So how long until Roe v. Wade is overturned?

Yes. Not “any woman.”

And of course there is no good faith effort of belief that Trump’s presidency could possible affect the current state of the law with respect to spousal abuse, which is after all a matter of state, not federal, law.

Correct?

True enough – at common law, spousal rape was a legal impossibility. Because most states derived their criminal law from the common law or the MPC, the creation of the crime of spousal rape needed to be explicitly done. Again, as a matter of state law, not federal law. Indeed, when the feds tried to create a private cause of action for domestic abuse, the courts struck it down as exceeding the federal government’s power (US v. Morrison).

So, to review:

Is there any part of that you agree with, in the sense that you regard it as a genuine material possibility as the result of a Trump win?

(bolding mine)

Now how can you know this?

Because mainstream political movements, by their very nature, encompass large numbers of followers, and are ill suited for retaining secrets.

But you’re right – so far as I am aware, no mainstream movement has such an open or secret goal.

Yes and no.

I’d agree that the penumbric right of privacy exists. I wouldn’t agree that it has anything to do with abortion. Murder doesn’t become legal because you did it in a private.

The issue should clearly have been argued under the First Amendment, and yet wasn’t, nor does anyone seem willing to do so. But the point would remain that if you wouldn’t want a majority of Hindis to illegalize steak, on the basis that cows are loved by God, then you shouldn’t criminalize abortion nor try to prevent people from practice safe sex. Goo isn’t a human.

I would argue that the reason that the Old Testament told people to go to all efforts to procreate as often and fully as they can, was in the aim of out-numbering competing tribes in the Levant. And, I’ll note, that the Jews never accomplished that, despite God’s help. And the success of Christianity in Europe, the Americas, and Africa has had far more to do with politics and proselytizing than it ever did with population explosions.

So, as someone who doesn’t give a crap about God’s strategical aims on Earth, and finds it amusing that they proved incompetent over the course of 2500 years, I have no particular adherence to taking his desires into my consideration of the medical procedures I am allowed access to. Nor should Hindis or Shintoists or Buddhists. Christians are free to NOT abort their babies. They’re free to NOT marry people of the same gender. But their standard of morality is not the same as others.

And if you want to argue that goo is a human, I first ask you to smash a chicken’s head in and then tell me whether you would feel a similar sensation to break open a fertilized chickens egg that looked exactly 0 different than any one that you had bought from the supermarket, just full of cytoplasm and nucleus.

An egg is a specialized form of cell, to be granted, but it’s almost certain that within the next decade or two (if not already), we’ll be able to transform any arbitrary cell - for example, a skin cell - into an egg cell, and inseminate it. Does that now mean that it is murder for me to scratch an itch? Or only if I have semen on it?

There’s a reason that there’s a staggered set of restrictions on what is and isn’t allowed, to prevent the continuation of a pregnancy. And that reason is “biology”. Unless you can argue that it’s unreasonable to base our laws on secular considerations like science and biology, the staggered approach makes sense. And, last I checked, the mandate to use secular considerations come from the First Amendment.

Row vs. Wade avoided the real argument, and for that it’s certainly in the wrong. But the end result is in the right.

Well, I’d say the legal right to beat or rape one woman is more than enough…

In terms of actively overturning existing laws? Not really; it would be politically inexpedient. But we now have as POTUS someone who has bragged about sexual assault and then failed to repudiate his attitudes or behavior, and publicly threatened retribution against women who have come forward. I don’t think this bodes well for our institutional attitudes towards protecting the victims of rape and domestic abuse. For example, this will act as an encouragement to those who want to legalize the harassment of victims (e.g., that ghastly proposal to enact a requirement to release the names of “rape accusers”).

If the “ban abortion” states collectively have more than 270 electoral votes, I could picture there being insufficient interest in trying to bring New York and California into line.

Then listening to their ideas about how to punish interstate flight would be… interesting. Not to mention seeing any resulting population changes.

Roe will never be overturned, but a conservative court will be more amenable to restrictions which will erode the right.

Bollocks. The deal is sealed, and it’s as good as gone. Just a matter of when.

By my count, there is currently one vote to overturn Roe: Clarence Thomas. Roberts and Alito respect precedent too much and Kennedy is pro-Roe.

I’m hopeful that Roberts could be moved in Kennedy’s direction with the right amount of pressure. The last time he was going to be in the majority on a Republican Case Of The Century, he choked and flipped his vote to save his own legacy. (And it would be interesting to see what he’d have done with marriage if Kennedy hadn’t bit.)

As would I – but as you concede below, even that is not on the agenda.

So you agree, so far as I am able to discern, that Annie-Xmas’ suggestion that “…raping and beating your wife (or any other woman) can be made legal again…” is not in fact in the offing.

Is that correct?

Perhaps – at least this prediction is not an absurd one. But by the same token, there is a case to be made for it, a case that existed before Trump won, and a case that was being made before Trump won. It ought to be possible to discuss the proposition on its own merits (or lack of merits) without invoking Trump. And it certainly should be possible to discuss that policy proposal without claiming that it will involve raping and beating your wife (or any other woman) being made legal again.

Do you agree?