Political Crossfire Forums

[Gilbert1908]

Gitana wrote: My only question regarding overturning Roe vs Wade: how do you overturn that without allowing the invasion of a woman's medical privacy?


:woo: Boston girl here, too.

I take the position of these famous LIBERAL Law professors all of whom support the right to choose but see RVW as faulty law.


"The failure to confront the issue in principled terms leaves the opinion to read like a set of hospital rules and regulations. ... Neither historian, nor layman, nor lawyer will be persuaded that all the prescriptions of Justice Blackmun are part of the Constitution." Archibald Cox Harvard Law Professor, Watergate Prosecutor

"What is frightening about Roe is that this super-protected right is not inferable from the language of the Constitution, the framers' thinking respecting the specific problem in issue, any general value derivable from the provisions they included, or the nation's governmental structure. Nor is it explainable in terms of the unusual political impotence of the group judicially protected vis à vis the interests that legislatively prevailed over it. And that, I believe ... is a charge that can responsibly be leveled at no other decision of the past twenty years. At times the inferences the Court has drawn from the values the Constitution marks for special protection have been controversial, even shaky, but never before has its sense of an obligation to draw one been so obviously lacking." Article in the Yale Law Review by John Hart Ely, late Stanford law school dean

"...The opinion is replete with irrelevancies, non-sequiturs, and unsubstantiated assertions. The court decides matters it disavows any intention of deciding--thereby avoiding any need to defend its conclusion. In the process the opinion simply fails to convince." Prof. Joseph Dellapenna, Law Professor Villanova University

“One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.” Laurence Tribe — Harvard Law School. Lawyer for Al Gore in 2000.“The Supreme Court, 1972 Term—Foreword: Toward a Model of Roles in the Due Process of Life and Law,” 87 Harvard Law Review 1, 7 (1973).

“Roe, I believe, would have been more acceptable as a judicial decision if it had not gone beyond a ruling on the extreme statute before the court. … Heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg — Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court- North Carolina Law Review, 1985

“As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible. I say this as someone utterly committed to the right to choose, as someone who believes such a right has grounding elsewhere in the Constitution instead of where Roe placed it, and as someone who loved Roe’s author like a grandfather. Edward Lazarus — Former clerk to Harry Blackmun

“What, exactly, is the problem with Roe? The problem, I believe, is that it has little connection to the Constitutional right it purportedly interpreted. A constitutional right to privacy broad enough to include abortion has no meaningful foundation in constitutional text, history, or precedent - at least, it does not if those sources are fairly described and reasonably faithfully followed.” Edward Lazarus — Former clerk to Harry Blackmun

Roe v. Wade and Bush v. Gore “represent opposite sides of the same currency of judicial activism in areas more appropriately left to the political processes…. Judges have no special competence, qualifications, or mandate to decide between equally compelling moral claims (as in the abortion controversy)…. [C]lear governing constitutional principles … are not present in either case.” Alan Dershowitz — Harvard Law School Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000 (New York: Oxford) 2001, p. 194.

[Gilbert1908]

toddytodd wrote: Gilbert1908 wrote: Gitana wrote: I'd be interested in knowing, if all abortion were made illegal, what punishment people think would be appropriate for a woman who had an abortion anyway?

I am pro life but do not seek the nationwide immediate ban of abortion, that is unrealistic and in the long term and for the same reason as destructive and divisive as the immediate and nationwide mandate of abortion was.

Instead I seek an over turning of Roe V. Wade and then let the states determine how to handle the issue.

South Dakota for example offers NO penalties for the woman seeking the abortion but punishes the medical people who would provide an illegal procedure.

I live in MA, so I am sure there may some minor restrictions added but probably no real changes.

I have posted here before that 60% of the American public would like to see further restrictions on abortion, while slightly fewer do not want it made illegal. I think almost anyone would like to find a way to reduce the number of abortions, after all it is not as though abortion is a positive experience for ANYONE other than those who profit from it.
Quote: Instead I seek an over turning of Roe V. Wade and then let the states determine how to handle the issue. Wouldn't that create too much of a riff in the country? Not only that, but I would think many would cross state lines, then there would be financial issues as well. That just seems to be a wrong answer to the solution - almost an answer that is considered an easy out - perhaps to save face.
I have always been taught what is wrong is wrong and what is right is right, regardless of what state one is in. But that's just me...

The riff was made far more intense far faster when 7 men made the decision for 250 million people and did it by creating a "right to privacy" that simply does not exist in the constitution. (See the quotes of LIBERAL law professors above)

There were already 30 states that had legalized abortion under various conditions prior to the RVW. SO the democratic process was working and there is little doubt there would have been FAR less divisiveness had that process continued. It was the instant, nationwide legalization of abortion that created the increased intensity.

