Will abortion automatically become illegal in all 50 states or will it be up to the states to determine what they want to do. If it is up to the states can people just travel across state lines for abortions.
Up to the states. Yes.
Then why are people making it such a big deal? Couldn’t a person just drive 100 miles to another state and get an abortion.
Depending on where you live, another state may be much further away than that. Not everyone can just up and drive a couple hundred miles, either. Like, say, a teenage girl who is too scared to tell her parents. A woman who can’t get time off work. A woman who’s too poor to own a car, and takes the bus or walks normally. What if the next state over made it illegal, too? And the one past that?
Alright, good point.
Some people live more than 100 miles from another state. Some people don’t have a car or access to one, and the cost of transportation would put the entire procedure out of reach. Some people believe that such a situation would unfairly penalize poor women, who are already struggling.
And some people believe that such a decision would be fundamentally wrong, because the federal constitution does, in fact, ensure the right to choose an abortion, and a state that legislated against that would be impermissibly infringing that right.
I don’t believe any of that. I’d be very happy to see Roe v. Wade overturned. But reasonable minds may differ.
The Supreme Court can’t declare abortion illegal. They don’t have any legislative authority. What they could do is declare that abortion isn’t entitled to any special protections, and can be regulated just like any other medical procedure could be. At that point it would become a state issue, and the states could regulate it to whatever degree the voting public would accept. In all probablility, they would be forced to provide abortions if the woman’s life was in danger, but that’s a vanishingly small percentage of abortions anyway.
As to whether going interstate for an abortion could be made illegal, I’m not sure. I know that there are laws against taking a minor across state lines for illegal purposes, but I don’t know how far that kind of authority extends.
About a dozen states legalized abortion before Roe v. Wade so not much would change in those. Then alot of states repealed their anti-abortion laws after Roe since they were unenforceble. But I about half the states still have the pre-Roe statues that would automatically go into effect. Alot of those states made exceptions if the mother was in mortal danger. I don’t know what the laws said if you were raped or your health was threatened but not your life, or in case of fetal defect. One things for sure if Roe was overturned an our emergeny rooms would once again be filled with young women who tried to do it themselves or went to a back alley quack.
See, you are completely missing the magic power of Substantive Due Process.
The Supreme Court could easily rule that unborn children are people, entitled to due process of law. That would effectively end legal abortion everywhere.
(“But wait!” I hear you cry. “The Constitution says nothing about unborn children!”
True. But the Constitution says nothing about abortion, either, and yet the Supreme Court found it to be a constitutional right. Live by the substantive due process sword, die by the substantive due process sword. If they were to find that unborn children have due process rights, they’d be perfectly within previous analytical precedent. How could you complain about one decision and support the other?)
This is so completely the wrong forum for this question. I might vernture an OPINION on what might happen if this thread were elsewhere.
In addition to what’s discussed above, the Supreme Court would – I think – be faced with another constitutional issue before too long. If abortion is no longer constitutionally protected, then it would only be a matter of time before a conservative Congress enacted a law banning or restricting abortion. This would raise the issue of whether Congress has the power to legislate on that issue. Unlike state governments, the federal government is, at least in theory, a government of limited, enumerated powers.
(I don’t think the Supreme Court has ruled on this issue. Please correct me if I’m wrong.)
Hmmm. I didn’t think about that. (I’d love to see Roe v. Wade get tossed, BTW.) SCOTUS has prohibited capital punishment before, because condemned criminals were being deprived of their lives without full Due Process. It’s not much of a stretch to draw a parrallel between that case and the plight of unborn babies who are being aborted without any Due Process whatsoever.
The question is entirely proper. There’s a factual answer. I gave it.
What the states might do with their restored power is, I agree, not a factual question, but that’s not the question that the OP asked.
A lot of people think it’s none of other peoples’ business what they do, and don’t subscribe to the agenda that others do.
I am NOT in ‘favor’ of abortion. I also do NOT think it is any of my business when some poor girl in trouble has to make a difficult decision.
It’s not my decision to make for them. I will gladly concede them that alternative, if that’s the way things go.
It’s none of the government’s business at all. If you don’t want one, don’t have one.
Meanwhile, get the hell out out of my bedroom.
I should have added: “Nor is what the government should do.”
…and I shouldn’t have posted my biased reply in GQ. Mea culpa.
RvW is a tough nut to crack, and elicits a lot of vehement opinions.
To the OP: I don’t know.
Random is correct. The rest is just doper urge to elaborate.
“Ooh, I said it again!”
Shame on you. Either you knew that SCOTUS found, before Roe was ever argued, that privacy is a constitutional right and either deliberately lied or sought to mislead readers, or you didn’t know and you owe us a finger.
It is not question with a factual answer. You must presuupose the grounds on which the decision is made and the language of the decision before you can posit the future that would occur. How is this not a matter of opinion?
Would you like an example? One possible reason for overturning Roe v Wade would be some medical advances that change the calculations about the risk to the mother vs. some presumed rights of the fetus. Perhaps a fetal “harvesting” procedure could be developed that has no more medical risk yo the pregnant woman than an abortion would. One conceivable outcome of this is the harvesting, freezing and possibly indefinite storage of fetuses as an alternative to aborting them.
However, I will no longer respond, as I am stating my opinion, and this is not the place for it. So I will go away.
Well, no, that is not for sure. That is opinion, not fact. Emergency rooms were not “filled” with young women before Roe v. Wade. Abortion-related deaths were actually rare. And the great majority of illegal abortions performed before Roe v. Wade were done by licensed doctors, not “back alley quacks”.