> Overall its just a slippery slop when you give the government this right. What happens if conservatives get in power and decided abortion should be banned outright as they consider a fetus a person? By the same logic you are using, they would be perfectly reasonable to do that.
This is a ridiculous argument and I'd say mostly FUD. Abortion is pretty well litigated. Conservatives have been in power in state and national govts for years and they've barely managed to get anywhere close to this.
> Also, is it not the case that most Americans support some abortion rights? Thus, this could force conservatives to move center on the abortion spectrum in order to appease their constituents.
One would hope, but they have only been veering further to the right on this issue. In the past year, multiple states have passed the most extreme abortion laws this country has seen over half a century. Texas will literally throw women in jail if they are caught leaving the state to get an abortion.
But those evil Democrats want to teach kids that there is nothing wrong with being gay, so I guess it equals out?
I do not know how any sane person can still support the GOP, especially after the Jan. 6 insurrection and this SC ruling.
> Also, is it not the case that most Americans support some abortion rights? Thus, this could force conservatives to move center on the abortion spectrum in order to appease their constituents.
13 states have trigger laws going into effect with this. It’s not going to move the needle at all. The red states will ban it. Blue won’t. And it’ll still be a hot button topic in the reversed states. Red candidates in blue states will want to outlaw it. Blue candidates in red states will want to allow it.
> Pence just asked for federal legislation banning all abortions. So I think you are wrong to say the Republicans are trying to return it to the states, thy are trying to ban it.
It’s worth mentioning that the constitutionality of such a law seems highly questionable based on the current leanings of SCOTUS. States’ rights work both ways, and (not a lawyer) I would assume an incredibly broad interpretation of interstate commerce would be needed to hold up a federal ban on abortions.
> Why is it so hard for you to believe that Republicans are against contraception?
Because I try very, very hard not to believe things without evidence, and I haven't seen any evidence yet. From my sibling comment on this law, this bill would have guaranteed the right to an abortion because the way they define contraceptive includes abortion. This then seems like evidence that Conservatives love the idea of restricting abortion (which they absolutely do). It is a fallacy of composition to say they favor restricting contraceptives. If you do that, you may as well broaden the category more and say they love restricting health care, or that they love to restrict free market transactions, though such is clearly not warranted because generally speaking conservatives hate the idea of restricting free market transactions (unless they're jailing people simply for ingesting plants (an allusion to the war on drugs, which they definitely seem to love, but I digress)).
> Eliminating federal protections for abortions annoys the left without hurting the right
I have to assume you mean emotionally, not physically. Conservatives have women in their lives who will suffer and die from legal interference in the process of pregnancy and childbirth also.
>On the other side you argue for no restrictions, typically until the day before birth
Only if you suck down way too much of the conservative news. The right wing media here makes up a lot of this bullshit that has zero basis in reality. Find one elected democratic official at the congressional level that says the day before birth is an acceptable solution.
Meanwhile look at the actual laws conservative states are passing. They are going for a total ban even in the case of rape and horrific birth defects. Don't both sides this. It's not even close.
> Claiming that one is in favor of abortion until a certain limit, but then supporting a party that says none at all is the way to go is pretty off base, yeah?
Sure there are people who opposed it entirely, but the majority of what is actually proposed and passed are more focused on defining a cutoff time when the baby is alive with rights of its own. “Heartbeat Bills” are a good example.
There’s a reason you see different laws in different states and it’s because people don’t agree.
You’ll always have people who want to eliminate it entirely and you’ll always have people who want no restrictions at all. That will never change.
Simply trying to agree on a point in time where a fetus has a right to life where termination is unacceptable though, that’s the problem. And politicians don’t want that to change because the moment that the bulk of the charge goes out of an issue they can’t use it to divide people anymore.
If that one issue was off the table, would you reevaluate your party platform? Do you agree with all of it? Do you agree with anything at all on the other side of the isle?
> As to your first point: you’re begging the question by presupposing that there is a “right” to kill and extract a fetus under various circumstances.
And you're presupposing that a nonviable fetus is alive.
As I understand it, the conservative view is that rights are not granted by the government, they are only restricted, hence the 10th amendment. The right to freedom of movement is not granted to me by anyone, yet I have it because it is not explicitly restricted. The constitution puts guardrails on when, and how, the government is allowed to restrict my rights.
> Liberals tend to believe that the constitution is a living document and can protect rights even when those rights didn’t exist at the time of the founding.
This depends on right in question. For example the right to donate to political candidates is not explicitly enumerated in the constitution (and is heavily restricted in many other nations), but is seen as protected via a combination of rights enumerated in the 1st amendment.
> If you can’t find it in the text of the Constitution, and you can’t find it in the history books of what rights the framers thoughts were fundamental, it has to derive from broad public recognition, correct?
No, I refer you again to Brown v. BoE. There was at the time no broad public recognition that Separate but Equal wasn't constitutional, and the people who wrote the amendment certainly felt segregation was A-OK.
