Supreme Court plays coward. Get raped in Texas and u can be forced to have the baby.

[AUGunsmith 666]

8 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

Do you really think it is possible to only live in a community with people that believe the exact same things that you do?  Would it not be much more sensible to accept that differences exist and learn how to respect different points of view?

Well destroying the social contract and ridding ourselves of the nonconsensual subservience to the state from birth would do a hell of a lot more good for people than forcing the minority to live under the rule of the opping majority. 

People don't have to think exactly the same, they just have to no longer be forced into the monopy on violence that is the state. Governance, not government. 

[TitanTiger 20,499]

The naiveté of hardcore libertarians is cute.

[AU9377 4,977]

19 minutes ago, AUGunsmith said:

Well destroying the social contract and ridding ourselves of the nonconsensual subservience to the state from birth would do a hell of a lot more good for people than forcing the minority to live under the rule of the opping majority. 

People don't have to think exactly the same, they just have to no longer be forced into the monopy on violence that is the state. Governance, not government. 

So your answer is that a country with 350 million should just be more like a chaotic mess?  If you get sick, just die already right?  Who needs to be educated?  Just learn what mama knows and be good with that?  There are examples around the globe of others making the efforts to provide their citizens with a greater quality of life than we enjoy. There are many countries that are just as free as we are, yet they don't burden their citizens or the companies that employ them with unaffordable health care costs, just as an example.  The wild West was not a great place to raise a family.  We have evolved and changed.  If we stop evolving, we will begin to die.

[DKW 86 7,431]

I really tire of the “always go to the worst case scenaario and pretend every instance will be that” politics and opinion. Fact is that the worst case scenario will likely almost never happen and when it does, judges and attorneys and the court system in general will work out something hopefully sane to most. 

Those that think any sane  gun registration is doing away with the 2nd Amendment, any rules for Abortion automatically means that ALL abortions become back alley abortions, etc always over react to everything. Over reaction and hyperbole are the rule of the day for us now. 

Please, just calm down, act like an adult, and quit assuming the absolute worst of those that dont think exactly as you. I promise, not that long ago, we all managed to take a joke, discuss a point, drink a pint, and all wake up the next day. Every nickel sized political compromise is not the end of the world. 

We as a nation survived trump, and you know what? The freakin Russians didnt manage to subvert the 2020 election. Kind of like 2016 was an aberration. But please dont take my word or plea on it. Just keep supposing the worst about each other. Keep hating the otherside to the point of antipathy. Scream at them over every single word and demonize them with all your heart. They will of course do you the same way. So when you finally get to the point where no one listens to the other side…get ready for war. I dont think history says it ever turns out any other way. 

Or…we could just chillout, realize that our political Elites lie to us daily and would like nothing more than to drive a wedge between us while they usurp all the real power. 

Edited September 2, 2021 by DKW 86

[AU9377 4,977]

47 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

I really tire of the “always go to the worst case scenaario and pretend every instance will be that” politics and opinion. Fact is that the worst case scenario will likely almost never happen and when it does, judges and attorneys and the court system in general will work out something hopefully sane to most. 

Those that think any sane  gun registration is doing away with the 2nd Amendment, any rules for Abortion automatically means that ALL abortions become back alley abortions, etc always over react to everything. Over reaction and hyperbole are the rule of the day for us now. 

Please, just calm down, act like an adult, and quit assuming the absolute worst of those that dont think exactly as you. I promise, not that long ago, we all managed to take a joke, discuss a point, drink a pint, and all wake up the next day. Every nickel sized political compromise is not the end of the world. 

We as a nation survived trump, and you know what? The freakin Russians didnt manage to subvert the 2020 election. Kind of like 2016 was an aberration. But please dont take my word or plea on it. Just keep supposing the worst about each other. Keep hating the otherside to the point of antipathy. Scream at them over every single word and demonize them with all your heart. They will of course do you the same way. So when you finally get to the point where no one listens to the other side…get ready for war. I dont think history says it ever turns out any other way. 

Or…we could just chillout, realize that our political Elites lie to us daily and would like nothing more than to drive a wedge between us while they usurp all the real power. 

I admit that I made the headline more dramatic than necessary, but this law is problematic for reasons that actually have nothing to do with abortion.  The state sanctioning of some sort of back woods civil vigilante justice is something I have never seen done before.  The fact that adults convened and at the end of the day thought this was a good idea is bizarre at best.

