Abortion

1
This is a heavy topic for me for a multitude of reasons. Summary: I absolutely support safe, legal and accessible abortion. However, other than the name "Roe v Wade," I must confess I know very little about the topic from a legal perspective (plenty of navel gazing, but that's my stuff, not law). I intend to rectify that and figure I'd share links as I find them.

I'll start by reading Roe v Wade. I like primary sources, so SCOTUS will do in this case.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federa ... on-1950137

Here's a summary:
Facts of the case
Roe, a Texas resident, sought to terminate her pregnancy by abortion. Texas law prohibited abortions except to save the pregnant woman's life. After granting certiorari, the Court heard arguments twice. The first time, Roe's attorney -- Sarah Weddington -- could not locate the constitutional hook of her argument for Justice Potter Stewart. Her opponent -- Jay Floyd -- misfired from the start. Weddington sharpened her constitutional argument in the second round. Her new opponent -- Robert Flowers -- came under strong questioning from Justices Potter Stewart and Thurgood Marshall.

Question
Does the Constitution embrace a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion?

Conclusion
The Court held that a woman's right to an abortion fell within the right to privacy (recognized in Griswold v. Connecticut) protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision gave a woman total autonomy over the pregnancy during the first trimester and defined different levels of state interest for the second and third trimesters. As a result, the laws of 46 states were affected by the Court's ruling.
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18

Next, I need to read Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992). I believe this is the case Kavanaugh used to say abortion was settled law during his confirmation hearing. Let's (to the extent we are able) hold his feet to that fire.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federa ... on-1959105
Facts of the case
The Pennsylvania legislature amended its abortion control law in 1988 and 1989. Among the new provisions, the law required informed consent and a 24 hour waiting period prior to the procedure. A minor seeking an abortion required the consent of one parent (the law allows for a judicial bypass procedure). A married woman seeking an abortion had to indicate that she notified her husband of her intention to abort the fetus. These provisions were challenged by several abortion clinics and physicians. A federal appeals court upheld all the provisions except for the husband notification requirement.

Question
Can a state require women who want an abortion to obtain informed consent, wait 24 hours, if married, notify their husbands, and, if minors, obtain parental consent, without violating their right to abortion as guaranteed by Roe v. Wade?

Conclusion
In a bitter 5-to-4 decision, the Court again reaffirmed Roe, but it upheld most of the Pennsylvania provisions. For the first time, the justices imposed a new standard to determine the validity of laws restricting abortions. The new standard asks whether a state abortion regulation has the purpose or effect of imposing an "undue burden," which is defined as a "substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability." Under this standard, the only provision to fail the undue-burden test was the husband notification requirement. In a rare step, the opinion for the Court was crafted and authored by three justices: O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter.
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1991/91-744

Here's an article listing the 10 most important abortion cases. I don't know about the source, but it's a start.
https://www.ranker.com/list/supreme-cou ... ley?page=3

Please add as you see fit.

Re: Abortion

3
Abortion laws are not about law. They are about the control of women by men.

If you don't want to eat meat, don't eat meat. But don't make laws preventing others from eating meat--that province is for persuasion over pronouncement: if you don't want an abortion, don't have one. But don't make laws preventing others from having one.

We cannot allow institutionalized discrimination.

Now, it is true that the Ninth and Tenth Amendments exist. Since we haven't had a 2A decision about infringement in Calif. (Mulford and 'may issue'), I don't expect the SCOTUS to do anything new--meaning they'll refer cases back in time to the 19th century in those state where men want to legally control women. Won't buy their stuff nor visit there. 'Bout my best I can be. Be best. Eh.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Abortion

5
Primitive accumulation worked because no one slit the throat of the first guy (always a guy) who fenced in the commons and charged others to graze there. The same mind set is at work. Men take women's rights in those backward states because they can. That is, neither the men nor the women in that state have enough power, and the men and women from other states don't know how to array public opinion away from accepting the primitive taking of women's rights in states who stopped reading at the 12th Amendment.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Abortion

6
CDFingers wrote: Wed May 15, 2019 12:11 pm Primitive accumulation worked because no one slit the throat of the first guy (always a guy) who fenced in the commons and charged others to graze there. The same mind set is at work. Men take women's rights in those backward states because they can. That is, neither the men nor the women in that state have enough power, and the men and women from other states don't know how to array public opinion away from accepting the primitive taking of women's rights in states who stopped reading at the 12th Amendment.

