Don't worry, Roe v. Wade is never getting overturned

I am convinced that the conservative powers that be have no interest in overturning Roe v. Wade. Overturning it would give a great deal of single issue voters no reason to vote Republican anymore. Republicans could pack the court with more conservative judges and would always remain “one more vote away” from overturning it. If they tried it right now I bet Gorsuch or even Kavanaugh would vote against if it was needed to keep Roe.

I’ve heard this argument, and while it is appealing, there is also the argument that overturning Roe v. Wade would actually make it even more politicized than it already is. Each state would have to go through the process of determining whether or not to legalize abortion, and to what extent it would be allowed. This might achieve the same goal; but hey, who can say? I’d prefer not to have to find out.

This is assuming that republicans are stupid sheep and will continue to be lead on a road they know doesn’t go anywhere.

This was probably the case for much of the last couple of decades, but they are getting impatient, and primarying republicans who do not put forth action.

If Roe v Wade is overturned, that will not be the end of the battle for pro-lifers, as they will expect, reasonably, that the pro-choice crowd will fight back. They will want to keep their gains.

If red states make abortion illegal, that will not be enough until there is a federal law banning it in all states. The pro-life crowd has quite the journey before they are satisfied, and it’s got a number of uphill parts to it.

Now, what exactly is meant by overturning Roe v Wade is a different matter. If the court never actually comes out and says, “We have overturned Roe v Wade” then the argument could be made that it is still in effect. But, if they strip all the protections that ruling provides, and allow laws to stand that violate it, that’s pretty much the same thing for all practical purposes.

I thought weed would never be legal either.

I could see it decreasing the pro-life fervor somewhat. Kinda of a, “It’s pro-life in my state so I’ve done my part” sort of thing.

This is magical thinking, pure and simple.

I’ll go further in the other direction – if Trump wins reelection and gets to appoint two judges, the Supreme Court will find that fetuses are people and deserve 14th amendment protection, banning abortion nationwide.

There’s not some conspiracy where all the Republicans get together to decide who will take one for the pro-choice team this time. Roberts did the bare minimum – it’s insulting to the SCOTUS to pass a law that they just overturned in the hopes that this one will fly with the new judges. It’s unbelievably cynical.

Until you find out that your neighbor can drive to another state and have their procedure there. Then you realize that just having it banned in your state isn’t good enough.

A big middle finger by Roberts. Per the article, he voted FOR restrictions in a previous case when he was on the minority side. This time, he was the vote (5-4) that OVERTURNED the proposed restrictions. Because PRECEDENCE (or the aforementioned middle finger).

Yup, because the whole idea was cynical and insulting anyway. “Here, have a case that will wipe away any pretense that you care about precedent and SCOTUS norms!” “Bite me!” says Roberts.

And what are the odds that should Ginsburg leave the bench in the next five years that Trump nominates someone - forget about liberal, but merely principled.

If these 5-4 decisions were on the other side on abortion, Roe V. Wade would do by the way of the dodo.

The OP makes the mistake of thinking strategically. The anti-choice crowd sucks at that (which is one of the only good things about them) - they go and pass laws they know will go too far, or the same laws that already were rejected, instead of just biding their time and continuing to nibble away. They lost their patience and don’t give a fuck about the long run, they want abortion over now and if that means employing methods that actually put their cause back, they rationalize it as God’s will or something.

That naivety or stupidity or whatever will work for them if they can continue to pack the courts, though. We are thisclose from moving that number over the dividing line and that is why it is imperative that Trump be sent packing in November. And that we put Ginsburg in bubble-wrap until that happens.

This is the same idiotic argument that was made pre-election about Trump being a socially progressive Republican because he’s not religious, an adulterer, and a New Yorker. There was a lot of LGBTQ noise that Trump may actually be better for gay rights than the Democrats because reasons. It was silly wishful thinking because Progressives tend to be idiots with short memories and a awful understanding of game theory.

Trust me, Republicans fucking love power and they love exerting that power. They are also totally and completely beholden to the worst moneyed special interests, the Evangelicals being primary among them. If they can claim victory on Roe v. Wade they will and they’ll gleefully dial up their “Law and Order” rhetoric against back alley abortions and build a up a whole new “war on” to justify funneling money to police and other federal law enforcement agencies.

And unfortunately Liberals have no track record whatsoever of banding together and turning out in droves over a single issue. They’ll pit the “women’s rights” cohort against the “black women” cohort against the labor union cohort etc.

Very well put. Today’s “liberals” seem just as hell bent on destroying trade union rights as the right wing tea baggers.

