Lord knows who leaked this but:
US Supreme Court votes to overturn abortion rights, according to leaked draft decision
American politics is about to get very screechy and possibly even interesting.
This sends it all back to the States where it should have been all along. And the end result, after the screeching, will be what it should have been all along too. A political settlement – as in Europe – that accords with what the demos is willing to put up with as the balance of rights and wrongs. As y’all around here know I don’t like that balance in the slightest but it has been arrived at through politics, the only real way these sorts of things can be thrashed out – that being what politics is for.
It’s precisely the imposition through some very bad law which has kept the issue to alive in the US.
When the dust settles there will be some states very restrictive, some very liberal. Which is what a Federal system is supposed to end up with on an issue that is not the preserve of the Federal level of government.
This appears to be the first ever case of a Supreme Court draft decision being leaked. Rather a big deal.
Typical of a lot of “unprecedented” things that seem to be happening, without fear of consequence, across the western world whenever the established narrative is threatened.
It’s interesting, but not necessarily set in stone. A 5-4 ruling at this stage (probably made last December) is only indicative and part of court procedure, so could easily change before the final result is due in the Summer. The leaked report could just be the draft of a potential minority report by Alito and nothing more.
Still, the points made are perfectly valid and a neutral observer would say that there isn’t any Constitutional weight behind Roe v Wade.
Given the polarity of the US, especially over this issue, it seems like the leak is an attempt to sway the SCOTUS before they make a final decision and have senior Democrat law-makers up-to-and-including the squatter at 1600, Pennsylvania Avenue lean on the court to prevent repeal.
None of which is a good look.
If I was to take another punt, the leak might be a holding action, allowing the Dems to push a nationwide right-to-abortion act through Congress before Roe v. Wade is repealed in the summer. In essence, simply transferring what had previously been a constitutional right to federal law. There’s going to be a whole lot of squealing before that gets passed (if they CAN even pass it, which is doubtful) and yet another challenge on constitutionality (10th Amendment?), since without a federal law it would naturally devolve back down to the individual states.
Is this the Democratic strategy to save the Mid-terms? Maybe get those headlines about inflation (or even Bidenflation) off the front pages of every newspaper? A political version of “Oh look! Squirrel”?
Whatever the reason it’s gonna be one hell of a bunfight.
I made the mistake of having the Today Programme on just now. Needless to say it is Trump’s fault according to the ever more frantic Sarah Smith. The real story ie the leak has passed them by.
I don’t usually have the wireless on in the mornings either. Having Smith screeching at me is worse than the cat demanding her breakfast.
As if it matters – I have always thought that this should be a state legislative matter and not Consitutional, just as I thought it wrong that abortion was banned in the Irish constitution
At least Sarah Smith has the merit of not being Jon Sopel.
The right to abortion being based upon an obscure reading of the the 9th and 14th was never going to last forever. Unless there was a new amendment to the American constitution, the situation was going to have to end at some point.
How about this for a 29th: “The right of women to terminate and end pregnancy, shall not be infringed”.
Precisely. This fashion for reading the most unlikely things into the Constitution is terrible law. If you want something in the Constitution, put it there.
The fact that it’s difficult is a feature, not a bug. But it has didn’t stop terrible amendments being passed (Prohibition), nor them being repealed.
Next question is, of course: Who Leaked?
If it’s some underscribe who’s willing to take the fall For The Cause it’s one thing.
Plenty of LeftWoke “activists” in minor positions that try to swing a result by engaging the Righteous Indignation of the Twatterati Drones et. al. if they don’t like the way things are going.
But if it’s directly tied to a judge…. When’s the last time a Supreme Court judge was booted out?
Maybe it was the brand new diversity hire?
This whole thing, from the original Roe-Wade ruling through to what’s supposed to have been leaked is yet another confirmation of what I’ve always believed. That justice systems & the law itself is just another branch of politics & basically serves to keep the rulers ruling. Any “justice” for the ordinary geezer that comes out of it is purely coincidental. Supreme courts just produce the politics of senior members of the legal profession. Hence the ruling by the UK supremes over Brexit matters. Anyone who thinks anything else is just kidding themselves.
Incidentally, “rulers” is not necessarily contiguous with the people we democratically elect. But does include for instance judges. Why governments can sometimes find themselves overruled by their own justice systems. We are ruled by the people with the power to rule us & they seek to preserve that power. Democracy is largely a sham.
Sarah Smith’s sister has amazing tits. Or she did in 1996.
We have to STOP Vladimir Putin killing Ukrainians, so we can CONCENTRATE on killing babies.
Something about some prime minister saying something about “events dear boy, events”
This is going to be a hell of an event it changes the odds on the upcoming November Congressional elections. Perhaps the State Gubernatorial and Legislative elections even more so.
Repealing Roe v Wade is bound to fire up voters on each side, but it’ll increase Democratic turnout relative to Republican turnout. So the old sure thing expectation of the Republicans taking the House of Representatives just went from 2:1 in favor to something like 5:4 in favour. And the Republicans were thinking they just might take the Senate. Now they’d be relieved to just hold it to 50/50.
Also, this forces Chief justice Roberts hand. If he’s going to keep any integrity in the court he can’t wait two months to release the decision. He has to release it Tuesday or Wednesday. He has to release the decision before anybody could reasonably suspect that the justices might have switched their vote in reaction to this leak, otherwise any delusion that the court is not influenced by political pressures will be shattered.
What BiS said. The legal ‘profession’ always ultimately find that ‘the law’ magically coincides with their political views and their best interests. The idea they are following some enlightened path of independent legal truth is laughable, its all entirely self interest, when push comes to shove.
GRIKATH WROTE
> When’s the last time a Supreme Court judge was booted out?
