Are you in favor 0f Roe v Wade being upheld or overturned?

Baldimo wrote:

Morality should be defined by the majority. Most people here in the US have the same moral codes. When it comes to the more controversial moral the majority should define them.

Majority where? In the world? In one's country? In one's state? In one's city? In one's household?

I'm sorry, but what is moral changes based on who you are and what kind of resources you have.

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MerlinsGodson wrote:

Baldimo wrote:
Morality should be defined by the majority. Most people here in the US have the same moral codes. When it comes to the more controversial moral the majority should define them.

Majority where? In the world? In one's country? In one's state? In one's city? In one's household?

I'm sorry, but what is moral changes based on who you are and what kind of resources you have.

mg, i think this is one of those instances where the conservative idea of "community standards" is being neatly tossed out the window.

and, what is moral is also affected by your religious beliefs. that's not meant to be a snipe, it's just a fact.

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Baldimo wrote:

DontTreadOnMe wrote:
Baldimo wrote:
I happen to think there would be quite a few that would do this. If given the choice, states would rule in favor of morality instead of mortality.

morality as defined by who, baldi. i'm curious.

Morality should be defined by the majority. Most people here in the US have the same moral codes. When it comes to the more controversial moral the majority should define them.

The Bill of Rights, and parts of the Constitution, were specifically designed to protect the rights of the minority from the morals of the majority.

People in the majority don't need the protection of free speech. The majority doesn't worry about the establishment of religion. Those in the majority don't even need a judicial system (as the majority is always able to decide who is guilty).

Are you in favor of the Bill of Rights Baldimo?

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I'm in favor of overturning Roe v Wade. Not only that, I think any woman who has an abortion along with the man that caused the situation to occur should be tried and convicted of felony 1 murder and given the death penality sans any appeal process.

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DontTreadOnMe wrote:

MerlinsGodson wrote:
Baldimo wrote:
Morality should be defined by the majority. Most people here in the US have the same moral codes. When it comes to the more controversial moral the majority should define them.

I'm sorry, but what is moral changes based on who you are and what kind of resources you have.

and, what is moral is also affected by your religious beliefs. that's not meant to be a snipe, it's just a fact.

I agree; that's part of what I meant by "who you are."

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JanW wrote:

I didn't express what I meant clearly. Let me try again, while touching on other aspects of your message.

USSC: I agree that the "right to privacy" is judicial activism, but I am not opposed to that in and of itself. What is protected is the "liberty" (14th, with, as you noted, sometimes appeals to a geneal penumbra) to make certain personal decisions that involve controversial issues about life and its value. From Planned Parenthood v Casey (1992): these decisions "involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to a person's dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment." In my opinion this is as good an example of judicial activism as any other and is far better than most (such as designating corporations as "persons").

And, of course, I agree that as long as this is a judicial issue that it is not open to the rule of the majority (i.e., legislation).

However, if Roe v Wade were overturned, the states would then be free to legislate regarding abortion as they see fit. And I think that anti-abortionists ought to be very careful in wanting to make abortion illegal, for the day may well come when the majority of people want to make abortion (in at least some cases) legally required.

It seems to me that the choice is really between an individual's having freedom of choice regarding such decisions and an individual's having to bow to the will of the majority. It might not be long before the majority wants to require some abortions. I myself think that carrying some pregnancies to term is immoral; this being the case, I have to decide whether to try to convince people that this is a morally correct position or whether to work for legislation forcing some abortions. (Those are not mutually exclusive, of course, but when it comes to the bottom line they might be.)

Observations such as this MIGHT encourage those who believe that abortion should be illegal to rethink that position.

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Steppenwolf wrote:

principal effect therefore might have been to contribute to feelings of victimization by religious conservatives

i find this fascinating. and totally illogical on the part of the religious who feel victimized. where do they get that from?

i am unaware of anybody suggesting, much less telling the christian conservatives, or any other religion that they may not, cannot or will not be allowed to practice their religion.

(well, i take that back. there is a native american tribe who is being assaulted by the administration's trial lawyers because their religion, like many other native faiths, uses a psychedelic compound as a sacrament. but i digress...).

how is it being vicimized to ask a religious group to tend to their own fences rather than insisting that all follow their belief?

how is it being victimized to say, "i have my own beliefs, thank you very much. please keep yours to yourself".

how is it being victimized to point to the charters of our country and note that there is no national religion. no matter how many times religious politicians, radio personalities, pundits or bible school scholars claim that there is. with no national documents to support that assertion. but many to contradict it.

how is it being victimized to simply be told, " fine. you have your beliefs. they dictate certain standards to you as one of faith. if a thing or action goes against that belief, don't do it. but leave another's actions with he/she and their creator".

that's not being victimized. that's being told to mind your own business.

or in a more politic way, " i support you in the effort to practice and maintain your religious faith. please show me the same respect".

seems simple doesn't it?