Just because Republicans appoint a conservative judge to the Supreme Court doesn’t mean the judge will always follow current Republican policies.

I haven’t seen that. Just that there are sometimes conflicting priorities in protecting them from the right wing tea baggers who want to destroy them.

I always find it odd that people complain that Democrats didn’t do enough to protect the trade unions against the Republicans that they voted for.

Well, no, but they were appointed because they had been following Republican policies, and because the people who were involved in choosing them believed that they would continue to do so. But you are right that doesn’t mean that they have to.

A conservative judge won’t rule against abortion because it is a conservative policy, a conservative judge will likely rule against abortion because he was chosen for his anti-abortion stance and history of rulings.

They have already tried to make that illegal.

Exactly, which is why I don’t think that they will settle for just having abortion banned in their own state. They’ve tried to make leaving the state for an abortion illegal, but it runs into problems of both constitutionality and practicality of enforcement.

Much easier to just make it illegal across the country.

I’m supportive of major police reform generally, but this call to dissolve police unions which I’m seeing a lot is causing me cognitive dissonance. Especially as this is the one area of police reform the right is jumping on excitedly as one of their “compromise” areas of agreement. I find alliances of political convenience like that a little alarming on the best of days( like the old social conservative + feminist anti-porn alliance that appeared in the 1970’s/80’s ).

Police unions are…odd. Not because of their existence, but more their unusual history of mostly having started as police fraternal organizations from the days when they mostly couldn’t unionize. So they’re younger and culturally a bit different than most unions. But I’m really not sure I’m comfortable with the idea of stripping employee protections because “fuck the cops.”

The antipathy doesn’t just come from a general “fuck the cops” attitude. It comes from seeing, over and over again, police chiefs/commissioners/superintendents who at least make the right noises towards some level of reform, only to be met by police union leaders and spokesmen railing against any reform or criticism. When police department leadership says (in effect) “mistakes were made,” and then an FOP spokesman comes in front of the cameras with an indignant “how dare you question us!” attitude, and that happens over and over any time any kind of reform is discussed, it doesn’t take too long to reach the conclusion that the problem lies with the union.

I don’t want to abolish police unions, nor would I want to see all civil-service protection removed from police so that officers serve at-will. But the problem goes way beyond police unions fulfilling the usual role of negotiating salaries and benefits, or the “devil’s advocate” role of making the government prove its case in discipline or discharge hearings. If police unions* don’t modify or soften their apparent utter intransigence to reform, they’re digging their own graves, not anyone else.

*If there are particular police unions that don’t take a “not a single step of reform, our shit don’t stink” attitude, I’m not including them.

Another reason Republicans might not want Roe overturned is because it suppresses the number of Democratic voters. Children are more likely than not to follow in their parents’ political footsteps, and those who are pro-abortion are likelier to get one than those who oppose it (not that pro-lifers don’t get secret hypocritical abortions, but overall speaking the trend would be D’s.) IIRC, a disproportionately high number of women getting abortions are African-American, the most loyal Democratic bloc. So if Roe were overturned and most states banned abortion, that would actually boost the number of Democratic voters in the long run, which Republicans wouldn’t want.

They will overturn it as soon as they get the right case, or if they ever get 6 - 3.

Roberts wants to kill it by 1,000 cuts and so when you get to the 1,000th cut, they’ll have done it with his help. The other four would kill it outright. They need one more.

The only ones that I am seeing say to abolish police unions are right wingers who are against unions, and think that they can trick progressives into being anti-union by bringing up an example of a union with flaws.

Progressives would like to see police unions lose much of their power to protect bad cops, but most of the power to protect bad cops comes from having bad cops in the union. There are many times when a cop would be dismissed from the force for what they did, if there were any “credible” witnesses to their acts. Of course, a dead person makes a terrible witness, and someone who has been arrested is not a credible witness, which leaves only the cops themselves to testify as to their behavior, which they do not do.

Police union contracts need to be overhauled, to make sure that there is nothing that is easily abused, but I have consistently called out those who think that just getting rid of unions solves the problem, and that has nearly universally been those on the side of the cops.

Whenever I see comments on getting rid of police unions, it has pretty much always been a right winger playing a “lets you and him fight” game, and then sit back and call them out for fighting with their allies.

I say keep the unions, get rid of the cops. If the union prevents us from getting rid of the cops, then get a better union.

A union should protect a cop from being fired for personal or political reasons, and negotiate a standard pay and benefits package. A cop shouldn’t be fired just because his supervisor doesn’t like him, and they certainly should be protected against retaliation for giving the mayor’s wife a DUI.