[Gitana]

Wouldn't a defeat of Roe vs Wade on the grounds that the Constitution provides for no such privacy protection/interpretation rip the rug out from under all the previous and subsequent cases that have also used the right to privacy as their foundation - such as Griswold v. CT, Eisenstadt v. Baird, and many, many others? Are we to return to a time when it was illegal for married couples to use contraception in the privacy of their own home? Do you feel a woman has no right to privacy between herself and her doctor - even if leaving out the abortion element?

Tricky, tricky.

Quote: There were already 30 states that had legalized abortion under various conditions prior to the RVW.

Well, times have changed, & not necessarily for the better. Currently, states are so sure of the direction of the SC that they are already installing trigger laws against abortion; to go into effect immediately 'when' Roe vs Wade is defeated.

[JayDubya]

Gitana wrote: Wouldn't a defeat of Roe vs Wade on the grounds that the Constitution provides for no such privacy protection/interpretation rip the rug out from under all the previous and subsequent cases that have also used the right to privacy as their foundation - such as Griswold v. CT, Eisenstadt v. Baird, and many, many others? Are we to return to a time when it was illegal for married couples to use contraception in the privacy of their own home? Do you feel a woman has no right to privacy between herself and her doctor - even if leaving out the abortion element?

Tricky, tricky.

If that it what it takes, so be it. You may continue to try and confuse the issue, but the ruling of the court was unconstitutional. If that changes other rulings, well, then I guess they've got a lot of work to do.

There is nothing tricky or complicated about it.

[Gilbert1908]

Gitana wrote: Wouldn't a defeat of Roe vs Wade on the grounds that the Constitution provides for no such privacy protection/interpretation rip the rug out from under all the previous and subsequent cases that have also used the right to privacy as their foundation - such as Griswold v. CT, Eisenstadt v. Baird, and many, many others? Are we to return to a time when it was illegal for married couples to use contraception in the privacy of their own home? Do you feel a woman has no right to privacy between herself and her doctor - even if leaving out the abortion element?

Tricky, tricky.

Quote: There were already 30 states that had legalized abortion under various conditions prior to the RVW.

Well, times have changed, & not necessarily for the better. Currently, states are so sure of the direction of the SC that they are already installing trigger laws against abortion; to go into effect immediately 'when' Roe vs Wade is defeated.

I don't know of any laws being SUGGESTED that would reduce or eliminate contraceptives and I am unaware of ANY support for such a law. And the issue from the legal position of the lawyers was not WHETHER there should be abortion I believe everyone of them would support "choice" they were arguing that RVW was NOT rightly decided constitutionally.

I take the position that the BEST way to decide it is in the state legislatures and by the way, much to my personal dissapointment somewhere near 40 states would most likly have laws very close to what we have today, however on the plus side and in line with the very large majority on this subject there would be further restrictions.

An abortion does not take place in your home.

A doctor can not proscribe drugs which are illegal.

A doctor can not perform an operation which he/she is not qualified to do.

The idea that a specific medical procedure is somehow protected by privacy constitutionally, yet NO other medial procedures are is simply mind boggling to me.

[Gitana]

Quote: The idea that a specific medical procedure is somehow protected by privacy constitutionally, yet NO other medial procedures are is simply mind boggling to me.

Roe v Wade has had many challenges over the last thiry years. If it was such a flawed legal decision, one would think it would have been overturned long ago, especially by the well-funded prolife movement.

ALL medical procedures and records (well, until the Patriot Act, perhaps) are protected by an assumption of the right to privacy. This is why your employer cannot access your medical history before hiring you, for example, or find out what form of birth control you & your spouse use, and not hire you because he's a strict fundamentalist and doesn't think you should use any. Many other laws rely on various Constitutional assumptions of both privacy and personal physical autonomy. The other way of viewing your arguement is to say that opponents are targeting one specific medical procedure that they disagree with, for discrimination. Another view is to say that opponents want to control one specific medical procedure -or medical privacy - of only the female population in this country. Like it or not, that's pure discrimination.

The prolifers are attempting to legally define a blastocyst (or the moment of conception even) as a human being, to get around this; but this would open a Pandora's Box of other problems should such a ruling come to pass. You do not think defeating Roe v Wade would affect contraception, etc - but in legal terms it most certainly could affect these things (and many more) if rulings subsequent to Roe lost their basis of privacy that Roe established. You need only look through some of these threads to see the range of people who believe that any form of contraception is potentially deadly to a 'human life', and should therefore not be used . I'm sure you think that couldn't happen, but remember it was only a short 40 years ago that even a married couple in CT, for example, could not use birth control - it was illegal.

So let's be mindful of our history, and whether you are for or against choice, let's keep in mind that we are in an age when certain factions are perfectly happy to invade your personal life, and remove rights you currently take for granted. The evolution of loss of rights may not end where you want it to.

Quote: The riff was made far more intense far faster when 7 men made the decision for 250 million people

Roe doesn't force anyone who is against abortion to have one. The ruling didn't 'decide for 250 million people'; it simply said people don't have the right to be poking around in someone else's medical affairs. And they don't. Within that context, abortion isn't even the larger issue.

