SCOTUS decided not to take up the challange to Arkansa’s very restrictive abortion law, which outlaws morning-after pills and effective closes two of the last three clinics left in the state. In what possible way does this not put an undue burden on a woman’s right to choose in that state?
Well, presumably down to one open clinic in the state.
Is it an violation of a person’s rights if any other medical procedure is not available within a particular locality? When my brother had to travel five hours to get needed medical care were his rights violated?
Deciding a particular regulation is constitutional or not based upon distance a patient must travel to seek out that service seems like an odd way to determine if a regulation is constitutional or not. I would hope the court would use some other standard to evaluate the constitutionality of regulations such as this case.
SCOTUS (and many other courts) have shown a strong reluctance to take up an all-encompassing case that would settle multi facets of a question. Instead they prefer to find cases that present small issues on the periphery of the major argument to decide.
Which often means they have to revisit the same issue again. This seems to be the planned strategy, but that’s IMHO.
To paraphrase Walt Kelly, they lack the “quivering with courage” about major decisions. This may be one example.
If the state tries it’s best to terminate or restrict as much as possible the type of medical care needed, then there is a good chance his rights have been violated. Is that the case with your brother?
edited to add: This isn’t a case of a certain procedure happening not to be available-This is a case of a procedure that is unduly restricted by the state.
You tell me. A year ago:
You never answered this, at least as far as I recall. You seemed to want to discuss the shining respect you had for rights only when they applied to abortion, and not rights deriving from the Second Amendment.
Is that still your approach?
Perhaps you might want to agree on a definition of “stringent” before having that discussion? Some people think the ability to purchase as many guns as you want from a list of over 800 types of guns is “stringent”
I personally would consider that less stringent than 1 clinic in an entire state that perform abortions.
I considered that 2nd Amendment argument to be a hijack then, and still do. This is a new thread concerning recent developments-care to comment in this new thread about these recent developments?
Sure!
My comment is: I believe that, at the least, the same method of analysis should be used to assess infringements on the Second Amendment as are used to assess infringement on the “right,” to abortions, a right found in the penumbras and emanations of the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
This recent development should be addressed by the Supreme Court as violative of the caselaw in Roe and Casey, in my opinion. But I wouldn’t want them to do that if the only time we apply such standards is when they benefit you.
Since a vast majority of us aren’t/weren’t lawyers, would you mind explaining what you mean by “violative of the caselaw in Roe and Casey” as it pertains to this situation?
I have not read the actual decision, or the pleadings, but it appears that this is largely a procedural decision–remanding to the lower court for further proceedings before considering the merits of the case.
I considered that as a possibility, but what makes you think this?
I agree with Bricker: a similar balancing test should be applied to both Second Amendment rights and abortion rights.
In the case of the Second Amendment, the right to possession of different kinds of firearms, and other firearms-related rights, should be balanced against the rights of others to continue living, and not be abruptly deprived of that right by a bullet fired from one of those firearms.
In the case of abortion rights, the woman’s right to choose an abortion should be balanced against the rights of that person growing inside her. That is, if we’re in the Republic of Gilead, where the religious belief that the fetus is a person carries the force of law.
There is no decision. This is a denial of cert.
8th Circuit decision stands. Here is abreakdown of the case progress.
This language from the linked article in the OP:
*But a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit said that the lower court had not delved deeply enough before putting on hold the statute passed by the Arkansas legislature.
That court said Baker had “failed to make factual findings estimating the number of women burdened by the statute” — those who would either forgo or postpone an abortion because of the law.*
Quasi-sorta-almost-kinda ninja’d by Bone.
Bold mine
The term ‘medical care’ when applied to abortion (which this analogy seems to imply) seems quite loaded for what is often quite a barbaric procedure (for the fetus). I would really like to see more care given. Jack Kevorkian did much better in this respect.
And an appendectomy is quite a barbaric procedure for the appendix. If I don’t believe that the fetus in question has any sense of self and so lacks the ability to experience anything, barbaric or not, why should I care?
Consider this.
Suppose that the same number of people in your state wanted to buy guns that want to buy them now. But, for ‘public safety’ reasons, the only gun store in the state must
(a) be built within 1 mile of an emergency room in case an accidental shooting occurrs
(b) require a waiting period and mandatory firearm safety courses
© require you to be shown photos of small children killed by family guns
(d) given a lecture about responsibility and require you to buy a gun safe if you have any children in the house
(e) have all the staff trained as full Paramedics and with trauma gear available at the store
(f) allow hospitals to refuse you to be within 1 mile
(g) private gun sales are banned
(h) the police want a bullet fired from your gun so they can investigate you if a bullet fired from your gun is similar to one found at a crime scene
All told, there is just 1 gun store remaining in the state. And it requires a 300 mile drive for many residents.
One might argue that instead of “public safety”, this is just a backdoor infringement on your constitutional right to have a gun at all.
You can craft any unnecessary set of rules you like and eventually all gun stores will close.
Assuming you are ok with private ownership of guns, how would you feel if you had the “right” to own a gun but there were no gun stores and private sales were illegal. This is basically what has happened with abortion. None of these laws or restrictions are medically necessary.
I think we should steal a page from the conservative playbook on abortion laws and pass laws that nickle and dime the ability to own a gun. Each law will be “reasonable” but will stack one atop the other till, as a practical matter, gun ownership is supremely difficult to do.
Get all gun shops but one in state to close by mandating they conform to storage requirements for nuclear weapons and make sure they are at least five miles from a school or playground or park or church. Restrict the types of ammo they have access to till it is only .22. Make prospective gun owners watch a video on gun violence. That sort of thing. But it will still be “legal” so we are ok and conform to the constitution.
EDIT: I should really read the whole thread first. Ah well…will leave it anyway.
Yep. Don’t forget to give every school, playground, or church “veto powers” so if they want to “stay out of the debate” they can prevent your store from opening there. This is what happened in Texas : several abortion clinics could meet all the other requirements. They had licensed physicians on staff who were fully credentialed, but there was a requirement that these specific physicians have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
The nearby hospitals said they “didn’t want to get involved in the debate” and refused to grant those privileges, thus forcing the clinics to close. All totally unnecessary - right now we let Walmarts sell guns right there in the store with minimal special requirements. Similarly, there is a combination of pills that can cause an early abortion without much fuss for most women. (*especially *if they can get the pills promptly early in the pregnancy when the fetus is invisible). All the clinic needs to be is a basic doctor’s office to perform the needed exams prior to prescribing.