CDFingers
CDFingers, we're on the same page as to the why. Old white fuckers like you and I have no business in this business, although our demographic tends to be the one pushing the agenda. What I'm after is the how. People are free to believe what they will provided it doesn't intrude on others' well being. How have we defined abortion as a "right" and how have we defended/denied that right since within the legislative/legal space?

Re: Abortion

7
Claims such as "the fetus is a person" are easy to make. And lawyers want to make money. So case after case percolates up. Yet when we look at our driver license, lo and behold, it STILL shows the day we took our first breath rather than some inwombed idiocy--which can ensure repeated court room appearances and multiple multiple briefs to be filed. "Aw, gee. We lost that case. Let's celebrate the fees our hapless clients will pay us!"

Any time the issue is "control," you'll be sure to find "money" close behind. Yet what actually is at issue is women's self determination. As humans are a tribal species, so each gender is chauvinist until enlightened. "There's yur problem."

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Abortion

8
I used to be the token male pro-choice lobbyist in Sac. That said, it is a HUGE topic (like 2A), especially when you consider the history. I know very little in comparison.

It's important to note that some states (like California) codified Row v Wade, so any potential reversal with SCOTUS will have minimal impact in those states.
Image


"Person, woman, man, camera, TV."

Re: Abortion

9
Summary: I absolutely support safe, legal and accessible abortion.
And that's what I also want and it's irrelevant if someone is personally against abortion if they support those three items, "safe, legal and accessible". The anti-abortionists are focusing on accessibility, if it's not available it doesn't happen and you've effectively outlawed it.

Using the reasoning that abortion is a privacy issue from the 14th Amendment was very innovative, especially for the 1970s. As RBG and others have stated though, it was a huge change to make at one time and ultimately emboldened anti-abortionists. SCOTUS used a more gradual approach with same-sex marriage and even though it happened decades later it didn't generate as much opposition. IIRC opposition to abortion was not an Evangelical issue in the 1970s, it was a Catholic issue but as with many other things, conservative churches regardless of denomination often band together and sometimes align on issues. "Be fruitful and multiply", churches are losing members so grow your denomination by opposition to abortion.

I'm just waiting for some nosy reporters to connect all the dots between churches opposed to abortion and state legislators in GA, AL, OH.... There is a conspiracy, it's coordinated.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Abortion

10
CDFingers wrote: Wed May 15, 2019 12:32 pm "There's yur problem."

CDFingers
Perhaps this thread was a bad idea. I'd hoped to keep out of the indignation, but...

To be clear with you (because I'm feeling a little "get with the program, bub" vibe in your responses), I share the righteous indignation and outrage over attempted control of women's reproductive freedoms (as well as similar mechanisms at play with minorities, LGBT,, the poor, etc.). White male conquest knows no bounds, as evidenced by the plastic continents floating in our oceans, current mass extinction event, destruction of our climate and explosion of sex trafficking, to name just a few. On a personal level, I've counseled a sister to have an abortion because the other option would have radically altered her life, potential child's life and our parent's lives. I've driven a girl I didn't even know (friend of a friend way back when) to her abortion, stayed with her and got her safely home when she couldn't broach the topic with her parents. I am very much on-board with get your fucking laws out of my (wife's) uterus. But I don't know shit about those laws.

Re: Abortion

12
featureless wrote: Wed May 15, 2019 1:08 pm
senorgrand wrote: Wed May 15, 2019 12:37 pm That said, it is a HUGE topic (like 2A), especially when you consider the history. I know very little in comparison.
Precisely my problem, and why I'd hoped to keep the heat out of it.
It's a huge topic with legal, medical, social/cultural, personal...aspects.
Abortion was common in most of colonial America, but it was kept secret because of strict laws against unmarried sexual activity.
A short history.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/abortion/le ... ry_1.shtml
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Abortion

13
I apologize if I come off as an asshole on this topic. I don't mean to be. My wife was a director of a large women's health cooperative with clinics spread from Oakland to Redding, CA. For like 25 years we fought the fight. Stuff rises up quick like in me.

So, there are mechanisms to examine. They fall into broad categories. Doctors, clinic, workers, clients.

