After Roe opinion, who’s going to protect Alabama from Alabama?

[CoffeeTiger 5,106]

 

In the leaked Supreme court document it looks like RoevWade is dead and it'll be open hunting season on Women seeking abortions and women healthcare providers in conservative states. The language used in justifying this decision could be very easily applied to contraceptives, gay marriage, and various civil rights laws. Indicating this Supreme Court may be ready to pull the U.S. back into the 1970's and allow our  Republican states to form their own little Theocratic Dictatorships that will make the Taliban blush with envy and pride. 

 

https://www.al.com/news/2022/05/after-roe-opinion-whos-going-to-protect-alabama-from-alabama.html

As long as I can remember, there was a net under Alabama. The net had been there long before I was born.

It won’t be there much longer, it seems. Monday night, news broke that the United States Supreme Court had taken out its scissors, and I dread what that means for the future of my state.

But I have a pretty good idea of what’s coming next

I’m not sure who wove the first threads together, but Frank Johnson, the federal judge and law school classmate of George Wallace, tied many of its most important knots.

Whenever “Little George,” as their law school cohort called him at Alabama, passed a racist law, or deprived voters of their constitutional rights, or cheated the mentally ill out of care, or made Alabama prisons into torture chambers — Johnson stopped him with the power of the federal judiciary.

This happened so often that people began calling Johnson the “real governor of Alabama,” something Little George despised. Little George went around telling people Johnson needed a “barbed-wire enema,” and not much later, the Klan firebombed Johnson’s mother’s house thinking it was his

Johnson was undeterred and kept threading that net, and Johnson was still working on it long after Little George’s influence had begun to fade.

Late in life, when Little George’s conscience began to get the best of him, he reached out to Johnson to apologize.

“I sent him a message that, if he wanted to get forgiveness, he’d have to get it from the Lord,” Johnson said later.

The net under Alabama is the federal judiciary, and the net prevents Alabama from pushing its weakest and most vulnerable into an abyss of meanness and hate.

Unfortunately, the net has saved Alabama from itself so many times that lawmakers and governors learned to rely on it when passing legislation.

With a pass-it-and-see-what-sticks recklessness, they could reap the political benefits of awful bills and, like Little George, blame the judiciary when it ruled their nasty little laws unconstitutional. It’s not uncommon, even today, to hear lawmakers say, “Pass it and let the courts decide.”

Alabama politicians loved the net, even as they cussed it.

For a time, at least, the net held — mended and reinforced by other federal judges and higher courts — not the least of which being the United States Supreme Court.

But almost a decade ago, when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Shelby vs. Holder that protections against voter suppression were unconstitutional, a vital thread snapped.

Almost immediately, Southern states including Alabama began passing new voting restrictions and closing voting precincts. Alabama even tried to pass voter ID at the same time it closed driver’s license offices in the Black Belt.

Other threads have broken since and Monday night the whole net tore.

Politico reported the United States Supreme Court had voted earlier this year to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, two landmark decisions protecting reproductive rights.

It’s a draft version, an early look. But the debate appears settled. It’s all over but the editing.

Now let me tell you what this means for Alabama.

In 2019, Alabama Republicans passed “toughest in the nation” restrictions on abortion in the state. Those restrictions are so severe that they do not allow exemptions for victims of rape or incest.

If a 12-year-old girl gets pregnant after being molested by her uncle, Alabama Republican lawmakers would have that child carry that pregnancy to term. If a doctor helped such a girl end such a pregnancy, that doctor would be guilty of a felony carrying a sentence of up to life in prison.

When Alabama House Democrats attempted to amend the bill to include those exceptions, lawmakers shot the changes down in a 72-to-26 vote.

They voted, to require rape victims to have rapists’ babies, even after Democrats pointed out the bill did not strip rapists of parental rights.

Quietly and on background, some Republicans shared their reservations with me. The lack of rape and incest exemptions troubled them, they said, but not so much that they would express those concerns openly and also not enough to change their votes.

Because of the net.

Those lawmakers understood — or so they thought — that it didn’t really matter since Roe was there to stop them. If they went too far, the courts would always stop them, they assumed.

And perhaps that was the flaw of the net. It protected lawmakers as well as the people they would hurt through their politics of meanness.

It’s a protection other Little George-like politicians in other states have noticed and begun to exploit, too.

But now the net is gone, cut by a new Supreme Court majority. There is no guarantee anymore that the federal judiciary will protect Alabama from itself anymore. Alabamians will have to live with the consequences.

And if established law, such as Roe, is fair game for repeal, other decisions are at risk, too.

Workplace protections.

Marriage equality.

Voting rights

 

Civil rights.

 

Already, there is an Alabama case before the court, scheduled to be heard later this year, that the court could easily use to gut the rest of the Voting Rights Act.

