with signs reading “If abortion isn’t safe, neither are you.” What’s next, attacks on orphanages, foster homes, and adoption agencies? Who’s really interested in caring for unwanted children here?
What’s more, the usual rule is that we’re not allowed to kill people who depend on us, even if we can’t persuade society to pay all their bills. Will we someday see people claim they’re entitled to euthanize their ailing parents on the ground that society unfairly refuses to pay all their medical bills?
Nevertheless, the encouragement to donate to pregnancy crisis centers is good advice, if not a persuasive legal or policy argument to permit abortion.
Here is a startlingly honest article entitled “Abortion involves killing, and that’s OK!” https://www.thenation.com/article/society/abortion-ethics-gestation-reproduction/ What could show your compassionate bona fides better than to refer to an infant in utero as a “gestatee”? There’s plenty of other Orwellian language abuse in there, too.
I found the Quillette apologia for abortion aggravating. We be meat puppets, other societies have done horrible things in the past and hey why stop now? That the US is worse than Europe in what is allowed may have escaped his notice. A ghoul.
Talking about what prairie dogs, lions, bears, or primates do the the weak and defenseless is macabre.