[jj3jordan 2,056]

2 hours ago, Didba said:

Yikes. Sensible policy cannot be made on "God's call", you make me sick.

It is not me that is making you sick.  You can play God and decide who lives and dies due to a prenatal condition.  Tim Tebow says hello.

[AUGunsmith 666]

2 hours ago, AU9377 said:

So your answer is that a country with 350 million should just be more like a chaotic mess?  If you get sick, just die already right?  Who needs to be educated?  Just learn what mama knows and be good with that?  There are examples around the globe of others making the efforts to provide their citizens with a greater quality of life than we enjoy. There are many countries that are just as free as we are, yet they don't burden their citizens or the companies that employ them with unaffordable health care costs, just as an example.  The wild West was not a great place to raise a family.  We have evolved and changed.  If we stop evolving, we will begin to die.

You aren't supporting evolution but the continuation of the state which has and always will be a hinderemce to progress. Want to lower health care, get the state out of it.

It is interesting you decide to use schools as US education is massively overfunded and chronically underperforming. 

Your WhO wILl BuIlD tHe RoAdS arguments has been debunked a million times. 

The wild west claim is hella subjective. Nowhere in the time period was great to live. 

 

[AU9377 4,977]

26 minutes ago, AUGunsmith said:

You aren't supporting evolution but the continuation of the state which has and always will be a hinderemce to progress. Want to lower health care, get the state out of it.

It is interesting you decide to use schools as US education is massively overfunded and chronically underperforming. 

Your WhO wILl BuIlD tHe RoAdS arguments has been debunked a million times. 

The wild west claim is hella subjective. Nowhere in the time period was great to live. 

 

Please give an example of where this utopia of living exists, where everyone has opportunity and achievement is unrestrained with no hindrance to progress.  I will wait.

Health care costs would be lower with no government involvement, because many would not receive care at all. Although there are fewer and fewer alive that remember, those that are can tell you the nightmare many faced as they aged without some form of social security.  I would whole heartedly agree that we are plagued by government waste, but most of that waste is the result of uncontrolled lobbyists that influence every piece of legislation passed.  Corporate welfare is just as wasteful as social safety nets. It just looks prettier.

Edited September 2, 2021 by AU9377

[TexasTiger 12,961]

On 9/1/2021 at 2:49 PM, TitanTiger said:

I'm pretty flexible on certain things politically.  I think sometimes the Democrats have a certain issue more right than the Republicans, sometimes vice versa.

But in this case, to me it's a human rights issue.  An innocent human being has the right not to be killed simply for existing and someone else not wanting them to.  We need to move away from seeing abortion as birth control and toward a culture that welcomes human life.  We need to move away from seeing sexual autonomy as a higher good than the right to not be murdered.

Now, the pragmatist in me would settle for a law that allowed for cases of incest or rape to be exempted.  Not because I think children conceived in such situations are less human, but because I know that these instances are exceedingly rare and we shouldn't be making policy based on outliers and edge cases.  Less than 3% of all abortions occur because of rape, incest and the life of the mother combined.  These are not the situations that should steer all of abortion law.  So if I could stop roughly 97% or more of all abortions from happening, I'd take that deal.

All this said, my big problem with the "pro-life" side of this is how often their cherishing of life ends right here.  They think that opposition to abortion taketh away the sins of the world.  Too many of them act like once they outlaw abortion the job is done and they're all lifey and stuff. But a real culture of life would seek to address the things that tend to make abortion a tempting or attractive option for women - lack of healthcare, financial support, emotional support, the threat of losing one's job or having to drop out of school, and so on.  Some charities fill in some of these gaps, but its very spotty nationwide.  Yet the second anyone suggests law or policy or programs that could help with these things on a more comprehensive level, these same pro-lifers balk, scream "sOcIaLiSm oMzG!", and become Ayn Rand reincarnate...which tells me many of them are more devoted to a particular American political ideology and tribe than they are to being pro-life or biblical in the approach to the matter.

I'm sure aspects of the above will dismay or piss off people on both sides of the debate but that's where I'm at.

The details of this particular law are beyond ridiculous. Anyone can sue? WTF. I’d prefer they just flat out ban it and take that to the Court and the voting public.

