I would agree with that. Just because people (don’t) want something doesn’t affect the morality of it. And the court is demonstrably not above politics; we need look no further than Plessy v Ferguson which had a comfortable 7-1 majority on the wrong side.
That said it’s interesting to consider what would have happened had the court found in Plessy’s favor back in 1896. What would the 20th century have looked like with no Jim Crow laws? When would baseball and the military have desegregated?
That’d be a good candidate for the “alternate history” thread.
Anyway, I think it’s fair to say that the threshold for convincing people that something is ok varies based on what we’re talking about.
I think in the 1970s and even into the 80s a lot of people really did think that by 49 years after Roe that abortion would be a non-issue. Yet here we are.
Uh, you’re agreeing with yourself and a misunderstanding of lucy. I believe she meant that legal abortion being so safe is why it is no longer considered a major right.
Anyway, I think most people would say that ubiquitous contraception was the main thing to reduce the abortion rate in the 80s. This should be easy to find statistics on.
I was agreeing with VA. And I understand Lucy and agree with some of what she wrote, but not all of it.
Like, it’s basically indisputable that legalization made abortions a lot safer. Legal abortions are safer than pregnancy, even, but illegal abortions were quite risky.
But I disagree with her that legalizing abortion led to fewer abortions. I think other factors led to fewer abortions. The correlation is there, but the causation is not, IMO.
The other far out provision of the bill is that it explicitly tells prosecutors to ignore Roe and Casey and …
E.(1) Any federal statute, regulation, treaty, executive order, or court ruling
11 that purports to supersede, stay, or overrule this Section shall be in violation of the
12 United States Constitution and the Constitution of Louisiana and is therefore void.
13 (2) This state and its political subdivisions, and agents thereof, may disregard
14 any part or whole of any federal court decision which purports to enjoin or void any
15 provision of this Section.
16 F. Pursuant to the powers granted to the Legislature by Article X, Part III,
17 of the Constitution of Louisiana, any judge of this state who purports to enjoin, stay,
18 overrule, or void any provision of this Section shall be subject to impeachment or
19 removal.
How can they do that? Here’s the crack legal reasoning:
“If more than 15 states can defy the federal government over marijuana, we can do it to save the lives of innocent babies,” McCormick said, adding Louisiana should not wait until the Supreme Court’s ruling is made official.
To be fair (to her? to you?) the correlation is significant in that legalized abortion, accepting out-of-wedlock marriage, sex-ed, and ubiquitous contraception… are all sort of a part of the same political movement.
Naw, disagree. Contraception means there are a lot fewer unwanted pregnancies. And women working becoming normal means that women have a purpose beyond motherhood and desire fewer kids than in the past.
pregnancy is quite risky – that’s a low bar. Like covid, you need to take into account the long-term side effects, as well as the immediate mortality. Pregnancy often triggers diabetes, which doesn’t always resolve after the birth. It greatly increases the odds of an autoimmune disorder (probably because it’s an immune reaction to leftover fetal cells that can grow in random places in the body.) It does reduce the odds of breast cancer a little, but overall it’s a net decrease to expected lifetime. Ever priced a pension plan for nuns? A friend did, they needed their own mortality chart.
(Nuns also don’t have to worry where their next meal is coming from, so that’s probably an overestimate of the cost of pregnancy…)
And then there are all the little, non-fatal things. I have an annoying thing going in a stretch mark right now. Basically all pregnant women develop hemorrhoids. I’ve had acid reflux problems (which has led to a pre-cancerous condition) ever since being pregnant.
Women shouldn’t have to carry a baby unless they want to.
I guess I just mean, if it was mostly about society accepting more births, then births would have risen a bunch. Instead the birth rate has been mostly constant since 1975, suggesting that the drop in abortion rate is more about preventing unwanted pregnancy than wanting more pregnancies.
But yes, there’s confounding variables. Guess I should find better data.
I know of one girl that got pregnant. For some reason related to the pregnancy she had to leave the show choir - I don’t know any details of how that was connected. I didn’t really know her very well.
There are a couple of issues here. The SCOTUS is required to let law rule. Occasionally politics gets in the way because humans are involved. When you start trying to let ethics rule you have a serious problem. Whose ethics? The Pope’s? Some group of professors in the Ivy League? Putin?
There is a legitimate ethical argument that abortion is murder. There are also legitimate ethical arguments that it is not. SCOTUS needs to keep this a matter of law, because otherwise when you pick your ethics you pick your outcome and that choice is a personal one. That would mean the law could flip flop with every SCOTUS nominee accepted. We can’t have that.
The other issue is with Stare Decisis. While it is of vital importance, it is not absolute. If it were we’d still have legal segregation due to Plessy vs Ferguson. That ruling was in place longer than Roe has been.
