That is not what the supreme court has said, is it?
BTW, I don’t know if “credible” means pro-choice but in many of these states, pretty much all the doctors are pro-life so unless you are going to require Kansas to use California doctors, they will pretty much rubber stamp the notion that abortion clinics need to have admitting privileges at hospitals (that will have nothing to do with an abortion clinic, because the hospitals are pro-life too).
Can we do the same in Chi8cag and DC re: gun rights?
You realize that almost every state is a democracy, right? You can vote the bums out
You know what? It just dawned on me that in the interests of preserving the integrity/credibility (or whatever) of our elections. We should have one polling station outside the capital building in Washington DC where all the congressmen and senators and electors would be elected, we can have ICE checking the citizenship status of everyone on line before they vote. People can just fly in and place their vote there. I’m starting to see a silver lining to the line of reasoning behind the voter ID laws.
But every state is not an independent country. If your “solution” to a state acting unconstitutionally is to “vote the bums out”, then you are saying that it is o.k. to act unconstitutionally as long as you’ve got the votes.
A right exists whether or not it can be exercised as a practical matter. As long as the government isn’t interfering, the right is not being violated. I’d add to that that as long as civil society isn’t also conspiring to violate the right, it’s not being violated, since I do recall that even when governments didn’t censor local communities often did through mob violence.
But as long as abortion is limited by providers willing to provide the service, the right is in fine shape. In practice of course, abortion clinics do not meet demand due to threats of violence and pro-life states imposing regulations intended to shut them down. But there is also the unwillingness factor. Doctors have conscience rights, so there will always be somewhat less availability than desired.
Yeah, that’s not kosher, although I think we need to articulate broader principles rather than treating abortion as a special case. For example, if minors can get abortions without parental consent, logically they should be able to get a dental cleaning without parental consent. And if the rationale behind legal abortion is that medical decisions are between a person and their doctor, then that applies to all medical decisions that are FDA approved. So the government should stop getting in between patients and doctors prescribing opioids.
There’s also the opposite issue from states trying to shut down clinics, states being unwilling to shut down clinics, as happened in the case of Kermit Gosnell. No safety inspections for years? Complaints ignored? They pretty much admitted that they didn’t want to know because they didn’t want to make access to abortion more difficult. But then there goes the rationale that legal abortion is safe abortion. I’d sooner trust a dude in a back alley with a coat hanger than a guy like Kermit Gosnell.
It is naive, to say the least, to assume that drastically reducing access to health care has no effect on people’s health.
According to that logic, we should cease efforts to bring health care professionals to remote locations, since people living there can just drive or find other transportation to see the doctor.
As for legislation purportedly aimed at improving patient safety at clinics that offer abortion services, I saw recently that Ohio lawmakers were considering a law to ramp up facility requirements that would put such clinics on a footing with those that do major surgery. Well, who could argue with such a safety measure? Ohio also requires clinics to have transfer agreements with hospitals in case of complications, but banned patient transfers to public hospitals. Sure, that’s for women’s safety too. :dubious:
No, but mostly that show our country prevents localities from passing the same bad law over and over again. We have not sent in troops to uphold a court order since desegregation. The gun rights folks have to keep coming up with money to battle DC an Chicago in court on a repeated basis as they pretend to toe the line of the court order but keep trying to ban guns.
That reminds me of another point. If it is bad in principle to attempt to use regulation to put companies out of business that you don’t like, then that principle applies to payday lenders as well as abortion clinics.
For me, that’s the primary weakness in the pro-choice arguments. The fact that abortion is treated as uniquely special and thus there are no broad principles that apply to anything else. “My body, my choice!” but only for abortion. Pain pills, not so much. “This decision is between a woman and her doctor.” unless the doctor has moral objections in which case he should be forced to perform an abortion.
For pro-lifers the main weakness is an unwillingness to treat their arguments with the seriousness that they deserve. If abortion is indeed murder, then someone should be spending life in prison for performing or seeking one.
Seems that Europe gets it. Abortion is a medical procedure, like any other, and is thus subject to whatever limitations and requirements governments deem necessary.
The pharmacist has no moral agency in any decision to dispense drugs. The doctor is the one responsible, and doctors can and should make that decision. That would be like the bagger objecting to bagging the drugs or the cashier to cashing them out.
You realize that’s not what we’re talking about, right?
I want to open up an outpatient liposuction clinic. I am subject to a certain reasonable set of laws. I decide to use my medical license to perform abortions instead (or on the side in the same clinic - imagine the advertising potential!). Suddenly, the clinic I already own doesn’t cut it, even though the 2 procedures are of similar scope and risk. And the extra things the clinic needs have nothing to do with any medical necessity.
Most European countries have far stricter restrictions on abortion than the US does. I think only former Soviet and communist nations have more easy abortion practices and some S Asian countries also.
Yes, you are correct. The hypothetical situation I was responding to was “What if the governor of a state managed through legal harassment to cut off all means of acquiring a firearm in that state.” Presumably, that means there are no FFLs in the hypothetical state, so no interstate transfers.
