>It's interesting you say these things because it's exactly how the right views the left, and it's exactly what they say about them! Just an observation, and an interesting one.
This is not an interesting observation but a disingenuously naive hot take straight from right wing reactionaries that conveniently or ignorantly ignores reality and the history of radical theological propaganda that’s being crafted by conservative think tanks and disseminated by their media orgs in a campaign to manufacture consent and shift public opinion. This particular tactic is called projection.
>>projection:
>>Psychological projection is the process of misinterpreting what is "inside" as coming from "outside". It forms the basis of empathy by the projection of personal experiences to understand someone else's subjective world.
>I think the recent legal ruling was proper because of the specific omission of abortion in the enumeration of federal powers.
Then abortion is plainly protected by the ninth, tenth, thirteenth and fourteenth amendments. One must use their ideological or theological beliefs as renegade dogma in order to reject the protection afforded by these amendments.
>I also think it’s pretty clear that, when one side believes abortion to be a totally unrestricted right despite never appearing in the constitution
The Supreme Court ruling on the Constitutionality of laws isn’t in the Constitution.
You’re describing a judicial philosophy (textualism) as if it were law, or some sacred edict from above. It’s not.
You’re pretending the “democratic process” isn’t broken. It is.
Remember: the legislature could have banned abortion outright, at any time. We didn’t need the courts to do that. It would just take an amendment to the Constitution.
Remember: a majority of people in the US want abortion to be legal. The court overruled that based on its own fetish for textualism.
It’s great that you want people to talk to each other. In the mean time, women will die.
>>here in the US, a massive court decision that granted abortion rights being overturned by judges
no in fact we did not deal with this, nor was that the decision.
First and foremost Roe did not grant abortion rights, it granted privacy rights in a weird hamfisted way that only applied to abortion... It was a terrible precinct that even many left legal scholars (include Ruth Bader Ginsburg) rejected.
The reversal of Roe also did not remove any abortion or any other rights from anyone, it returned the issue to the proper place, State governments. Of which the vast majority had/have a more expansive view of abortion that the limits under Roe.
Thirdly the left had 30+ years to take the issue out of the hands of the hamfisted Roe by passing an actual law to address it, but chose not do because the democratic party wanted that boogeyman for elections (and still does) so they did not want to resolve the conflict at all, they want the issue not the resolution. They wrongly believed the court "would never" reverse itself... they screwed around, and found out.
The level if wrong information out there around the subject of Roe is crazy to me.
>>There are now laws in place that directly contribute to making women's healthcare more dangerous because of the perception of it being "sinful" to receive otherwise
100% wrong... You are clearly indoctrinated into a political ideology completely removed from reality
>>Everyone is.
I despise political parties. All of them. Political parties are for rich men north of Richmond, who all just wanna have total control of what you think, and what you do...
Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, Constitution, you name the party and I reject it.
"political parties may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion." -- George Washington.
> 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.
> 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.
> The way it currently looks is the right want to ban abortion no matter what context
I will let you in on a little secret. The right doesn't actually want to ban abortions. They need the carrot of banning abortions to turn out voters, and abortion is a very powerful single issue. By this I mean, there are plenty of left-leaning folks who would abandon Bernie if he came out as anti-abortion, and there are plenty on the right who would turn on their candidates if they came out pro-choice.
By the same token, the left also needs the right to keep wanting to ban abortions (but failing) so they can turn out the vote. It isn't as binary as it seems.
> There’s a slate star codex post that describes research demonstrating that conservative Americans can predict the responses of progressive Americans to political questions, but the converse is not true.
All this demonstrates is ideological consistency on the part of Liberals.
> It’s not that conservatives are “unwilling to consider” conflicting ideas; in fact, they do a much better job of modeling conflicting ideas than progressives do!
Citation needed.
> Most of the difference is, I think, not based on factual disagreement, but based on principal disagreements on issues like the personhood of fetuses.
A fetus isn't a person in the eyes of the US government. It never has been. This is an orthogonal issue to how to handle abortion in America. Conservatives believe that those who seek and provide abortion should be punished, but we know that this does not result in fewer abortions. Liberals believe that we should take steps to limit the need to seek the abortion in the first place.
> The thing that the "progressive left" doesn't want to admit is that Roe can be bad law AND that the right to be secure in/have control over your body needs to exist.
Yeah. The rhetoric on this is so overheated that I'm convinced that some people actually believe Roe v. Wade is the Third Amendment [1] or something like that. IHMO, this debate would be a lot better if people could distinguish between policy and the law/legal reasoning as separate things.
> The Supreme Court neither banned abortion nor prohibited the legislature from protecting the right to abortion.
Which means that New York, California, Massachusetts will retain abortion access. And Texas, Indiana, will remove abortion access.
This sounds like States rights is actually working.
But the media is distorting the overturning of Roe vs Wade with the sensational claim that “Abortion is banned in the US”.