[CoffeeTiger 5,135]

14 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

The details of this particular law are beyond ridiculous. Anyone can sue? WTF. I’d prefer they just flat out ban it and take that to the Court and the voting public.

This is the smarter play for the "pro-life" crowd though. The Supreme court would never allow an outright ban on abortion, BUT with a conservative majority on the court its not out of the realm of possibility that State laws could keep chipping away at abortion access and then use the court to neuter roevwade till for all intents and purposes abortion is 'banned'.

[McLoofus 35,182]

On 9/1/2021 at 3:49 PM, TitanTiger said:

Less than 3% of all abortions occur because of rape, incest and the life of the mother combined.

My only issue with your post is that there is a 4th category of humane abortion with which I've explained my personal experience to you and others on this forum and which you've left out. I don't know what percentage of abortions or births involve a fetus that is known to have a genetic defect that will guarantee it an short, painful life, but it need be mentioned in your exceptions. 

But it would seem that you, like most people who opine on this subject, don't have that personal relationship with the topic. That's not an insult or otherwise a dig. It's just evident from the conversation and it's one more reasons why this topic should be left to women and doctors. 

Obviously I agree with and quite appreciate most of the rest of what you said. 

Oh, more provision of and education about contraception. Catholicism is stone cold stupid on this issue. 

[TitanTiger 20,499]

31 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

My only issue with your post is that there is a 4th category of humane abortion with which I've explained my personal experience to you and others on this forum and which you've left out. I don't know what percentage of abortions or births involve a fetus that is known to have a genetic defect that will guarantee it an short, painful life, but it need be mentioned in your exceptions. 

But it would seem that you, like most people who opine on this subject, don't have that personal relationship with the topic. That's not an insult or otherwise a dig. It's just evident from the conversation and it's one more reasons why this topic should be left to women and doctor

Obviously I agree with and quite appreciate most of the rest of what you said. 

Oh, more provision of and education about contraception. Catholicism is stone cold stupid on this issue. 

First of all, I'm very sorry you and your wife had to go through such a hard and tragic thing.  It had to be gut-wrenching.

In terms of the stats on such situations, I'm not sure of the exact percentage either.  There are some stats from six states (Louisiana, Utah, Florida, Minnesota, South Dakota and Nebraska) from 1996 to 2020 that indicated about a cumulative total of around 2.44 million women chose abortion because of birth defects.  That's less than 0.7% of all abortions in those states during that time period.  The last national level survey was done by Guttmacher and is from 2004.  At the time, only 3% of those surveyed who'd had abortion said it was done because of fetal health problems.  

And "fetal health problems" is a pretty broad category.  It could include anything from situations like yours to Down's Syndrome, to rather mild mental or physical impairments.  We can take such things into consideration but if we did, basic human dignity and rights still need to be accounted for, I think.  There would need to be some pretty strict definitions in place so that we aren't lumping all of those into the same exemption basket because all of those are not the same by a long shot.

Again, pragmatically speaking, even though I take the position that human rights and dignity take priority, you're still looking at stats that say somewhere between 94% and 96% of all abortions are taking place for reasons other than rape, incest, life of the mother, or serious fetal defect.  So even allowing for those exemptions, that's still a lot of healthy babies we could stop from being killed.

What I would like to see more than anything is a cultural shift away from simplistic "my body, my choice" type rhetoric and toward a default position of "all human beings have an inalienable right to not be killed."  Start there.  Then we can discuss the rare exceptions where it might be abrogated - the life of the mother, rape/incest, severe fetal abnormality.  That would be a big improvement in terms of humanity rather than saying "the fetus has no human rights and we get to kill it for any reason" as the default and then try to argue for exceptions to that.

[TexasTiger 12,961]

1 hour ago, CoffeeTiger said:

This is the smarter play for the "pro-life" crowd though. The Supreme court would never allow an outright ban on abortion, BUT with a conservative majority on the court its not out of the realm of possibility that State laws could keep chipping away at abortion access and then use the court to neuter roevwade till for all intents and purposes abortion is 'banned'.

This Court might. While I am sympathetic to folks sincerely opposed to abortion who also value life after the baby is born, I have zero respect for anyone who endorses this ridiculous, divisive, corrosive abuse of governmental power. None. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

21 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

First of all, I'm very sorry you and your wife had to go through such a hard and tragic thing.  It had to be gut-wrenching.