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(Responding to au's initial post, haven't read the responses so far)

au, quoting the Washington Post, wrote:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A majority of Americans say President Bush's next choice for an opening on the Supreme Court should be willing to uphold the landmark court decision protecting abortion rights, an Associated Press poll found.

Contrast this to what the poll actually asked, according to pollingreport.com:

The authors of the AP poll wrote:

"As you may know, President Bush may have the opportunity to appoint several new justices to the U.S. Supreme Court during his second term. The 1973 Supreme Court ruling called Roe v. Wade made abortion in the first three months of pregnancy legal. Do you think President Bush should nominate Supreme Court justices who would uphold the Roe v. Wade decision, or nominate justices who would overturn the Roe v. Wade decision?"

Roe vs. Wade did a lot more than making "abortion in the first three months of pregnancy legal". The respondents are giving their answers based on the premise that this is just about the first three months of pregnancy. This premise is false, and it systematically distorts the responses in a direction that is friendly towards Roe. According to another poll on the same website, the majority of Americans believes that abortion should be generally legal during the first trimester of the pregnancy, generally illegal during the last two.

au, again quoting the Washington Post, wrote:

"While I don't have a strong feeling about abortions personally, I wouldn't want the law overturned and return to the days of backdoor abortions," said Colleen Dunn, 40, a Republican and community college teacher who lives outside Philadelphia.

From the standpoint of 'conservative' judges such as Rehnquist, Thomas and Scalia, the issue isn't legal abortion vs. illegal abortion, which I think is what Ms. Dunn means by "backdoor abortions". The issue is whether the constitution confers the power to regulate abortions to the State governments or to the Federal government, and whether the fourth amendment (and maybe the ninth) protects a right to abort an embryo. The consequences of overruling Roe would be (a) to turn the issue over to the State governments, not to outlaw abortion, and (b) to turn abortion into an issue that is decided on by democratic majority vote -- just like any other political issue.

Based on the correct premises, I believe that as a matter of constitutional law the Supreme Court would be correct to overrule Roe vs. Wade. As a matter of policy, I would advocate a qualified pro-choice position not too different from what America now has, but slightly more restrictive towards the last two trimesters of the pregnancy.

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constitution

Thomas wrote:

Based on the correct premises, I believe that as a matter of constitutional law the Supreme Court would be correct to overrule Roe vs. Wade.

First, how would the issue of overruling Roe v. Wade ever make its way to the Supreme Court for reconsideration? There has to be a justiciable case or controversy brought by someone with standing -- someone who is suffering a concrete injury in fact. If you actually read Roe v. Wade, several people claimed standing but were denied standing. The only person who had standing was Ms. Roe, a single woman who was pregnant at the time her suit was brought challenging the constitutionality of state laws that criminalized abortion.

Second, what part of Roe v. Wade would the Supreme Court be "correct" to overrule as a matter of constitutional law? Would it be the "right to privacy" protected by the constitution?

All persons have a fundamental right to privacy -- the right to be free of unreasonable government interference into their private matters.

All persons have the right to equal protection of the laws.

Like it or not, pregnant women have a fundmental right to privacy -- and that fundamental right is entitled to equal protection under the law. The decision to terminate a pregnancy--especially a first trimester pregnancy--is a private and personal decision in which the state has no interest compelling enough to warrant a substantial intrusion.

In the first trimester, having an abortion is far less hazardous to woman's health than giving birth. In the second trimester, the state's interest in protecting the woman's health is heightened. In the third trimester, the state's interest in protecting potential life is heightened. The state may regulate abortions, but may only do so only in accordance with its legitimate interests.

Roe v. Wade cannot be overruled unless the Supreme Court determines that pregnant women (and by fiat -- all other persons) have no fundamental right of privacy protected by the Constitution. That isn't going to happen. In constitutional cases, stare decisis carries such persuasive force that the Court has always required a departure from precedent to be supported by some special justification. There is no special justification for overruling Roe v. Wade -- just like there was no special justification for overruling Miranda v. Arizona. See Dickerson v. United States

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Re: constitution

Debra_Law wrote:

First, how would the issue of overruling Roe v. Wade ever make its way to the Supreme Court for reconsideration? There has to be a justiciable case or controversy brought by someone with standing -- someone who is suffering a concrete injury in fact.

It happens. I specifically remember Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, and there may well have been other cases that would have allowed the court to revisit Roe. I see no reason why a similar case shouldn't make its way to the Supreme Court again.

Debra_Law wrote:

Second, what part of Roe v. Wade would the Supreme Court be "correct" to overrule as a matter of constitutional law? Would it be the "right to privacy" protected by the constitution?