Doctors need licenses, so at the state level this is a target. Moreover, one doctor may visit many clinics in a week, so the doctor has to travel. Usually someone would get the doctor at the airport and take the doctor back. I used to do this. One doctor wore a bullet proof vest. I did not. The doctor could be subject to picketing at the clinic while trying to enter and exit. I used to escort them through the sewage. Or they would get death threats at home. Recall Dr. Slepian.

Clinics need licenses, so there are all kinds of ways to trouble that process. Also, the actual building would be targeted. My wife had two clinics burned out from under her. One, twice. Or someone would inject Butyric acid into the walls, like happened in Chico. Or people would barricade the clinic and folks like me would escort women through that crap. One of my wife's clinics was responsible for a ruling on sidewalk protests by anti's.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of ... 67152.html

Workers would be harassed at home. Bluntly, I had guns then. Still do. Happy coincidence, I say. Many times I had to drive my wife or clients through the high weeds that were the anti choice protesters. The clients also had to endure all kinds of potential shame such that clinic escorts would use umbrellas to shield clients from the crap storms.

Finally, we can look at laws. Never will an anti abortion law succeed at the Federal level. But states can still foul things up. Be active.

Maybe this little list of categories helps.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Abortion

14
CDFingers wrote: Wed May 15, 2019 2:53 pm
Maybe this little list of categories helps.

CDFingers
Absolutely. And no, you didn't come off as an asshole, just ruffled and thus my clarification. As I stated originally, it's a heavy topic and we all have some sort of baggage around it.

Good on you for you services. My now retired dad volunteers at Planned Parenthood in the Fresno area, so I know some of the shit that goes down. Rubber sorting is not without risk. ;)

I suppose some of my desire to descend into the legal weeds is the question of survivability at the federal level. It's actually my biggest worry with the current SCOTUS composition.

Re: Abortion

15
I think for most who are around my age or younger, it's simply unfathomable that this would even be a question in this day and age, as for our entire lives, access to safe and legal abortion has been the law of the land, with some legal wrangling from idiots, and safety concerns about assholes. But it hasn't been a question as to whether or not it would stand. Now it is, and we are fighting again over what was settled in 1965 and 1973. Fuck these people. Fuck them all.
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
- Maya Angelou

Image

Re: Abortion

16
CDFingers wrote: Wed May 15, 2019 2:53 pm Doctors need licenses, so at the state level this is a target. Moreover, one doctor may visit many clinics in a week, so the doctor has to travel. Usually someone would get the doctor at the airport and take the doctor back. I used to do this. One doctor wore a bullet proof vest. I did not. The doctor could be subject to picketing at the clinic while trying to enter and exit. I used to escort them through the sewage. Or they would get death threats at home. Recall Dr. Slepian.

Clinics need licenses, so there are all kinds of ways to trouble that process. Also, the actual building would be targeted. My wife had two clinics burned out from under her. One, twice. Or someone would inject Butyric acid into the walls, like happened in Chico. Or people would barricade the clinic and folks like me would escort women through that crap. One of my wife's clinics was responsible for a ruling on sidewalk protests by anti's.
Kudos to your wife and to you CDF ! I really admire your dedication as a couple to keeping doors open and ensuring access to abortions for all women. I do remember the case of Dr Barnett Slepian who was murdered by James Kopp for providing abortions in Buffalo, NY.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Abortion

18
Hi CD, I appreciate that you and your wife have been fighting the good fight in healthcare rights for so long. I also understand how it is with close friends working Planned Parenthood around Oregon. I have witnessed the dickheads outside who protest and intimidate in the name of their idol. That their threats of violence has actually born violent acts of vandalism and killings around the country makes this issue kind of a ruler, an indicator for where religious zealotry is headed in our country.

And yes, I wholly agree that sometimes force must be met with force in order to establish clear boundaries that may not be crossed. Bullies and zealots will always seek to test the boundaries of civil society to achieve their aims.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: Abortion

20
While I am not one to advocate violence or rattle a saber, this Heartbeat Bill bullshit is my line in the sand. There is no statute of limitations on murder, so adding abortions to the list of criminal homicides means that my wife could be charged with murder. Since no police officer verified that any of her miscarriages were not manual abortions she could be charged for those as well.

This would not go well for me nor those officers coming to arrest her on these charges. If I survived that encounter it would also not go well for any Missouri elected officials who voted in favor of this.
In a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich the chicken and cow are involved while the pig is committed.