In terms of the stats on such situations, I'm not sure of the exact percentage either.  There are some stats from six states (Louisiana, Utah, Florida, Minnesota, South Dakota and Nebraska) from 1996 to 2020 that indicated about a cumulative total of around 2.44 million women chose abortion because of birth defects.  That's less than 0.7% of all abortions in those states during that time period.  The last national level survey was done by Guttmacher and is from 2004.  At the time, only 3% of those surveyed who'd had abortion said it was done because of fetal health problems.  

And "fetal health problems" is a pretty broad category.  It could include anything from situations like yours to Down's Syndrome, to rather mild mental or physical impairments.  We can take such things into consideration but if we did, basic human dignity and rights still need to be accounted for, I think.  There would need to be some pretty strict definitions in place so that we aren't lumping all of those into the same exemption basket because all of those are not the same by a long shot.

Again, pragmatically speaking, even though I take the position that human rights and dignity take priority, you're still looking at stats that say - somewhere between 94% and 96% of all abortions are taking place for reasons other than rape, incest, life of the mother, or serious fetal defect.  So even allowing for those exemptions, that's still a lot of healthy babies we could stop from being killed.

I sincerely appreciate your kind words. I really do. I also appreciate the research you did.

They're all upsetting numbers. And, fwiw, I agree that most of it feels wrong. 

But back to your other post, I want to reiterate that I'm aligned with you on making this country a less scary one in which to bring a baby minus the resources to properly care for it alone. We could maybe get way further ahead not just in the discourse- generally, not you and me specifically- but in terms of a better life for all Americans if we could all agree that we need to take care of each other better.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

14 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

I sincerely appreciate your kind words. I really do. I also appreciate the research you did.

They're all upsetting numbers. And, fwiw, I agree that most of it feels wrong. 

But back to your other post, I want to reiterate that I'm aligned with you on making this country a less scary one in which to bring a baby minus the resources to properly care for it alone. We could maybe get way further ahead not just in the discourse- generally, not you and me specifically- but in terms of a better life for all Americans if we could all agree that we need to take care of each other better.

I would love nothing more than for a big time pro-lifer in Congress to basically issue this as a challenge.  Offer a law that says abortion is outlawed except in cases of rape, incest, life of the mother and severe fetal defect (with details as to what that means).  In return, we create some sort of public option to get to universal healthcare coverage which includes all pre and post-natal care as well as access to contraception.  We offer tax credits to help facilitate adoptions  We also strengthen laws protecting women from losing jobs, scholarships, acceptance in college and so on.  Make laws that make it much harder for the biological fathers to avoid their financial responsibilities for the child.  And we create a program to defray or pay for childcare costs and tax incentives for private business and colleges and universities to have on site free or low cost child care available.  

Just see what would happen.  Tackle both sides of the issue all at the same time.  The resulting public debate would be riveting.

Edited to add:  Almost forgot - paid parental leave after the birth of a child also.  At least 12 weeks.

[McLoofus 35,182]

5 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

I would love nothing more than for a big time pro-lifer in Congress to basically issue this as a challenge.  Offer a law that says abortion is outlawed except in cases of rape, incest, life of the mother and severe fetal defect (with details as to what that means).  In return, we create some sort of public option to get to universal healthcare coverage which includes all pre and post-natal care as well as access to contraception.  We offer tax credits to help facilitate adoptions  We also strengthen laws protecting women from losing jobs, scholarships, acceptance in college and so on.  Make laws that make it much harder for the biological fathers to avoid their financial responsibilities for the child.  And we create a program to defray or pay for childcare costs and tax incentives for private business and colleges and universities to have on site free or low cost child care available.  

Just see what would happen.  Tackle both sides of the issue all at the same time.  The resulting public debate would be riveting.

Edited to add:  Almost forgot - paid parental leave after the birth of a child also.  At least 12 weeks.

Added benefit of clearing up, in some states, what constitutes "incest". (That's my feeble and perhaps inappropriate stab at a little levity.) 

As long as people are coming from the right place, the conversation can and should move forward. This feels like that. Good post.  

 

[homersapien 11,393]

2 hours ago, CoffeeTiger said:

This is the smarter play for the "pro-life" crowd though. The Supreme court would never allow an outright ban on abortion, BUT with a conservative majority on the court its not out of the realm of possibility that State laws could keep chipping away at abortion access and then use the court to neuter roevwade till for all intents and purposes abortion is 'banned'.