Alabama is responsible for its own actions now.

 

And we’re going to need a lot more forgiveness from the Lord.

Edited May 3, 2022 by CoffeeTiger

[AU9377 4,929]

Nothing can protect ass backward thinking from going one step beyond what reasonable people expect.... said me.

The right will go that extra step and pass laws that criminalize women that go to other states and have an abortion.  That will be a step too far and will be struck down by the courts.

This decision, if it comes out as expected, will send women in droves to the polls and voting for candidates, most Democrats, who oppose Republicans.

[CoffeeTiger 5,106]

2 hours ago, AU9377 said:

 

This decision, if it comes out as expected, will send women in droves to the polls and voting for candidates, most Democrats, who oppose Republicans.

You would think, but I'm doubtful of the impact. 

Most pro-womens rights activists are already living in liberal, metropolitan states that will continue to have legal abortion and elect Democrats. 

Rich and middle class people in Republican States that outlaw abortion will still have access to abortions. They'll just have to spend more money to travel to a liberal state to have the procedure done. It'll be more inconvenient and costly, but they'll still have the resources to do. 

What these anti-abortion laws accomplish is forcing birth upon the young teenagers, very poor, the less educated, the people without financial means to travel across the country to get access to healthcare. These groups will suffer the most consequences, but they are also either unable or generally less motivated to vote. Especially since the Democrats tend to make a lot of promises, yet rarely actually  do anything because they don't have a supermajority in congress. There will always be enough Conservative Democrats out there that will side with the solid Republican block to veto any big changes to America's laws.

The Senate will also always be stacked against the Democrats because a million liberals  in New York are given the exact same representation as empty farmland in Nebraska has. 

Liberals in Alabama may get out and vote in mass, but it wouldn't matter because our State legislator has gerrymandered the hell out of the State to make sure it wouldn't matter. 

 

Edited May 3, 2022 by CoffeeTiger

[icanthearyou 4,462]

Protect Alabama from Alabama????  I believe the goal is to make the entire country more like Alabama/Mississippi.

7th highest homicide rate

Worst in infant mortality

7th highest rate of poverty, 6th lowest median household income

8th worst in literacy rate, lowest average student expenditures

6th highest incarceration rate

12th most regressive taxation

3rd worst for wages/protecting rights of employees

7th most dependent on federal funding

 

This is the goal.  This is the government that the people of Alabama want, demand.  No abortions, more guns, no concern for the human condition.  Absolute hypocrisy and ignorance.

[AU9377 4,929]

1 hour ago, CoffeeTiger said:

You would think, but I'm doubtful of the impact. 

Most pro-womens rights activists are already living in liberal, metropolitan states that will continue to have legal abortion and elect Democrats. 

Rich and middle class people in Republican States that outlaw abortion will still have access to abortions. They'll just have to spend more money to travel to a liberal state to have the procedure done. It'll be more inconvenient and costly, but they'll still have the resources to do. 

What these anti-abortion laws accomplish is forcing the young teenagers, very poor, the less educated, the people without financial means to travel across the country to get access to healthcare. These groups will suffer the most consequences, but they are also either unable or generally less motivated to vote. Especially since the Democrats tend to make a lot of promises, yet rarely actually  do anything because they don't have a supermajority in congress. There will always be enough Conservative Democrats out there that will side with the solid Republican block to veto any big changes to America's laws.

The Senate will also always be stacked against the Democrats because a million liberals  in New York are given the exact same representation as empty farmland in Nebraska has. 

Liberals in Alabama may get out and vote in mass, but it wouldn't matter because our State legislator has gerrymandered the hell out of the State to make sure it wouldn't matter. 

 

Those are good points, but there are states like Georgia, Florida, North Carolina & Texas where women could make a very noticeable impact. 

There are at least 9 states (from what I can tell) that have no exception for rape, incest or life of the mother.  Those states also plan to make it a crime for a resident of their state to go to another state to have an abortion.  That will be struck down.  Not to do so would invalidate the commerce clause.  Even so, it will be further proof of how much most Republicans want to be involved in the personal lives of Americans.

Edited May 3, 2022 by AU9377

[homersapien 11,368]

On 5/3/2022 at 1:13 PM, AU9377 said:

Those are good points, but there are states like Georgia, Florida, North Carolina & Texas where women could make a very noticeable impact. 

There are at least 9 states (from what I can tell) that have no exception for rape, incest or life of the mother.  Those states also plan to make it a crime for a resident of their state to go to another state to have an abortion.  That will be struck down.  Not to do so would invalidate the commerce clause.  Even so, it will be further proof of how much most Republicans want to be involved in the personal lives of Americans.

I wonder what impact this will have on companies considering to locate to these states.