No, it’s not banned. This just means Texas and New York have differing policies with regards to abortion access. Yes, 46 million women living in conservative states will lose access to abortion, but not all of those women are liberal quite frankly. Moreover, those states are exactly that: conservative. And the Conservative Majority of that state isn’t required to accommodate the views of the Liberal minority of that state.
Just like the Liberal Majority of California isn’t required to accommodate their Conservative Minorities.
That’s the nature of how US Democratic institutions were built.
Sounds fair to me and the Supreme Court made the correct decision by returning that authority back to the states.
>>No, there are no logically valid, non-religious arguments for prohibiting abortion.
There are so many reasons why this is wrong.
Under the Constitution, the tenth amendment clearly reserves powers not expressly enumerated for the federal government, to the people and states, and the only exception to that is powers expressly denied by the Constitution to the states, which defining human life as beginning before birth is not one of them.
Moreover, defining human life as starting at a heartbeat or before birth can be an entirely secular belief, your dogmatism denial notwithstanding.
>>You’ve just demonstrated that yourself, by ignoring the fact that the opinion was based on works of a professional witch hunter and marital rape apologist.
This is just ad hominem / character assassination, and not relevant to this point.
>>When the society realizes they aren’t working properly, it should be possible to fix said courts.
And you're arguing for fixing said courts through illegal acts. Like I said:
If the law is only respected and observed when it agrees with one political platform, it's no law at all.
>>And no, in US there is no working legal process for fixing the court, even in very obvious cases, like a judge protecting its wife, or just being a straight out human waste, like Scalia.
Of course there is a way to fix the courts: legislation can dictate the jurisdiction of courts, and legislatures can appoint new justices to the court, and the legislature is democratically elected.
Of course the latter takes time, as Supreme Court justices are lifetime appointments, but that is the Constitutional process, and that can also be changed if a supermajority vote for a Constitutional amendment.
Your expressions of hatred and disgust toward those who through the Constitutionally legitimate process, became Supreme Court justices, is not a moral argument. It's just a manifestation of the moral superiority complex exhibited by those on the political left who support this subversion of the law.
> Gee, how would anyone look at a Republican administration whose first Supreme Court appointee penned a seminal decision on LGBT employment protections as not trying to turn back LGBT rights? One wonders.
Sure, Obergefell and Bostock were good, but op was talking about the country, not just SCOTUS. You can't ignore things like bathroom/locker room bills, the Don't Say Gay bill, book banning, etc. You're narrowing to things that support your position.
> (Roe) is unpopular with women in its full scope—specifically, Roe’s guarantee of elective abortions in the second trimester.
This is a right-wing talking point that (predictably) ignores the facts, narrowing to data that supports their position. It's very hard to poll about abortion because it's so nuanced, and most Americans are really uninformed. Couple of things here:
If you look at Gallup's results (the poll Town Hall et al reference) [0], you'll even see majority support for abortion in the third trimester. 75% of respondents believe abortion should be legal when the woman's life is endangered, and 52% when the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest. You'll also see that 56% of respondents oppose an 18 week ban, which is well into the 2nd trimester.
The reason the right centers on the "second trimester" talking point is that a different question shows way lower support (65% think it should be illegal), but when they drill down, support in various scenarios (life of the mother, etc.) increases. This is similar to polling about the ACA: if you asked people about Obamacare they hated it; if you asked them about the policies in Obamacare (no lifetime caps on care, no preexisting conditions) they loved it. It's an old, disingenuous trick.
> Social progressivism is an overwhelmingly white movement.
This is super untrue, but it's not that surprising since you're using Warren's primary campaign which, again, is a very narrow measure that supports your position (the demographics of the states she competed in are "overwhelmingly white" [1], so what you said applies to every candidate until Super Tuesday). The quick rejoinder is "then explain BLM", but something more substantial is the demographic breakdown of the Democratic vote in the 2020 Presidential election [2]. Quick synopsis is Biden/Harris won:
- 63% of Hispanic and Latino voters
- 87% of Black voters
- 68% AAPI voters
- 65% of Indian American voters
- 68% of American Indian and Alaska Native voters
- 43% of White voters (38% men, 44% women)
Maybe you'll quibble on Biden/Harris not being a progressive campaign? We can look at the last Quinnipiac poll from before the Iowa Caucuses [2] where Sanders' and Warren's non-white supporters made up 41% of their vote shares. Sure they don't match Biden's 70%, but they're decidedly not "overwhelmingly white" (might want to look at the Buttigieg campaign for that one).
> With Roe V Wade overturned recently, this seems a bit tone deaf. The beliefs are being much more than represented, they’re being mandated and legislated and protected unfairly.
This is actually the opposite of reality. Roe was the mandate of one belief over the entire country, legislated from the bench no less. Overturning it is a return to federalism, and allows each state to decide which beliefs it wants to uphold.
> The whole point of the amendment is to make it explicit that they don't. That isn't how rights work anyway; it's never a matter of priority, one right vs. another.
This is exactly how rights work, how they're debated and how the supreme court rules. Like the constitution says you have freedom of speech, but you don't have an absolute right to freedom of speech. You cannot go on someone else's property and start yelling because they have the right to kick you off, violating your right to freedom of speech.