This is exactly what is happening. It's a war on women's rights.

[CoffeeTiger 5,135]

10 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

I would love nothing more than for a big time pro-lifer in Congress to basically issue this as a challenge.  Offer a law that says abortion is outlawed except in cases of rape, incest, life of the mother and severe fetal defect (with details as to what that means).  In return, we create some sort of public option to get to universal healthcare coverage which includes all pre and post-natal care as well as access to contraception.  We offer tax credits to help facilitate adoptions  We also strengthen laws protecting women from losing jobs, scholarships, acceptance in college and so on.  Make laws that make it much harder for the biological fathers to avoid their financial responsibilities for the child.  And we create a program to defray or pay for childcare costs and tax incentives for private business and colleges and universities to have on site free or low cost child care available.  

Just see what would happen.  Tackle both sides of the issue all at the same time.  The resulting public debate would be riveting.

Edited to add:  Almost forgot - paid parental leave after the birth of a child also.  At least 12 weeks.

 

That would certainly be an interesting discussion. I agree the debate would be riveting. 

 

This would be impossible in todays US though. Neither the left or right would even think of accepting the compromises you propose here. 

[TexasTiger 12,961]

35 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

I would love nothing more than for a big time pro-lifer in Congress to basically issue this as a challenge.  Offer a law that says abortion is outlawed except in cases of rape, incest, life of the mother and severe fetal defect (with details as to what that means).  In return, we create some sort of public option to get to universal healthcare coverage which includes all pre and post-natal care as well as access to contraception.  We offer tax credits to help facilitate adoptions  We also strengthen laws protecting women from losing jobs, scholarships, acceptance in college and so on.  Make laws that make it much harder for the biological fathers to avoid their financial responsibilities for the child.  And we create a program to defray or pay for childcare costs and tax incentives for private business and colleges and universities to have on site free or low cost child care available.  

Just see what would happen.  Tackle both sides of the issue all at the same time.  The resulting public debate would be riveting.

Edited to add:  Almost forgot - paid parental leave after the birth of a child also.  At least 12 weeks.

The fact that not a single “pro-lifer” in Congress will do that tells you what?

[TitanTiger 20,499]

2 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

The fact that not a single “pro-lifer” in Congress will do that tells you what?

That for most of them, opposition to abortion is a political prop.  Or that they've bought into the disconnect so many Christians have where they prioritize their political tribalism over what they claim is their highest priority.

[homersapien 11,393]

Interesting political perspective from a (former?) Republican.

 

Texas Republicans Got What They Wanted. They Might Regret It.

Until now, Republicans have had a lucrative, no-risk way to rail against abortion. But accountability is coming.

By David Frum

Gerald Ford supported abortion rights. George H. W. Bush supported abortion rights for the first two decades of his political career. As governor of California, Ronald Reagan signed one of the most permissive abortion laws in the nation.

Over the four decades since 1980, however, the Republican Party has coalesced around a more radical brand of abortion politics. This week, the Republican-appointed majority on the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the state of Texas to impose the most restrictive abortion law since Roe v. Wade constitutionalized abortion rights in 1973.

This result has provoked dismay, and not only from the Texas women who will be surveilled and policed by the law. Yet the Supreme Court’s permission to Texas Republicans to proceed with their scheme should be welcomed—including by those who support abortion rights—as the crucial step toward a resolution of a half-century-long national culture war.

Pre-Texas, opposition to abortion offered Republican politicians a lucrative, no-risk political option. They could use pro-life rhetoric to win support from socially conservative voters who disliked Republican economic policy, and pay little price for it with less socially conservative voters who counted on the courts to protect abortion rights for them.

Pre-Texas, Republican politicians worried a lot about losing a primary to a more pro-life opponent, but little about a backlash if they won the primary by promising to criminalize millions of American women.

That one-way option has just come to an end. Most American voters have quietly understood for a long time that most politicians who claim to be “pro-life” are hypocrites. These politicians do not really mean what they say, or anyway, they do not really intend to do what they say. You might imagine that this assumption of hypocrisy would hurt. Sometimes it has. More often, though, it has protected politicians from accountability for the policies they advocate.