> Where does the right to an abortion, as defined by Roe
As I understand, in this case the Justices found that an individual's right to privacy prevented the government from meddling with the medical procedures that person chose to get, without. But then you knew that already. It appears that you disagree with this, even though 15 (and a half) Supreme court justices have found that the text of the constitution supports this protection. (notably compared to 8, likely soon 9, who did not)
> but what happens when a super conservative state does something less popular
Or like abortion. The new abortion rules in conservative states are betting they can sway the federal gov if a lawsuit arises, but its based on the assumption they'll get to ignore the gov.
> It takes some mental gymnastics to say that elective abortions to 24 weeks is a “human right”
No one ever said that... and apparently you've entirely missed the ProChoice argument. Does a government have the right to prevent you from having an appendectomy? Where does the government end and you begin? ProChoice is about limiting absolute government authority, like, over your cells and junk.
btw the rights in question are already in the Constitution. We generally refer to it as the Fourth Amendment, though an explicit line limiting what the government can do also lives in the Third Amendment. With the 3rd and the 4th Amendments, any ban on abortion is necessarily unconstitutional, in that we have a right to be secure in our persons free from government intrusion, and the government can't force anyone to take on a tenant, even if for only 9 months.
Our supreme court overturned a law that enshrined country-wide access to abortion. I personally disagree with this, but the phrasing as stated here isn’t representative of the truth. Individuals in progressive states and those willing to cross state lines in many cases still retain access to abortion.
I disagree that the Republican party as a whole wants an abortion ban. The Republican party had control of the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Presidency, a large chunk of the Judiciary and 5 Supreme Court seats. If they wanted an abortion ban as much as they repeatedly claim they do, they would have it.
If Republicans couldn't run on promises of banning abortions anymore that would substantially impact their voter base. Actually following through on that promise seems a bit like sawing off the branch you're sitting on.
> Second, the right of abortion was determined from incorporation of other guaranteed rights (here, the right to privacy)
Correct, and it was a very unstable way to enable abortions. It has always been under threat of being over turned because it was a weak argument. Even RBG said that it was weak.
> I don’t like that Roe v. Wade was decided for the US by nine dipshits
It wasn't, not really. And this is exactly my point:
Most countries have successfully legislated abortion law. The USA's federal legislature failed to do so directly and left it to their supreme court to decide something from their ambiguity: as is their job.
This decision can still today be written clearly into law, in either direction, by representatives. So, it's an ongoing failure of the legislature.
> I don't get it - this seems like sophistry. Isn't the end result the same, i.e. nationally permitting abortion?
I'd argue whether or not this is sophistry depends on how you view rights. If you only have rights when the government grants you rights, then yes, this is sophistry.
Taking this to the extreme, however, one could main the claim that people are not allowed to do do innocuous actions like jumping jacks unless the government legislates that it's allowed.
However, if you instead take the more reasonable position that individuals have all rights except those curtailed by the government for the sake of maintaining a stable social contract, then it's not sophistry.
In Roe, the court ruled that the right to an abortion, within certain limitations, is not one of the rights that governments can curtail.
> the people advocating for outlawing abortion are also convinced it's a rights issue: the rights of the unborn child. This isn't an open and shut case.
Does the decision at all call out the rights of the unborn child? If so why would it be left up to the states and not outright banned? Why are contraception and gay marriage called out as comprable rights?
>I personally believe there is no good good line during pregnancy when someone becomes a person, it is a process that takes time, anything we pick is arbitrary to satisfy human law
So what should we do in your opinion? Are the unborn entitled to protection by our laws or not?
>Roe was a compromise, an imperfect law for a complicated matter
Roe wasn't a law, it was a legal precedent dehumanizing a class of people for another class's benefit. Now we do have actual laws that are made by legislatures across the country to try to do justice to a complicated subject as you admit it is.
>So you are ok with a state outlawing abortion with no exceptions
Of course not, this is the opposite of what I said.
>Do you believe Griswold vs Connecticut should be overturned as well?
There is a class of 'living constitution' decisions made by the supreme court during this era that are contrary to rule of law and make the supreme court into some sort of super-legislature. I think people should have access to contraceptives, I'm not sure it's guaranteed by the constitution though. Not all contraceptives are abortificients, even those should be accessible for the reasons I gave above, health concerns primarily.
>How can the universe and anything it which was created by god act contrary to his will?
Yeah, it's crazy! Christians think we have real agency even given the sovereignty of God. It borders on paradoxical. God surely knows the path we will go down and judged it necessary for some reason. Apparently He preferred beings capable of deciding to follow Him of their own free will rather than automatons.
>If I design a program I do not blame the program for bugs, that's stupid, it is my failing.
What's more impressive though? Designing a program that can choose between multiple options and determine its fate or designing a program completely constrained to make the choices I orchestrate? And yet, we would be comfortable saying a programmer would be totally justified if they shut down or even deleted a program erring as you've described!
This is a ridiculous argument and I'd say mostly FUD. Abortion is pretty well litigated. Conservatives have been in power in state and national govts for years and they've barely managed to get anywhere close to this.
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