Apparently the Supreme Court is going to overturn Roe v Wade. Well, maybe. So, pro-abortionists muse on what must be done.
Situating abortion rights within the fight for fair access to health care for all is the smart next step. The menu of reforms must provide unhindered contraceptive access, including making the pill available over the counter; address the US’s appalling rates of infant and maternal mortality, which are experienced by Black women in particular; provide gender-inclusive and gender-affirming healthcare for LGBTQ+ people; and provide fertility treatment for all, not just those who can afford it.
Quite what lopping dicks and tits off has to do with abortion isn’t certain. More:
To counter the chill of this ultra-conservative supreme court, we propose a long-term goal: a constitutional amendment providing for gender equity. This super-charged Equal Rights Amendment would guarantee full equality and protection for sexuality and reproductive freedoms for all and without harmful government interference or denial of access to key services because of one’s income, race or geography. Let’s begin this bold action by building the political power necessary to make such an amendment a reality.
That appeal to the Constitution again.
Which does rather seem to miss what happens if Roe is overturned. Abortion becomes a matter for State law. Something that is entirely democratically decided by the voters in each state.
So why not have a campaign which works to get people to vote for abortion being legal in their state?
Presumably the answer is that some number of states would vote against the idea. So much for democracy, eh?
It’s about building a broad coalition. Get as many people as possible onto your side. Steve Sailer calls it “the coalition of the fringes”: gather all the blacks, LGBTs, mentally unwell, liberals, etc; and persuade them that their greatest enemy is the White Man. Therefore whatever he wants (anything from tighter monetary policy to fewer abortions) must be opposed.
@AndrewM: most of them don’t need any persuasion…
So if RvW gets overturned it goes back to States, and Cal, NY etc allow it and flyover states ban it. Will we then get a variant of the Mann Act, prohibiting the crossing of state lines for abortion?
I just read what purports to be the 14th amendment (I assume the wording is accurate).
It waffles about many things (making it clear by implication that only men may vote, and by men we don’t necessarily include Indians). I assume RvW was based on a reading of section 1: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
I’m guessing that the key element is the ‘No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;’ with someone deciding that denying abortion was a prior existing privilege or immunity.
If so, it’s a tad bizarre. I’m pretty sure, for example, that back in 1800 (for example) there was no law forbidding me to drive faster than say 30 mph in a town or city; or from owning and using (without harm to others) large-bore guns. So all such laws are null and void, too?
So is my guess just plain wrong? Enlightenment, please.
“gender-affirming healthcare for LGBTQ+ people”
Anyone explain this?
You’re born with a cock and balls but decide you’re female gender.
So you’re supposed to get cervical smear tests to affirm your gender, not a finger up the bum to massage the prostate?
“It’s about building a broad coalition. Get as many people as possible onto your side. Steve Sailer calls it “the coalition of the fringes”: gather all the blacks, LGBTs, mentally unwell, liberals, etc; and persuade them that their greatest enemy is the White Man.”
I think they know that won’t work. Cobble together all the minorities and you get a majority might be true if it didn’t inevitably result in a purity cycle. The trans lunatics have already poisoned that well. Instead, they’re likely going to rely on cancelling conservatives, with voter ID as their causus belli.
So they want to get fertility treatment to everyone, presumably this is to make sure that the number of abortions increases further? Seems like the goal is as many abortions as possible!
. . . we propose a long-term goal: a constitutional amendment . . .
That’s a very long term goal for just the single clear issue of abortion, let alone an ill-defined rainbow hotchpotch. You’ll need a two-thirds majority in the house of representatives and the senate (or a constitutional convention, an amendment method never used), followed then by ratification by three-quarters of the states. You haven’t got the votes, and by the time you ever did the United States of Queer would have long since fallen to the Chinese Taliban Helicopter Hanging Alliance.
Republicans have successfully stacked our federal courts with anti-abortion judges who believed that Roe was wrongly decided – and are willing to reverse it.
That’s right, elected politicians have used the proper constitutional process to appoint judges to examine the law and legal precedent. And those judges might look at legal precedent (Roe vs Wade) and decide that it was wrong (or some polite, judgey equivalent of wrong). Supreme Court rulings are a bit like executive orders, you can change the game in the country without legislative involvement, but your rulings can then be thrown out without legislative involvement.
In a “government of laws, not of men” it is proper to get your position established by lawmakers – not by judges.
A lot of controversial issues in the US would quiet down if the states were just allowed to be different.
For all the hysteria, the Texas abortion law isn’t about overturning Roe v. Wade. It’s about the states having the power to regulate abortion as they see fit. Kind of like the voting laws being passed in various states; those laws aren’t about disenfranchising anyone, they’re about regulating the process in a manner deemed necessary to ensure the integrity of elections.
Both of these issues are huge for progressives, but don’t really fly with voters. Polling consistently shows that voters are comfortable with states regulating abortion, and that unrestricted access to abortion (and its funding by taxpayers) isn’t the winner that progressive think it is.
It’s worth noting that the House is 220/212 and the Senate is 50/50. States are 18/30/2. (D/R/Split)
To pass an amendment to the Constitution requires either a joint resolution passed by 2/3 of the combined House and Senate, or passage by a Constitutional Convention, which can only be called if requested by 2/3 of the states.
Ain’t happening anytime soon.
. . . the Senate is 50/50 . . .
Technically, the senate is 50R / 48D / 2I.
I mention it only because it amuses me when the Rs are referred to as the minority party.
Finally forced myself to read the Vox article. That the pro-abortionists can’t sue anyone because the law would be enforced by private grifters who’ll sue the abortion clinics to death is hilarious. No doubt if the leftists tried to sue the grifters, they’d be open to similar suits themselves.
Alas I don’t think Aussie law would allow that sort of solution here.
To pass an amendment to the Constitution requires either a joint resolution passed by 2/3 of the combined House and Senate, or passage by a Constitutional Convention, which can only be called if requested by 2/3 of the states.
AIUI a Constitutional Convention cannot be limited to one single issue and nobody wants one because it will open up Pandora’s Box.
“I’m guessing that the key element is …” My memory is that SCOTUS followed a well worn path of overturning the Constitution by judicial fiat, justified with twaddle about emanations and penumbras (honest!). So first you magically find an implicit right to privacy in the Constitution – as if the chaps who wrote the document were incapable of being explicit about it. Then you argue that prohibiting abortion would restrict that right and, bingo, neither the State nor the People may restrict abortion. Easy peasy. Even though for the whole history of the Republic up to that point it was a right reserved to the States or the People – as are all rights not explicitly granted to the Union. It says so in the bloody Constitution.
I’m rather an admirer of the Constitution but I do admit that whenever the pressure is on, whenever a matter seems important enough to the powers that be, the Constitution is ignored. The USA as we know it was made by ignoring the Constitution and proceeding with the Louisiana Purchase, for heaven’s sake. The Prez at the time was that lamentable twister Jefferson. He drama-queened a bit about its unconstitutionality and then signed up for it anyway.
But that’s not the problem, really is it? Sure, some places like Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, etc. will either ban abortion entirely or restrict abortion to such an extent that it’s easier to take a few days vacation to Massachusetts and get the abortion there where it will likely remain unrestricted.
No, the big problem here is that it removes the appeal to the authority of the US Supreme Court that has been upholding this wrong and utterly flawed view on abortion since Roe v Wade was called. It has been this half century of Federal interference which is the aberration. Returning decisions on abortion law to the individual states would merely restore an element of reasonableness back in the argument.
I struggle to see any Supreme Court actually make such a ruling, especially under the current Democrat regime pretending it’s a legitimate government.