Today, accountability has suddenly arrived. Texas Republicans have just elevated abortion rights to perhaps the state’s supreme ballot issue in 2022. Perhaps they have calculated correctly. Perhaps a Texas voting majority really wants to see the reproductive lives of Texas women restrained by random passersby. If that’s the case, that’s an important political fact, and one that will reshape the politics of the country in 2024.

But it’s also possible that Texas Republicans have miscalculated. Instead of narrowly failing again and again, feeding the rage of their supporters against shadowy and far-away cultural enemies, abortion restricters have finally, actually, and radically got their way. They have all but outlawed abortion in the nation’s second-largest state, and voted to subject women to an intrusive and intimate regime of supervision and control not imposed on men. At last, a Republican legislative majority has enacted its declared beliefs in almost their fullest form—and won permission from the courts to impose its will on the women of its state.

This is a new reality, and one that opens a way for the prolonged U.S. abortion-rights debate to be resolved. If the Texas Republicans prosper politically, then abortion-rights advocates must accept that the country truly is much more conservative on abortion than they appreciated and adjust their goals accordingly. But if not, and I’m guessing that the answer is not, anti-abortion-rights politicians are about to feel the shock of their political lives. For the first time since the 1970s, they will have to reckon with mobilized opposition that also regards abortion as issue No. 1 in state and local politics.

The abortion debate is often analogized to the debate over alcohol prohibition in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For almost 70 years, from the 1850s to the 1920s, Americans battled passionately but inconclusively over how to regulate booze. The debate ended only after the prohibitionists won their seemingly decisive victory: the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919 followed by the Volstead Act. For a dozen years, metropolitan America lived under rules imposed by non-metropolitan America. Then the whole experiment utterly collapsed. Alcohol prohibition failed so dismally, both in practice and in politics, that even the prohibitionists had to surrender. Only then could the United States move to a stable equilibrium of national legality bounded by locally acceptable regulations.

History never repeats itself. But there’s already compelling evidence that Texas Republicans understand how detested their new abortion law will soon be—not only in New York City and Los Angeles, but also in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, and Fort Worth. They took the precaution of preceding the nation’s most restrictive abortion law with one of the nation’s most suppressive voting laws. It’s as if they could foresee what Texas would do to them if all qualified Texans could vote. But the Texas voting law only impedes voting; it does not prevent it. The 2020 election showed that voter suppression can only do so much to protect a sufficiently unpopular incumbent.

In the off-year elections of 2014, Republicans won a huge victory. In 2018, they suffered a huge defeat. The crucial difference was turnout: 2014 saw the lowest turnout since 1942; 2018 saw the highest in a nonpresidential year since before World War I. The moral of the story would seem to be that Republicans do best when the electorate is satisfied and quiet; they face disaster when the electorate is mobilized and angry. Texas Republicans have just bet their political future in a rapidly diversifying and urbanizing state on a gambit: cultural reaction plus voter suppression. The eyes of Texas will be upon them indeed. The eyes of the nation will be upon them too.

 

 

David Frum is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy (2020). In 2001 and 2002, he was a speechwriter for President George W. Bush.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/texas-republicans-abortion-ban-backfire/619956/

 

 

Edited September 3, 2021 by homersapien

[jj3jordan 2,056]

22 hours ago, homersapien said:

Interesting political perspective from a (former?) Republican.

 

Texas Republicans Got What They Wanted. They Might Regret It.

Until now, Republicans have had a lucrative, no-risk way to rail against abortion. But accountability is coming.

By David Frum

Gerald Ford supported abortion rights. George H. W. Bush supported abortion rights for the first two decades of his political career. As governor of California, Ronald Reagan signed one of the most permissive abortion laws in the nation.

Over the four decades since 1980, however, the Republican Party has coalesced around a more radical brand of abortion politics. This week, the Republican-appointed majority on the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the state of Texas to impose the most restrictive abortion law since Roe v. Wade constitutionalized abortion rights in 1973.

This result has provoked dismay, and not only from the Texas women who will be surveilled and policed by the law. Yet the Supreme Court’s permission to Texas Republicans to proceed with their scheme should be welcomed—including by those who support abortion rights—as the crucial step toward a resolution of a half-century-long national culture war.