Edited May 6, 2022 by homersapien

[DKW 86 7,419]

5 hours ago, icanthearyou said:

Protect Alabama from Alabama????  I believe the goal is to make the entire country more like Alabama/Mississippi.

7th highest homicide rate

Worst in infant mortality

7th highest rate of poverty, 6th lowest median household income

8th worst in literacy rate, lowest average student expenditures

6th highest incarceration rate

12th most regressive taxation

3rd worst for wages/protecting rights of employees

7th most dependent on federal funding

 

This is the goal.  This is the government that the people of Alabama want, demand.  No abortions, more guns, no concern for the human condition.  Absolute hypocrisy and ignorance.

Actually agree with about 98% of that.

[PUB78 1,358]

9 hours ago, CoffeeTiger said:

 

In the leaked Supreme court document it looks like RoevWade is dead and it'll be open hunting season on Women seeking abortions and women healthcare providers in conservative states. The language used in justifying this decision could be very easily applied to contraceptives, gay marriage, and various civil rights laws. Indicating this Supreme Court may be ready to pull the U.S. back into the 1970's and allow our  Republican states to form their own little Theocratic Dictatorships that will make the Taliban blush with envy and pride. 

 

https://www.al.com/news/2022/05/after-roe-opinion-whos-going-to-protect-alabama-from-alabama.html

As long as I can remember, there was a net under Alabama. The net had been there long before I was born.

It won’t be there much longer, it seems. Monday night, news broke that the United States Supreme Court had taken out its scissors, and I dread what that means for the future of my state.

But I have a pretty good idea of what’s coming next

I’m not sure who wove the first threads together, but Frank Johnson, the federal judge and law school classmate of George Wallace, tied many of its most important knots.

Whenever “Little George,” as their law school cohort called him at Alabama, passed a racist law, or deprived voters of their constitutional rights, or cheated the mentally ill out of care, or made Alabama prisons into torture chambers — Johnson stopped him with the power of the federal judiciary.

This happened so often that people began calling Johnson the “real governor of Alabama,” something Little George despised. Little George went around telling people Johnson needed a “barbed-wire enema,” and not much later, the Klan firebombed Johnson’s mother’s house thinking it was his

Johnson was undeterred and kept threading that net, and Johnson was still working on it long after Little George’s influence had begun to fade.

Late in life, when Little George’s conscience began to get the best of him, he reached out to Johnson to apologize.

“I sent him a message that, if he wanted to get forgiveness, he’d have to get it from the Lord,” Johnson said later.

The net under Alabama is the federal judiciary, and the net prevents Alabama from pushing its weakest and most vulnerable into an abyss of meanness and hate.

Unfortunately, the net has saved Alabama from itself so many times that lawmakers and governors learned to rely on it when passing legislation.

With a pass-it-and-see-what-sticks recklessness, they could reap the political benefits of awful bills and, like Little George, blame the judiciary when it ruled their nasty little laws unconstitutional. It’s not uncommon, even today, to hear lawmakers say, “Pass it and let the courts decide.”

Alabama politicians loved the net, even as they cussed it.

For a time, at least, the net held — mended and reinforced by other federal judges and higher courts — not the least of which being the United States Supreme Court.

But almost a decade ago, when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Shelby vs. Holder that protections against voter suppression were unconstitutional, a vital thread snapped.

Almost immediately, Southern states including Alabama began passing new voting restrictions and closing voting precincts. Alabama even tried to pass voter ID at the same time it closed driver’s license offices in the Black Belt.

Other threads have broken since and Monday night the whole net tore.

Politico reported the United States Supreme Court had voted earlier this year to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, two landmark decisions protecting reproductive rights.

It’s a draft version, an early look. But the debate appears settled. It’s all over but the editing.

Now let me tell you what this means for Alabama.

In 2019, Alabama Republicans passed “toughest in the nation” restrictions on abortion in the state. Those restrictions are so severe that they do not allow exemptions for victims of rape or incest.

If a 12-year-old girl gets pregnant after being molested by her uncle, Alabama Republican lawmakers would have that child carry that pregnancy to term. If a doctor helped such a girl end such a pregnancy, that doctor would be guilty of a felony carrying a sentence of up to life in prison.

When Alabama House Democrats attempted to amend the bill to include those exceptions, lawmakers shot the changes down in a 72-to-26 vote.

They voted, to require rape victims to have rapists’ babies, even after Democrats pointed out the bill did not strip rapists of parental rights.

Quietly and on background, some Republicans shared their reservations with me. The lack of rape and incest exemptions troubled them, they said, but not so much that they would express those concerns openly and also not enough to change their votes.

Because of the net.

Those lawmakers understood — or so they thought — that it didn’t really matter since Roe was there to stop them. If they went too far, the courts would always stop them, they assumed.