The only possible way to defeat my rights over my own body are to declare a blasocyst a human being, with all the legal ramifications of that term, and that will open up a huge can of worms that will involve other Constitutional areas. The only possible result should the extreme prolifers get their way is the relegation of women back to some form of second class citizens, and their bodies as State-controlled vessels to be used against their will.

Sorry - my body is not the playing field for someone else's ideology; and it will be a dark omen of the direction of a free society should anything like this occur. I just love the thought that some people want to use the concept of freedom to take freedom away from some people.

[Gilbert1908]

Gitana wrote: Quote: The idea that a specific medical procedure is somehow protected by privacy constitutionally, yet NO other medial procedures are is simply mind boggling to me.

Roe v Wade has had many challenges over the last thiry years. If it was such a flawed legal decision, one would think it would have been overturned long ago, especially by the well-funded prolife movement.

ALL medical procedures and records (well, until the Patriot Act, perhaps) are protected by an assumption of the right to privacy. This is why your employer cannot access your medical history before hiring you, for example, or find out what form of birth control you & your spouse use, and not hire you because he's a strict fundamentalist and doesn't think you should use any. Many other laws rely on various Constitutional assumptions of both privacy and personal physical autonomy. The other way of viewing your arguement is to say that opponents are targeting one specific medical procedure that they disagree with, for discrimination. Another view is to say that opponents want to control one specific medical procedure -or medical privacy - of only the female population in this country. Like it or not, that's pure discrimination.

The prolifers are attempting to legally define a blastocyst (or the moment of conception even) as a human being, to get around this; but this would open a Pandora's Box of other problems should such a ruling come to pass. You do not think defeating Roe v Wade would affect contraception, etc - but in legal terms it most certainly could affect these things (and many more) if rulings subsequent to Roe lost their basis of privacy that Roe established. You need only look through some of these threads to see the range of people who believe that any form of contraception is potentially deadly to a 'human life', and should therefore not be used . I'm sure you think that couldn't happen, but remember it was only a short 40 years ago that even a married couple in CT, for example, could not use birth control - it was illegal.

So let's be mindful of our history, and whether you are for or against choice, let's keep in mind that we are in an age when certain factions are perfectly happy to invade your personal life, and remove rights you currently take for granted. The evolution of loss of rights may not end where you want it to.

Quote: The riff was made far more intense far faster when 7 men made the decision for 250 million people

Roe doesn't force anyone who is against abortion to have one. The ruling didn't 'decide for 250 million people'; it simply said people don't have the right to be poking around in someone else's medical affairs. And they don't. Within that context, abortion isn't even the larger issue.

The only possible way to defeat my rights over my own body are to declare a blasocyst a human being, with all the legal ramifications of that term, and that will open up a huge can of worms that will involve other Constitutional areas. The only possible result should the extreme prolifers get their way is the relegation of women back to some form of second class citizens, and their bodies as State-controlled vessels to be used against their will.

Sorry - my body is not the playing field for someone else's ideology; and it will be a dark omen of the direction of a free society should anything like this occur. I just love the thought that some people want to use the concept of freedom to take freedom away from some people.

You can not legally get an abortion as of week 24 of a pregnancy. What then is the difference between week 24 and week 13 with regard to your right of privacy?

[Gitana]

Quote: You can not legally get an abortion as of week 24 of a pregnancy. What then is the difference between week 24 and week 13 with regard to your right of privacy?

I have to guess at this, as I am not familiar with the case that decided this law. Most likely, someone with enough financial resources took this case to court and won a decision to legally define the difference between the gestational ages of pregnancy in regards specifically to abortion. It probably didn't have anything at all to do with Roe and the privacy issue; my guess is that they used medical science; possibly the determination of viability/developmental stages of a fetus as the basis for this decision.

I have no problem with abortion being limited to even the first 12 weeks - even eight - but I cannot support this limitation, because I know it would only be used as a stepping stone to completely eliminate all abortion. Hard-core abortion opponents are partially working against themselves, as they are forcing many of us who would be fine with even stricter limits to work against them, because we know the long-term goal is complete elimination of all choice.

It still comes down to ideology battling secular civil rights in a legal arena, because the core issue for the hard-line prolifers is when they think a human being is a human being - and in many of their minds, conception = human being, and/or the potential to become a human = being a human. We'll see what happens. It will be interesting to see if subjective morality becomes inserted into our laws, or if they remain true to the foundational concept of logic and reason.

You didn't address any of the other points raised in my previous post.

Quote: An abortion does not take place in your home.

Interesting that you brought that up, because that could possibly become a chess piece in this legal game, with the advent of pill abortificants. (Which is one reason why they won't make the RU pill legal here - they would lose all control over the abortion process, and it would become a home privacy issue.) Btw - do hard-core prolifers also intend to make illegal all the natural abortificants? Or will law only reflect upon illegal medical abortions?