Re: Abortion

21
It is obvious that "Pro-Life" is a phony claim by anti-abortionists who just want to control women.
There were roughly 650,000 abortions last year in the USA. But I'd bet serious money that if you offered anti-abortionists a way to reduce that number by 90% WITHOUT outlawing ANY abortion procedure, they'd reject it. Because clearly and obviously the BEST way to prevent abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancies. That means sex education and free or super-cheap universally available birth control.

And that is PRECISELY what the anti-abortion fascists seek to outlaw. They do NOT want women have protect sex at all! And, in my thought experiment, prefer to let those 585,000 "unborn babies" die who never would have even been conceived at all than allow THAT!

They are even trying to outlaw abortions for Ectopic pregnancy, which has only 3 results: Miscarriage, Mother and fetus die, fetus is aborted. One idiot pol said "Well the embryo can be transplanted to the uterus." which, under current medical knowledge and practice is IMPOSSIBLE! There is no known surgical procedure!

But it's worse. One of the laws wants to review and punish women who mis-carry, because THEY believe that she must have done "something wrong" that endangered the fetus. Maybe she had a glass of wine, or went dancing too exuberantly, or won a tennis tournament, or fell off a motorcycle riding with her husband. They want to be able to completely judge her behavior during pregnancy and jail if THEY think she was irresponsible!

They don't give a fuck about the life of the unborn. That's just crocodile tears for power and absolute control over women. And the men who love them.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Abortion

22
Next they'll want to hunt down and prosecute any woman who ever had an abortion anywhere, breaking BLATANTLY the Constitutional restriction against ex post facto laws....you cannot be punished for something that wasn't a crime when you did it.....except gun ownership, which opens the door for violating that clause, Art I, Sect 9, Para 3:
"No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. "

Except both the anti-gun and anti-abortion crowds want to do exactly that. Had I not stored my 15 round mags in a storage FFL, those mags I purchased FULLY LEGALLY, in my possession would have made me a felon.
"Even if the bee could explain to the fly why pollen is better than shit, the fly could never understand."

Re: Abortion

23
The Supreme Court justices will meet behind closed doors Thursday morning and are expected to debate and discuss — for the 14th time — Indiana’s appeal of court rulings that have blocked a law to prohibit certain abortions. The high court’s action — or so far, nonaction — in Indiana’s case gives one clue as to how the court’s conservative majority will decide the fate of abortion bans recently passed by lawmakers in Alabama and Georgia. Republican Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama signed her state's ban into law on Wednesday.

Lawmakers in those states have said they approved the bans in an effort to force the high court to reconsider Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The justices have many ways to avoid such a sweeping ruling, however. And Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., in his 14 years on the high court, has typically resisted moving quickly to decide major controversies or to announce abrupt, far-reaching changes in the law. Roberts’ history, along with the court’s handling of abortion cases in recent years, suggests he will not move to overturn the right to abortion soon, or all at once, and is particularly unlikely to do so in the next year or two with a presidential election pending.

Notre Dame Law professor Richard Garnett, a critic of the Roe decision and a former court clerk, said the Alabama lawmakers may be moving too fast. “It is not clear that the current justices who have expressed doubts about the correctness of decisions like Roe … will want to take up a case that squarely presents the question of whether these decisions should be overruled,” he said. “Instead, they might prefer to first consider less sweeping abortion regulations.”

Roberts is a staunch conservative who has moved the law to the right on a range of issues. He prefers, however, to do so in a step-by-step approach. Under his leadership, for example, the court’s conservative majority struck down laws that limited campaign spending, including by corporations. But they did so only after several small-scale rulings had chipped away at these laws. The boldness of the Citizens United decision surprised many, but not those who were closely following the court’s decisions in this area.

The chief justice took the same two-step approach in striking down a key part of the Voting Rights Act and the state laws that allowed mandatory union fees for public employees. In each instance, long-standing precedents were first eroded, then overturned. In February, the chief justice cast a key vote with the court’s four liberals to keep on hold a Louisiana law that strictly regulates abortion clinics. His vote put off the court’s consideration of the case, June Medical Services vs. Gee, until the fall. The Louisiana case sets the stage for an election-year ruling on abortion, but only on the question of whether the state may enforce a rule that requires doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Abortion rights supporters say the law would force the closure of most, if not all, abortion clinics in the state.

