Whenever a new Supreme Court nominee comes along it seems like 80% of the debate is centered around abortion and Roe v. Wade. Yes, other things are discussed but it seems to be background noise…states rights, indivividual rights, executive power, seperation of church and state, etc. Abortion is not a litmus test forme, I would even say it isn’t even on my radar of concerns(for the record, I am pro-choice).
And for others it is a litmus test? But is it really that big a concern of most people. Now I understand that issues such as the Right to Privacy , state’s rights, etc. are tied to the Abortion issue. But it is hardly defining of someone on these issues.
Well, I’m philisophically opposed to abortion, but I don’t think making it illegal would be a particularly effective way of stopping people from having them.
(For whatever reason, the abortion debate also crosses into the death penalty debate, but maybe I shouldn’t open that can of worms.)
I have been thinking about this quite a bit and I agree to some extent. It seems there is a small set of issues that I call “fluff social issues” that dominate an undue amount of politics. These include a stance on gay marriage, abortion, prayer in schools, some gun control measures and others. These topics are easy for people to understand and they tend to cling to them emotionally and use them as political shorthand both for themselves and candidates.
Of course these issues are important to some people but they shouldn’t dominate political commentary for decades. They detract attention from issues with substance like long-term foreign policy, fiscal policy, and economic philosophy. Those issues are harder for people to understand so people on all sides tend to reach for the pieces of fluff that they feel most strongly about.
I think there’s more to it than simplicity. Shagnasty’s “fluff” issues are black and white, the “substance” issues have miles of middle ground and compromise to work with.
Where is the compromise position on abortion? There are compromises galore in fiscal policy, and one could argue that policy generally occupies the middle ground rather than the extremes. The fluff issues are nothing but extremes.
There is also visibility. It’s pretty easy to tell when a decision affects abortion rights or gay marriage rights, result follows action pretty distinctly. It’s near impossible to tell when a particular fiscal decision affects the economy, how it affects it, and where it affects it. You wind up with dueling Economics PhD’s arguing both sides.
Take our excellent economy during Clinton. How much was due to his individual decisions, vs. GHW Bush’s decisions, vs. the new Dot Com craze, vs. some melange of various global factors? Can anyone point to an individual decision or vote and say it helped or hurt the economy?
If Alito votes against abortion, it goes down by one vote, and becomes a states rights issue, boy you can really say that a different vote there would have made a difference.
You see, in this country we have along history with Fluff Social Issues. First I think it was some stupid thing about freeing slaves and before you know it the wimmin’ folk are wantin to vote. Who’da thunk it?
Now we got these folks all worked up about an embryo like it’s a human or somethin’! They should concentrate on something with substance, like maybe the line item veto. :dubious:
You would think that Alito is being nominated for the United States Abortion Court. My two cents is that Roe is never going to be overturned. I recall listening to a Wayne State law professor on WJR one day, and he was absolutely confident that it will never be overturned. His reasoning: the court has never in history established an individual right and then later taken it away. Perhaps the legal scholars among us can find a counterexample but this professor (sorry but I don’t know his name) had no doubt whatsoever about the matter.
Yes, we spend too much time with it. The only long term resolution would be a constitutional amendment one way or the other. Until that is done, the vocal minorities on both sides will continue to make this the 800 pound gorilla whenever a vacancy occurs.
Agreed, but it has no significant economic effect, and allows the Republicans to hold support of a bloc of voters even though Republican fiscal policies are strongly to the disadvantage of this same bloc.
I believe abortion should be legally protected although I find it morally repugnant.
As far as I’m concerned, go ahead and put good jurists on the Supreme Court. The senate should not ask how they would rule on particular issues; or, the only answer should be “it’s not what I think that counts, it’s my job to interpret what the constitution says.”
Yeah, I live in a dream world.
Having said that, let them overturn Roe v. Wade. There are kids starving in this country while we argue about shit like gay marriage and whether, on paper, abortion should be legal (because outlawing it won’t stop it).
Maybe if the right gets their abortion wish, a lot of one-issue politicians will fall by the wayside - they won’t have anything to run on anymore.
Abortion is a pretty big deal for me. I get creeped out to the extreme at the idea that my body could be hijacked by a fetus, and that my personal well-reasoned positions regarding my health can be taken over by the state. To me, that is like slavery and makes me somewhat less than a full human. I can’t live in a country that has so many designs on me and so little respect for my life.
I dunno…do we have numbers on the economic effect of millions of unwanted or poorly cared for children, general population increase costs, etc.? It seems to me that this would somehow be measurable. But I agree with the general sentiment of your post.