Fucking SCOTUS upholds woman-hating "partial-birth" abortion ban.

The BBQ Pit
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[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
For the record, I don’t think FriarTed is malicious or bigoted and I don’t think he revels in the notion that those who disagree with him (or get abortions) might suffer. I think he sometimes gets excited, worked up or emotional at times (like we all do) and uses hyperbole (like a lot of us do).

I just remember that practically everything he reads here regarding religion is (to varying degrees) at odds with his own beliefs and I know that can become exhausting and irritating after a while. I’ve had a lot of good exchanges with the guy even though we’re polar opposites on social and religious issues. He’s never been uncivil to me and I actually think he’s pretty well informed on Christian doctrine. I feel like I should stand up for the guy. He really isn’t the typical raging fundy stereotype. He’s just human.
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Thanks, Dio. I know somebody has to be thinking you’re getting soft & you should rip me a new one. I was too flippant, somewhat irritated at “Cocksuckers” and “Bush’s bitches”, and should’ve just let it slide, especially since I do think a
PBA ban should have included a “physical health” exception to begin with.

Apos, no- RvW didn’t make it an absolute right. I’ll need to re-read the actual decision & review how it’s been applied, but IIRC the “health” exception in it is
very vaguely worded, and easily misapplied. It’s been a few years since I’ve read Roe v Wade and what the various state regulations are.

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I don’t understand the SCOTUS decision, or the need for it. There are very few of these procedures being performed, apparently, so why make this decision with very few practical applications?

Second, from everything I’ve read, D & X (partial birth abortion) is very similar to the D & E which is still allowed, except in negative ways (D & E takes longer for the actual procedure, is more dangerous to the mother, more risky, and produces fetus chunks instead of a whole fetus which some parents desire); it looks like D & X is the superior procedure in many ways. The doctor performing either procedure kills the fetus if it’s still alive at this point; if you’re getting squeamish on that point, either procedure is just as bad.

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[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Why is the health of the women who undergo the procedure relevant to the conversation? All that matters is that IDX is safer than a D&E. Healthy patients have as much right to the safest procedure as unhealthy ones. That issue is a complete red herring.
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So, apparently, was your claim that this was going to have a major impact on mothers in distress. This procedure is rarely done on mothers in medical distress.

For the record I think this ban was dumb.

Totally aside from the abortion issue, I find it hilarious that more and more people are getting pissed at the SCOTUS from the “other side of the aisle.” I’ve had a major problem with certain SCOTUS decisions in the past that I felt were “judicial activism” or completely inappropriate (Kelo v. New London by far the biggest of them all), but at the time I complained about it I was basically told “you’re just saying the SCOTUS as an institution is out of line because their decisions don’t jive with your politics.”

Then and now, I’ll say that’s not the case, when I feel the SCOTUS rules in a clearly inappropriate manner, either by exceeding their authority in their judgment or by deciding a matter in total contravention to what I think is constitutionally obvious, I won’t like it.

In this particular case, Congress and the SCOTUS were dumb. Congress can get away with being dumb, but the SCOTUS was out of line constitutionally in my opinion.

I support a complete ban of abortions after the fetus is viable, with exceptions being made for the health of the mother. That being said, I can’t really support any ban which makes no exceptions for the health of the mother, especially a ban which does nothing to focus on the issues of post-viability abortions in general.

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[QUOTE=FriarTed]
Apos, no- RvW didn’t make it an absolute right. I’ll need to re-read the actual decision & review how it’s been applied, but IIRC the “health” exception in it is very vaguely worded, and easily misapplied. It’s been a few years since I’ve read Roe v Wade and what the various state regulations are.
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In Roe, the SCOTUS first explained a general right of privacy which they viewed as existing in the penumbras of the Constitution, they went on to establish this with many citations of precedent. Deriving from that right of privacy, they concluded that the State cannot interfere in a woman getting an abortion until there is a meaningful justification for the State having an interest in said abortion.

The Roe decision establishes two primary State interests in abortion. The first being, the State must have some authority to regulate medical procedures in general, this was mainly set up so that the state could regulate for safety purposes (but was clearly stated that its medical regulation interests could not be used as a loophole to deny abortions in general.)

The second interest Roe establishes for the State is the interest of protecting pre-natal life. Roe was in no way a one sided decision that said, “fetuses are not legally or morally relevant whatsoever and women have an absolute right to do as they want with them.” It didn’t say anything like that, in fact.

It engaged in a rights weighing argument. It was argued that, the right to privacy (as established in the penumbras of the Constitution) of the woman outweighed the rights of the pre-natal life, up until the third trimester, when the pre-natal life became “viable” and at that point, the SCOTUS ruled the State’s interests in protecting pre-natal life could outweigh the privacy rights of the woman. That’s why states can ban abortions in the third trimester (with certain exceptions being required.)

A side note on the “right to privacy” in Roe they spoke both of a general right to privacy as well as a general right to “liberty” as they felt existed as a derivation of the 14th Amendment (or the 9th, the Justices favored the argument that it derived from the 14th in this case, but accepted the argument that it could derive from the 9th.)

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a slight emphasis shift was made, putting more emphasis on the “general right to liberty as derived from the 14th or 9th Amendment” over the right to privacy (both were still viewed as significant.) Casey didn’t change how the rights weighing worked though, in fact it refined it somewhat to clarify that a strict trimester basis of State interest did not exist, but rather State interest intervened at the point of medical viability of the pre-natal life (however most or perhaps all State laws continue to follow the general trimester framework–which is perfectly constitutional, of course.)

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[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]

Totally aside from the abortion issue, I find it hilarious that more and more people are getting pissed at the SCOTUS from the “other side of the aisle.” I’ve had a major problem with certain SCOTUS decisions in the past that I felt were “judicial activism” or completely inappropriate (Kelo v. New London by far the biggest of them all), but at the time I complained about it I was basically told “you’re just saying the SCOTUS as an institution is out of line because their decisions don’t jive with your politics.”

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While there is certainly a case to be made on that, there is a point that should be brought up here. It’s not those justices on the more liberal side of the fence who repeatedly tell us about the central nature of stare decisis in the system. They are honest about using the court for change, and overturning what they see as bad decisions. Fat Tony, on the other hand (see Lawrence (J. Scalia, dissenting)) seems to believe in the mighty power of precedent, until he disagrees with the precedent (or more accurately can no longer twist the precedent to fit his perspective).

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[QUOTE=villa]
While there is certainly a case to be made on that, there is a point that should be brought up here. It’s not those justices on the more liberal side of the fence who repeatedly tell us about the central nature of stare decisis in the system. They are honest about using the court for change, and overturning what they see as bad decisions. Fat Tony, on the other hand (see Lawrence (J. Scalia, dissenting)) seems to believe in the mighty power of precedent, until he disagrees with the precedent (or more accurately can no longer twist the precedent to fit his perspective).
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Also, *Kelo *was universally reviled. Kelo-hate knows no political bounds.

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[QUOTE=Richard Parker]
Does that mean you’re against using the commerce clause to ban partial birth abortions, Shodan?
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It means you dolts have been wishing for something, and now, by God, you have it. You wanna go swearing up and down that the Constitution establishes whatever the editorial page of the NYT wants, regardless of the actual text, and now you are confronted with a decision you don’t like. And all of a fucking sudden the screaming starts about “they can’t DO that!”

Sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind, sonny.

Regards,
Shodan