What you're trying to do is frame it in a way that makes sense to yourself, which is great, but is not how things are decided by the judiciary. Which is my entire point: It doesn't matter if you explicitly say bodily autonomy is sacred in a constitutional amendment because ultimately the supreme court is whom interprets that. The only way you could in theory do something like this would be to have an amendment that outright says abortion is legal, but that wouldn't pass for obvious reasons.
You really need to go and try to debate more pro-life individuals because these are all things I've encountered while debating them. The idea that this line of thinking is 'too much' when that's literally what's happening in places like my current state of Texas means you really need to experience what's actually going on.
> The fact that conservative states have a stated goal of removing rights from women, PoC, LGBTQ, and immigrants in the US is what makes their intentional subversion of the Supreme Court so horrific.
I’m no great fan of conservative politics, but this has no basis in fact.
> The real reason has nothing at all to do with what the court’s role should be, and everything to do with the religion of the people currently serving on the court.
You’re inferring that the court made it’s decision on a religious reason, and you’re entitled to your inference.
So here’s my inference, as an atheist conservative. No the Supreme Court did not overturn the case for religious reasons. They overturned it exactly for the reasons they stated:
“The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives”
>This statement is kind of funny when the right you're referring to was invented (right or wrong) by a group of unelected judges, and is now open to be legislated on by the citizens you want input from.
No.
Humans (and that includes women) have agency. That includes bodily autonomy and any "law" that restricts that is unethical, misogynistic and flat wrong.
Don't like abortion? Don't have one. As far as anyone else is concerned it's none of your concern.
> if abortion rights was made more explicit or made outright a right guaranteed by the constitution.
It is, the right of security in your person is the right to body autonomy.
Without the latter, you do not have the former.
Sadly, the only amendment to the constitution that reactionaries recognize to mean anything is the second. (And even with that one, they drop half the words to come to the conclusion they want.)
> You seem to be accusing everyone who disagrees with you of malice and abandonment of all principles - more or less evil.
Not at all. I think they have the best of intentions. But their principles are different than the principles of our parents’ generation of liberals.
> And one could likewise say that much of conservative thought is an attempt to force people to adhere to certain religious values using state coercion. But that would just be an opinion, not a fact.
That’s a good comparison actually. It’s reminiscent of the old religious right. The difference is that these new liberals are ascendant, while the religious right is in the decline, being supplanted by the populist right.
> What is fact is that many (possibly most?) conservative policies and doctrines do not enjoy majority support in the United States
The irony is that liberals have consistently used the Supreme Court to overturn the conservative policies that do enjoy popular support.
It’s “heads I win, tails you lose.” Liberals invoke the “will of the people” when it comes to Obamacare, but insist on edicts from ivory tower elites to override the popular will when it comes to unpopular liberal efforts at social engineering.
> convenient wedge issues or rallying cries for a small minority of the voting base - a minority that happens to be highly motivated.
When folks call abortion a “wedge issue” what they mean is that liberals feel like that they own that issue so completely it’s not even up for debate. Those issues are a therefore a distraction from the ones that they are willing to subject to the political process. Thus the intense outrage over this draft opinion, while extended ETC benefits passed quietly into the night.
Imposing the social mores of (mostly white) educated liberals on the population is the #1 priority of the Democratic Party. That’s why abortion is a litmus test—rather than raising taxes on the upper middle class—in a party where 1/3 of the actual voters identify as “pro life.” That’s why Democrats are pissing away historic opportunities created by unforced errors by the GOP, and alienating Hispanic voters they depend on, by doing stuff like trying to convince parents to let them talk about sexuality to young kids. Because that’s the party’s actual priority.
Your point about minorities suppressing the majority is ironic. Leaving aside that the effect you’re talking about is small—look at the Congressional popular vote, where Republicans have won an outright majority half the time since 2000–you’re correct. It is a problem when minorities overrule majorities. That’s why decades of liberal Supreme Court rulings overruling the public on issue after issue have been tremendously damaging to our political process.
After decades of beating down the public and doing stuff like forcing small towns to allow strip clubs to operate in the name of free speech, complaining about the Supreme Court “ignoring the popular will” is the height of irony.
This is not an interesting observation but a disingenuously naive hot take straight from right wing reactionaries that conveniently or ignorantly ignores reality and the history of radical theological propaganda that’s being crafted by conservative think tanks and disseminated by their media orgs in a campaign to manufacture consent and shift public opinion. This particular tactic is called projection.
>>projection:
>>Psychological projection is the process of misinterpreting what is "inside" as coming from "outside". It forms the basis of empathy by the projection of personal experiences to understand someone else's subjective world.
>I think the recent legal ruling was proper because of the specific omission of abortion in the enumeration of federal powers.
Then abortion is plainly protected by the ninth, tenth, thirteenth and fourteenth amendments. One must use their ideological or theological beliefs as renegade dogma in order to reject the protection afforded by these amendments.
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