I think it was the 1960s. Abe Fortas went from Governor of some state to supreme Court justice, and then resigned before he was impeached. Some kind of financial scandal.
Fortas resigned in 1969.
He was one of the scummier of LBJ’s associates, but he was Yale Law and that meant he was welcomed into the club both in Washington and on the Supreme Court.
If you ever need a perfect illustration of why Donald Trump thought it important to drain the swamp, take a gander at Fortas’ career.
The Gruinard’s opinion: “As the US supreme court moves to end abortion, is America still a free country?
Moira Donegan” !! FWIW, I am not opposed to abortion in principle, but Roe v. Wade was an appalling piece of jurisprudence.
I am thinking of the Australian High Courts ruling that a state petrol tax was a law in restraint of interstate trade and thus forbidden by the constitution.
This was after good old Jo abolished Queenslands’ petrol tax of course.
That Guardian article is odd in the extreme. It keeps refering to how the majority of the public support access to abortion, and yet say this will outlaw abortion in fifty trillion states.
Which it can’t if a majority of people in those states support abortion rights, because that’s how democracy works. They will vote for someone who won’t outlaw it.
They can’t both be true.
One observation about left vs right, is that conservatives seem largely willing to let the leftist areas be. Texans might view Californians as nuts, but otherwise figure California is a good place to keep the nuts. The liberals, on the other hand, are adamant that what they want must prevail across the country. The red states are often quite willing to just leave the blue states be, but the blue states are going nuts because the red states are different and that must change. This ignores that a blue state is just a red state but with a major city or two that simply dominate what the rest of the state wants.
California abortion clinics are promising to beef up and make the state an abortion haven. There’s something to be proud of. There will probably soon be proposals in the state to make abortion compulsory.
https://calmatters.org/politics/2022/04/california-abortion-rights/
Democracy is what I say people want. Not what the riff-raff vote for.
The liberals, on the other hand, are adamant that what they want must prevail across the country.
Proselytizing religions are a problem.
They are already using this to mobilise voters for the mid-terms arguing it will need pro-choice senators and pro-choice house majority to adopt legislation to codify Roe v Wade
We saw the same thing in Canada when a province challenged a Federal bill on child care relating to First Nations as health and childcare were provincial responsibilities. The media and activists were shouting that the province was cancelling it, they were evil and reincarnation of Hitler etc, when they were just insisting that the Federal government followed proper process
A bunch of hysterical rich white women screeching on TV because they’re too stupid to master birth control might not be the get-out-the-vote motivation the Democrats think it is.
But if SCOTUS overturns Woe/Wade, Congress *CAN’T* embed it in Federal law, because by overturning Roe/Wade it forces it OUTSIDE the remit of Federal law. THATS THE ENTIRE POINT!
Biden has even been on TV declaiming he will do everything to “protect this law”. IT’S NOT A LAW!!!!!! Is he really senile? If it was a law, there wouldn’t be all this screaming. It’s because it’s *NOT* law, but has been declared to be part of the constitutiion, that is, the bit that CANNOT be legislated.
If it WASN’T effectievly part of the constitution, then if you want it, you would just BLOODY VOTE FOR YIT!11″£$£UY^£*O&
@Dennis, don’t opinion polls show a clear majority in favour of Roe v Wade? My suspicion is that this decision, obviously right though it is, will be very helpful to the Democrats in the midterms.
PJF: “The liberals, on the other hand, are adamant that what they want must prevail across the country.”
Given that a true liberal wants less busibodying…..
But yeah… nowadays we are a minority vote…
And really… nowadays the distiction is easy…
“We Must/should” is a good lithmus test.
“We” mustn’t anything, but maybe you could possibly shut your gob telling me what to do.
Perhaps opinion polls are more accurate in the US than in Oz, Sam. Still, it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out.
All the fuss does seem to show that we’re not much different from the Greeks, who used to chuck unwanted kids on the rubbish heap, or the Abos, who’d bash their heads in.
Though I do agree that the notion that abortion is a constitutional right is ludicrous.
Grikath, it was TD who said:
“The liberals, on the other hand, are adamant that what they want must prevail across the country.”
https://www.timworstall.com/2022/05/its-happening-3/#comment-1220602
I was merely quoting.
If the red states that are doing well economically bring in anti-abortion laws, that should go a long way to keep out all the Democrats escaping their own destruction of the blue states.
Who leaked it? A Democrat judge, but a clerk will carry the can if anyone does
US SCOTUS Abortion Leak — JHB vs Mark Steyn vs PJW
Mark Steyn: US Abortion debate – Mark weighs in after US Supreme Court documents leakᾕ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xh1oAWPVoM
Julia Hartley-Brewer on Roe v Wade: ‘The Handmaid’s Tale has come true’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCEqbH_JGBk
PJW: Baby Killers Furious
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBWMU-M9r7s
Who is winner?
Not sure this will really help the Dems in November, the people who get really fired up by this are upper 5-10% College Educated white suburban females, who already vote 90% or more Democrat, so there’s limited upside I suggest. where RvW issue helps GOP is amongst Latino voters, who are not just shaping up as a key demographic, but one that already has changed to tilt GOP and may do so even more. Without that vote, Dem’s can’t hope to hold onto power in Congress.
@TD
Your characterisation of left vs right is not correct. If it were, then regions within Texas which had a local majority in favour of abortion would have legal abortion. In fact, the anti-abortionists are going further as there have been proposals to make it difficult or illegal for someone to travel to have an abortion.
Both sides are admant that their will should prevail across the country – it’s just that for some matters people recognise that it’s not yet possible.
Good article here:
U.S. Supreme Court and Abortion
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/05/05/contested-social-issues-should-be-
decided-by-democratic-politics-not-unaccountable-judges/
and the Left react
Jen Psaki condoning potentially illegal activity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCpRLhp06uo