And perhaps that was the flaw of the net. It protected lawmakers as well as the people they would hurt through their politics of meanness.

It’s a protection other Little George-like politicians in other states have noticed and begun to exploit, too.

But now the net is gone, cut by a new Supreme Court majority. There is no guarantee anymore that the federal judiciary will protect Alabama from itself anymore. Alabamians will have to live with the consequences.

And if established law, such as Roe, is fair game for repeal, other decisions are at risk, too.

Workplace protections.

Marriage equality.

Voting rights

 

Civil rights.

 

Already, there is an Alabama case before the court, scheduled to be heard later this year, that the court could easily use to gut the rest of the Voting Rights Act.

Alabama is responsible for its own actions now.

 

And we’re going to need a lot more forgiveness from the Lord.

You should never believe or even read anything written by Kyle Whitmire , John Archibald or Roy Johnson.  Pure trash . If they are for it, then 90% of the time it is perversion or evil. . It they are against it, then 90% of the time it is common decency or common sense.

[CoffeeTiger 5,106]

1 hour ago, PUB78 said:

You should never believe or even read anything written by Kyle Whitmire , John Archibald or Roy Johnson.  Pure trash . If they are for it, then 90% of the time it is perversion or evil. .

 

I don't agree with everything they say or write, but they do a real service to the State of Alabama. They are some of the only opposing non- far right viewpoints that a lot of people in Alabama ever see or read.

Al.com publishes right wing viewpoints too. Just a day ago they had an opinion article from that Christian mommie blogger that wrote about the evils of all abortion and how taking care of unwanted children is appropriate punishment for these stupid, perverse, corrupt women who dare to defy God's will and have sex outside of marriage.

Edited May 4, 2022 by CoffeeTiger

[PUB78 1,358]

9 hours ago, CoffeeTiger said:

 

I don't agree with everything they say or write, but they do a real service to the State of Alabama. They are some of the only opposing non- far right viewpoints that a lot of people in Alabama ever see or read.

Al.com publishes right wing viewpoints too. Just a day ago they had an opinion article from that Christian mommie blogger that wrote about the evils of all abortion and how taking care of unwanted children is appropriate punishment for these stupid, perverse, corrupt women who dare to defy God's will and have sex outside of marriage.

Very few compared to  their liberal and woke bend. Cameron Smith is practically the only conservative commentator they have besides an occasional guest editorial. They have leftist guest editorials too. Al.Com is so out of touch with the vast majority of the state in their viewpoints. Few take them serious. Kyle and John have a bad case of liberal white guilt and Roy is just a racist.

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

On 5/3/2022 at 9:46 AM, AU9377 said:

This decision, if it comes out as expected, will send women in droves to the polls and voting for candidates, most Democrats, who oppose Republicans.

Yes; abortion will be left to democratic choice. Good.

[AU9377 4,929]

1 hour ago, NolaAuTiger said:

Yes; abortion will be left to democratic choice. Good.

The U.S. Constitution was written to intentionally regulate majority rule and protect the rights of someone not in the majority. The Bill of Rights was added for that very purpose. That is why our Republic has been able to ensure human rights.

[homersapien 11,368]

2 hours ago, NolaAuTiger said:

Yes; abortion will be left to democratic choice. Good.

Do you feel the same way about rolling back other rights provided under the 14th amendment, like the ability of black people to obtain an equivalent right to education just like white Americans?  Should segregation be permitted with a popular vote?

How about the right for people of two different races to get married?  Or the right of homosexuals to get married?  Should we vote on those rights?

Hell, how about the legal right of homosexuals or trans-sexuals to even exist? 

Are we going to make all inherent individual rights that are unenumerated   subject to vote?  

How has that worked in the past?

Edited May 5, 2022 by homersapien

[homersapien 11,368]

1 hour ago, AU9377 said:

The U.S. Constitution was written to intentionally regulate majority rule and protect the rights of someone not in the majority. The Bill of Rights was added for that very purpose. That is why our Republic has been able to ensure human rights.

Apparently, "our" Republic has a history of failing in that, but to your point, our history shows that we can progress - in many cases, thanks to SCOTUS rulings.

This is exactly why this ruling  - assuming it happens - to reverse Roe is so concerning.  We are now regressing. 

IMO, this regression smacks of Christo fascism. It's antithetical to our constitutional ideals.

 

Edited May 5, 2022 by homersapien

[autigeremt 6,602]

On 5/3/2022 at 9:46 AM, AU9377 said:

Nothing can protect ass backward thinking from going one step beyond what reasonable people expect.... said me.

The right will go that extra step and pass laws that criminalize women that go to other states and have an abortion.  That will be a step too far and will be struck down by the courts.

This decision, if it comes out as expected, will send women in droves to the polls and voting for candidates, most Democrats, who oppose Republicans.

Pretty much.