Pre-Texas, opposition to abortion offered Republican politicians a lucrative, no-risk political option. They could use pro-life rhetoric to win support from socially conservative voters who disliked Republican economic policy, and pay little price for it with less socially conservative voters who counted on the courts to protect abortion rights for them.

Pre-Texas, Republican politicians worried a lot about losing a primary to a more pro-life opponent, but little about a backlash if they won the primary by promising to criminalize millions of American women.

That one-way option has just come to an end. Most American voters have quietly understood for a long time that most politicians who claim to be “pro-life” are hypocrites. These politicians do not really mean what they say, or anyway, they do not really intend to do what they say. You might imagine that this assumption of hypocrisy would hurt. Sometimes it has. More often, though, it has protected politicians from accountability for the policies they advocate.

Today, accountability has suddenly arrived. Texas Republicans have just elevated abortion rights to perhaps the state’s supreme ballot issue in 2022. Perhaps they have calculated correctly. Perhaps a Texas voting majority really wants to see the reproductive lives of Texas women restrained by random passersby. If that’s the case, that’s an important political fact, and one that will reshape the politics of the country in 2024.

But it’s also possible that Texas Republicans have miscalculated. Instead of narrowly failing again and again, feeding the rage of their supporters against shadowy and far-away cultural enemies, abortion restricters have finally, actually, and radically got their way. They have all but outlawed abortion in the nation’s second-largest state, and voted to subject women to an intrusive and intimate regime of supervision and control not imposed on men. At last, a Republican legislative majority has enacted its declared beliefs in almost their fullest form—and won permission from the courts to impose its will on the women of its state.

This is a new reality, and one that opens a way for the prolonged U.S. abortion-rights debate to be resolved. If the Texas Republicans prosper politically, then abortion-rights advocates must accept that the country truly is much more conservative on abortion than they appreciated and adjust their goals accordingly. But if not, and I’m guessing that the answer is not, anti-abortion-rights politicians are about to feel the shock of their political lives. For the first time since the 1970s, they will have to reckon with mobilized opposition that also regards abortion as issue No. 1 in state and local politics.

The abortion debate is often analogized to the debate over alcohol prohibition in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For almost 70 years, from the 1850s to the 1920s, Americans battled passionately but inconclusively over how to regulate booze. The debate ended only after the prohibitionists won their seemingly decisive victory: the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919 followed by the Volstead Act. For a dozen years, metropolitan America lived under rules imposed by non-metropolitan America. Then the whole experiment utterly collapsed. Alcohol prohibition failed so dismally, both in practice and in politics, that even the prohibitionists had to surrender. Only then could the United States move to a stable equilibrium of national legality bounded by locally acceptable regulations.

History never repeats itself. But there’s already compelling evidence that Texas Republicans understand how detested their new abortion law will soon be—not only in New York City and Los Angeles, but also in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, and Fort Worth. They took the precaution of preceding the nation’s most restrictive abortion law with one of the nation’s most suppressive voting laws. It’s as if they could foresee what Texas would do to them if all qualified Texans could vote. But the Texas voting law only impedes voting; it does not prevent it. The 2020 election showed that voter suppression can only do so much to protect a sufficiently unpopular incumbent.

In the off-year elections of 2014, Republicans won a huge victory. In 2018, they suffered a huge defeat. The crucial difference was turnout: 2014 saw the lowest turnout since 1942; 2018 saw the highest in a nonpresidential year since before World War I. The moral of the story would seem to be that Republicans do best when the electorate is satisfied and quiet; they face disaster when the electorate is mobilized and angry. Texas Republicans have just bet their political future in a rapidly diversifying and urbanizing state on a gambit: cultural reaction plus voter suppression. The eyes of Texas will be upon them indeed. The eyes of the nation will be upon them too.

 

 

David Frum is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Trumpocalypse: Restoring American Democracy (2020). In 2001 and 2002, he was a speechwriter for President George W. Bush.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/texas-republicans-abortion-ban-backfire/619956/

 

 

Good thing big Dave has already been born.

[homersapien 11,393]

What the Justice Department should do to stop the Texas abortion law

Opinion by Laurence H. Tribe

 

The Texas legislature and five Supreme Court justices have joined forces to eviscerate women’s abortion rights — the legislature by creating and the justices by leaving in place a system of private bounties designed to intimidate all who would help women exercise the right to choose. But the federal government has — and should use — its own powers, including criminal prosecution, to prevent the law from being enforced and to reduce its chilling effects.