That case is unlikely to result in overturning Roe, but it could be a stepping stone toward eventually eliminating nationwide abortion rights. At least three of the justices have indicated a readiness to move more directly to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Justice Clarence Thomas voted to do so shortly after he joined the court in 1992, and Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch would probably join him. Both are longtime skeptics of the Roe decision. While the chief justice and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh would surely agree to limit abortion rights, based on their past statements, neither of them may be inclined now to directly confront the right to abortion.

That could account for the court’s hesitancy to move on the Indiana measure, which was signed into law in 2016 by then-Gov. Mike Pence, now the vice president. It would prohibit abortions for certain reasons, including if a fetus is diagnosed with Down syndrome or any other disability. The law has not gone into effect because it was struck down by a federal judge in Indiana and by a divided U.S. appeals court in Chicago. The lower-court judges said the Indiana law clearly conflicted with Roe vs. Wade because it would allow the state, not a woman, to decide which abortions were permitted. In October, a week after Kavanaugh was sworn in, Indiana’s lawyers asked the high court to hear the case and uphold the law, which it described as designed to “put an end to eugenics abortions.” A second provision of the law would require abortion facilities to treat fetal remains with respect and to either bury or cremate them.

Normally, the justices consider such an appeal for a week or two. If at least four of them vote to hear the appeal, the case is granted a full review. If not, it is denied in a one-line order. Since Jan. 4, however, the court has repeatedly relisted the case of Box vs. Planned Parenthood for reconsideration. Recently passed abortion laws in Ohio, Georgia and Alabama, all of which go considerably further than the Indiana law, will be challenged in court, and federal judges, who are bound to follow existing Supreme Court rulings, are almost certain to block them from taking effect. That will begin a legal process that would send the appeals heading to the high court. But the justices could decide to put those appeals on hold indefinitely while they consider a more limited abortion case, like the one from Louisiana.

If an appeals court strikes down one of the state bans, the justices could also simply decline to consider the appeal, which would not prevent them from revisiting the issue in the future. In either case, the justices could fairly easily put off a decision on Roe vs. Wade until after the national election in November of 2020.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na- ... story.html


Meanwhile...
Missouri's Republican-led Senate has passed a wide-ranging bill to ban abortions at eight weeks of pregnancy, acting only hours after Alabama's governor signed a near-total abortion ban into law. The Missouri bill needs another vote of approval in the GOP-led House before it can go to Republican Gov. Mike Parson, who voiced support for an earlier version Wednesday.

It includes exceptions for medical emergencies, but not for pregnancies caused by rape or incest. Doctors would face five to 15 years in prison for violating the eight-week cutoff. Women who receive abortions wouldn't be prosecuted.
As CBS News' Kate Smith has reported, Missouri already has some of the most restrictive abortion access laws in the country. Missourians seeking an abortion are subject to a 72-hour waiting period and only one abortion clinic exist in the state.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/missouri-a ... pregnancy/
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Abortion

24
Legally abortion was always seen by the conservatives as being on shakey ground. The “right to privacy” is not an enumerated right.
Relying on previous Supreme Court decisions is not a good idea in this time of Trump. He’s packed the courts. Overturning a “bad decision” will be compared to reversing slavery or Jim Crow laws.
And the entire Trump party apparatus has shown they don’t care about the workings of government— they’ll trample over anything and everything to achieve their goals.
The constitution is just a piece of paper. Legal precedent is just custom. It’s all nothing if people don’t stand behind it all.
Aim past the target.

Image


Image

Re: Abortion

25
gator68 wrote: Thu May 16, 2019 10:22 am And the entire Trump party apparatus has shown they don’t care about the workings of government— they’ll trample over anything and everything to achieve their goals.
The constitution is just a piece of paper. Legal precedent is just custom. It’s all nothing if people don’t stand behind it all.
"And the entire political party apparatus has shown they don’t care about the workings of government— they’ll trample over anything and everything to achieve their goals." Fixed that for you. The Dem party uses the same tactics on gun control.

This is why, in my feeble little mind, it is so important that we maintain the right to arms, to vote and to speak. Both sides have shown total disregard for whichever section of the Constitution they find gets them votes and money. The Constitution is not a menu or pick your favorites on the list-type document. It is to be adhered to in its entirety or it is all at risk.

This new and sudden pile on by red states is disgusting, especially since those same states typically have the highest infant mortality rates in the country. Clearly, it is not about the welfare of the child.

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzi ... story.html

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Amazon [Bot], Bing [Bot] and 3 guests