Yes, because the constitution, literally interpreted, does not protect a right to privacy. More specifically, it isn't clear that the Supreme Court, in Roe vs. Wade, was correct in stating that laws against abortion violate the Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." You can construct a 'right to abort an embryo' with a long interpretational stretch that starts with the Fourth Amendment. But reasonable jurists can believe that this stretch is too long to constitute a valid interpretation -- and many of them do.

Debrah_Law wrote:

In constitutional cases, stare decisis carries such persuasive force that the Court has always required a departure from precedent to be supported by some special justification.

As an example to the contrary, let me offer United States vs. Butler (1936) and Wickard vs. Filburn (1942). In Butler, the Supreme Court ruled part of Roosevelt's Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional, on the grounds that growing corn to feed it to your hogs doesn't constitute interstate commerce, so the federal government can't regulate it under the Commerce Clause. In Wickard, only six years later, the Supreme Court held the corresponding part of Roosevelt's (updated) Agricultural Adjustment Act constitutional on the grounds that growing wheat to feed it to your chicken does constitute interstate commerce, so can be regulated by the federal government under the Commerce Clause. If the Supreme Court gave a special justification for this change of mind, I can't find it in its ruling on Wickard vs. Filburn. So much for the "persuasive force" of stare decisis.

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DontTreadOnMe wrote:

Ticomaya wrote:
And don't you see a distinction between a law that says "Thou shall have no children," and one that says, "Thou shall be free to kill your children to your hearts desire"?

it is very telling that the wording for your "argument law" begins with "thou". i could be mistaken, but from the law texts that i have read, they don't use the word "thou". now perhaps some very early ones do. i don't know. but that is more a case of the bible being translated into english during a long period when that was common vernacular.

i don't like the idea that the chinese government tells people that they may not have a child, under any circumstance. none of the government's business.

you see the right for a woman to self determine a pregnancy as being "free to murder your children to your heart's content".

but i, and many others, see the anti-abortion stance as a woman or a couple being told that "you will have this child, under any and all circumstances".

once again, none of the government's business. nor frankly, is it the neighbor's affair either.

I'm not sure what you think is "telling" about my use of that word. The word "thou" is in some translations of the Bible, but was used elsewhere. I use it frequently when talking about laws, believe it or not. I suppose I"m strange in that regard ...

IMO, a woman can "self determine" a pregnancy by the use of birth control measures, without rising to "murdering" her children. I don't view abortion as a valid birth control measure, though.

Again, the key question is the issue of when life begins. I say its conception, and not some vague point thereafter. I suppose you would agree it is inappropriate for a couple to kill their newborn, because they don't want to "keep it"? And further, that it IS the government's business to prevent that from happening?

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Re: constitution

Debra_Law wrote:

Roe v. Wade cannot be overruled unless the Supreme Court determines that pregnant women (and by fiat -- all other persons) have no fundamental right of privacy protected by the Constitution. That isn't going to happen. In constitutional cases, stare decisis carries such persuasive force that the Court has always required a departure from precedent to be supported by some special justification. There is no special justification for overruling Roe v. Wade -- just like there was no special justification for overruling Miranda v. Arizona. See Dickerson v. United States

I disagree. We can easily distinguish Roe and its progeny from other privacy cases without disturbing them. The Roe line is a privacy outlier, resting not on private, consensual sexual activity (as per Lawrence v. Texas, Griswold v. Connecticut, etc.), but on the relationship between a doctor and a patient. To argue that the doctor/patient relationship has traditionally been subject to as little regulation as consensual sex is implausible considering the vast quantities of regulation in medicine. This stands in sharp contrast to the lack of regulations for sexual behavior -- the only such regulations concern consensuality. One could therefore easily construct a system where "privacy" attaches to consensual sexual activities but not paid medical services.

As far as I can tell, much of the Court agrees with me, as evinced by the joint opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which sparsely mentions "privacy" or the major privacy cases (part II of the opinion mentions the privacy cases at the end, but attaches little weight to them). Rather, the joint opinion by O'Connor, Souter, and Kennedy appears to rest on some sort of liberty interest independent of privacy of the Griswold variant. Much of that loose coalition also depended on respect for stare decisis, as you note. However, recall that the court hasn't hesitated to overrule major cases in recent times. We needn't dig into such unrelated fields as the commerce clause and Wickard v. Filburn to prove this point. Look at Bowers v. Hardwick as compared to Lawrence v. Texas -- this alone captures the Court's willingness to tweak privacy despite stare decisis. Why Bowers but not Roe? <As an aside, I prefer Equal Protection for Bowers, ala O'Connor, but strangely, the Court hasn't been returning my calls> Laughing

Ultimately, I wouldn't mind taking a hard look at substantive due process as a whole, but we certainly don't need to go that far to drop the Roe line. We can just as easily remove the Roe line with a scalpel as with a hatchet -- privacy can survive. Whether Roe could be housed under a Ginsburg-esque "equal protection" analysis (as opposed to "due process") merits some scrutiny, but I doubt abortion will ever make it to EP.