Of course, the best approach would be for Congress to codify the right to abortion in federal law, although Democrats likely lack the votes to make that happen — and there is a risk that this conservative Supreme Court would find that such a statute exceeded Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause.

But as President Biden calls for a “whole of government” response to the fact that thousands of women in Texas — and no doubt soon elsewhere — are being denied their constitutional rights, there are other solutions that already exist in federal law.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has the power, under federal civil rights laws, to go after any vigilantes who employ the Texas law to seek bounties from abortion providers or others who help women obtain abortions.

The attorney general should announce, as swiftly as possible, that he will use federal law to the extent possible to deter and prevent bounty hunters from employing the Texas law. If Texas wants to empower private vigilantes to intimidate abortion providers from serving women, why not make bounty hunters think twice before engaging in that intimidation?

For example, Section 242 of the federal criminal code makes it a crime for those who, “under color of law,” willfully deprive individuals “of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.“

This statute — originally designed to go after the Ku Klux Klan — fits the Texas situation perfectly: The bounty seekers, entitled under the Texas law to collect penalties of at least $10,000, have been made, in effect, private attorneys general of Texas. They act “under color of state law,” and unless and until Roe v. Wade is overruled, they unmistakably intend to prevent the exercise of a constitutional right.

In addition, Section 241 of the federal criminal code makes it an even more serious crime for “two or more persons” to agree to “oppress, threaten, or intimidate” anyone “in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same.” This crime may be committed even by individuals not found to be acting “under color of law” but as purely private vigilantes, as long as they’re acting in concert with others.

Again, the Texas scheme could hardly be more perfectly designed to match the language of that section. The whole point of the Texas law, after all, is to intimidate abortion providers and others by threatening them with penalties of at least $10,000, plus legal fees, in the form of bounties to be paid to the vigilante. Even jurists who believe the Constitution does not protect abortion rights might be given pause by this seizure of private property, with unlimited penalties not tied to any actual harm suffered by the bounty hunter.

It would be particularly fitting — in tune not just with the letter but the spirit of the law — to use the Ku Klux Klan Act in this way. After all, the statute was enacted in 1871, in the aftermath of the Civil War, precisely to prevent Klansmen from lynching and other attacks on formerly enslaved Black citizens, including to prevent them from exercising their constitutional right to vote. As the Klan rampaged in the former Confederacy, Southern states didn’t simply turn a blind eye to its vigilante justice but encouraged it.

In addition to these criminal provisions, there are civil actions available under federal law, including the ability to seek and obtain court orders to halt the illegal state scheme. The Justice Department can’t directly use the civil provisions of the Ku Klux Klan Act; only the injured party can. But the All Writs Act, which permits federal courts to “issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions” could allow the department to go to court to seek an order blocking the Texas law from being enforced.

The Justice Department is understandably reluctant to announce particular investigations or prosecutions before pinning down more details than are yet available. But, at some point, the need to disarm those who cynically undermine constitutional rights while ducking all normal avenues for challenging their assault on the rule of law becomes paramount.

We have arrived at that point.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/05/justice-department-stop-texas-abortion-law-laurence-tribe/

 

Edited September 5, 2021 by homersapien

[autigeremt 6,652]

On 9/2/2021 at 8:04 AM, wdefromtx said:

Clowns to the left…jokers to the right….

BOOM!

[DKW 86 7,431]

Just oh, btw, I am 100% for any law that takes the pain of abortion and childrearing to the baby daddy as well. If you dont want kids, the cost of kids, the loss of time to care for children, then take some damn steps to stop getting a woman pregnant.

I truly do not believe for a second that many males even pretend to be conscientious about sex. Look, take time and make some contributions to the SPERM BANK and then get a Vasectomy. It is all but a 100% sure thing. You can party all you want and no one gets hurt. Hell there are other options even to actual vaginal sex. Get creative. Use your mind. We live in 21st Century America. If you are fathering a child, then the pain of stupidity should apply here. I actually know 50 and 60 year old coworkers still living at home with momma because they got burned by a lying woman that got a ton of their paychecks for 20 years or so. I have no mercy for them. Stupid should be excruciatingly painful when there is a child involved.

Edited September 8, 2021 by DKW 86