Well, China mandated abortions when they were enforcing their “one child” policy. And the US used to forcibly sterilize some people. So it’s not an impossible stretch. But i haven’t seen any call for forced abortions in the US.
States rights–whether the right to preserve slavery, the right to preserve Jim Crow, or the right to force pregnancy and childbirth–are fundamentally antithetical to liberty. They position the holder of “rights” as the state, not the individual, and are much friendlier to fascism than to the American project of democracy.
If folks there can’t get the law changed by plebiscite, I’m of course in favor of them doing it via their elected officials — or, possibly, this success with the Ohio Constitution can serve as a blueprint for doing likewise with the US Constitution? If you have other suggestions, I’m, uh, “open minded” to hearing them, or something.
Not really possible with the gerrymandering. My suggestion is that women should have a right to make their own decisions and that right should be granted at the national level.
We could even handle it by–wait, hear me out–a federal court decision enshrining the right to bodily autonomy. Give it a funny-sounding name that sounds like how you cross a river.
No, it’s not a judicial matter; it’s a legislative one. It’s a matter of making law, not interpreting it. It’s the difference between amending the US Constitution and — not actually amending it.
We’ll just wait around then like we did for the 13th Amendment. Definitely a legislative thing. Important to stand on principle and all.
You’re making my point for me. We want the 13th Amendment to stay in place; we don’t want it removed with the stroke of a pen by a court decision. You’re making an argument for law.
No I’m not. We shouldn’t have needed the 13th and we shouldn’t have to wait for something similar for the right for women to have bodily autonomy
For about half a century, it was a judicial matter, and women could get abortions. Before and after it was a judicial matter, it was a legislative matter, and in many states the government denied women their bodily autonomy.
Your case for making it a legislative matter sucks.
The decision was egregiously wrong on Day One. It remained egregiously wrong on Day Two and Day Three, and was still just as wrong in Decade Two and Decade Three. But, like Ohio, the Supreme Court has it right now.
Presumably, @The_Other_Waldo_Pepper, you carry this same perspective on other previously “state” issues that were resolved through federal judicial fiat – access to contraception, gay marriage, interracial marriage, etc.?
We’re getting a bit far afield from someone saying this involves Republicans saying not like that and me saying yes like that, but: it’s my understanding that banning gay marriage is discrimination on the basis of sex, and can be struck down judicially; and that banning interracial marriage is discrimination on the basis of race, and can be struck down judicially; and that overturning Roe involved saying hey, wait a minute; the Constitution doesn’t say shit about this.
As far as I can tell, it also doesn’t say shit about contraceptives.
The decision returned autonomy to women on Day One. A legal system that, in order to be right, enables tyrannical control over bodies is a shit legal system.
The ends may not justify the means; but if the end is fucked up, that indicts the means.
Many thanks! 
So I guess you don’t think individual states should have been allowed to vote as to whether they wanted to keep slavery legal?
I mean, that’s just unreasonable.
/s
Like which word? I can’t decide between two. It’s a competition … row v wade … how should that be decided?
We also surf, who also stand and wade.
35% of voters were liberal; if we assume a liberal/conservative dichotomy, that means 65% of voters were conservative; that’s pretty damned red!
I absolutely agree on an individual’s right for bodily autonomy. That being said, even Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that the Roe decision was poorly written. The right to choose an abortion may be the right thing for the nation, but ruling it on a “privacy” principle from the 14th amendment was a stretch. We had how many decades to legislate and enshrine the Roe decision; why didn’t we?
I don’t give a shit. It would have been overturned by the current SCOTUS regardless of how it was decided.
Because there was no need to do so given the Roe decision.