<I tried to link to each case once. Forgive me if I missed any, but they're all online.>

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Ticomaya wrote:

Again, the key question is the issue of when life begins. I say its conception, and not some vague point thereafter.

What do you base that belief on? Your belief is not enough to base a law on.

Reformed Judaism belief (as I recall) is that life begins at the first breath.

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DontTreadOnMe wrote:

i find this fascinating. and totally illogical on the part of the religious who feel victimized. where do they get that from?

Ah, I almost didn't see this in the sea of recent posts. I'll take an agnostic stance on this one (for now). Whether of not they should feel victimized is interesting. You make a good and coherent point, but this not on my plate at the moment... I was merely observing the potential effect of a decision by the Court on topics of religious and social significance. The rational underpinnings of such an effect (feelings of victimization or religious oppression) are beyond the scope of my argument.

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MerlinsGodson wrote:

Ticomaya wrote:
Again, the key question is the issue of when life begins. I say its conception, and not some vague point thereafter.

... Your belief is not enough to base a law on.

...

I guess if it were it would be called "Ticomaya's Law."

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Merlins
Your last post made me wonder when life begins according the Ulta Religious. I googled and found nothing [did not look very diligently}. However, in my youth I attended an ultra religious yeshiva {Hasidic}. I seem to remember that the belief is that all souls that ever will be are in heaven. And at the time of birth the prescribed soul enters the body. Therefore I can only conclude that the belief is that life begins at birth not conception.

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Ticomaya wrote:

I'm not sure what you think is "telling" about my use of that word. The word "thou" is in some translations of the Bible, but was used elsewhere. I use it frequently when talking about laws, believe it or not. I suppose I"m strange in that regard ...

fair enough, tico. the point i was making is that it appeared that "your" laws were biblical in, umm, direction? nature? and since not everyone's faith is outlined by that book, neither would be their pov.

Ticomaya wrote:

IMO, a woman can "self determine" a pregnancy by the use of birth control measures, without rising to "murdering" her children. I don't view abortion as a valid birth control measure, though.

i thought that i had made it clear that i don't go for it as a replacement for birth control. sorry. but, i cannot bring myself to insist that a woman carry, birth or raise a child that is unwanted. again, as i mentioned, i don't belief that "life" begins at conception.

Ticomaya wrote:

Again, the key question is the issue of when life begins. I say its conception, and not some vague point thereafter. I suppose you would agree it is inappropriate for a couple to kill their newborn, because they don't want to "keep it"? And further, that it IS the government's business to prevent that from happening?

your pov states that "life" begins at conception. but a fetus is not a being. it is an egg yolk. not trying to be crass, just saying that a fetus is a "possibility of life", not a sentient being.

here's another thing that hasn't been brought up. partial birth procedure. as i mentioned before, the right to choose comes with responsibility.

i'm not real happy about partial birth. for many reasons. however, the recent ban that was in congress had no provision for the value of the life of the mother. how does that respect the sanctity of life?

tell ya this, if my wife was in danger of dying due to the pregnancy? there is no choice to me. she stays, the pregnancy gets terminated at any cost. that's not murdering a child, that's saving a fully developed, sentient and self sufficient being.

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Steppenwolf wrote:

DontTreadOnMe wrote:

i find this fascinating. and totally illogical on the part of the religious who feel victimized. where do they get that from?

Ah, I almost didn't see this in the sea of recent posts. I'll take an agnostic stance on this one (for now). Whether of not they should feel victimized is interesting. You make a good and coherent point, but this not on my plate at the moment... I was merely observing the potential effect of a decision by the Court on topics of religious and social significance. The rational underpinnings of such an effect (feelings of victimization or religious oppression) are beyond the scope of my argument.

yeah, it is a side issue. but it weighs heavily in the total debate of abortion since as you said, it has driven the religious right in their attempt to bring religion into government, and therefore into other peoples private lives.

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Ticomaya wrote:

Again, the key question is the issue of when life begins.

This is the smaller issue. The real issue is that nobody can agree on the answer to this question. There are equally persuasive arguments on both sides. It will NEVER be agreed upon, and therefore, should not be legislated by the government. Abortion should be up to the people involved, according to their own beliefs.

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sort of where we're going, kicky.

"if you don't believe in it, don't do it".

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Are you in favor 0f Roe v Wade being upheld or overturned?

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