What’s shocking is the realization that we are living in a country that now boasts some of the world’s most misogynist and repressive laws.
You really do need to have a little look around the world at what abortion laws are elsewhere. That vile suppression of abortion in Dobbs was, in many ways, still more liberal access to abortion than France currently has. Given the ease – and illegality of trying to stop someone – of crossing state lines even the trigger law bans still leave the general situation more liberal than that of perhaps Poland.
Seriously, get a grip.
But what shocks me most is the fact that, according to surveys that keep surfacing and being reported, a substantial majority of Americans support abortion rights and oppose the outright ban.
And now the issue is part of politics again, so folk will vote for their state legislatures on the basis of what they want the law to be. The outcome will be – as it usually is with democractic decisions – that democratic balance of what the people want the law to be. It might be messy, time consuming and disruptive and yet this is why we actually have the system itself. Pretty crap in many ways but it is the only known method of sorting through these hugely divisive societal questions.
What’s noteworthy is not that high number so much as the discrepancy between that figure and the substance of supreme court ruling. What’s shocking is yet another fact that we have known or suspected for some time: that we are living under minority rule, that, in some of the most essential ways, the wishes of the majority no longer determine government policy, and that it has become a kind of joke to suggest that our government, at the highest level, is responding to “the will of the people”.
And that’s just being fuckwit stupid. The Supreme Court just announced that abortion is nothing to do with them, it’s a matter for the will of the people now.
There does seem to be a considerable faction doesn’t like democracy. Guardian seems to be anti-democracy central. Any system that doesn’t produce what they want is regarded as faulty. Ultimate has to be tranniedom, doesn’t it? Where 0.01% tail is wagging 99.99% dog.
And no doubt the craven will continue to retreat on every front.
This is where you get with “rights”. There’s no limit to what will be claimed.
Standard operating procedure for the left is to act as if they were the majority. Naturally they hate democracy, because it reveals them to be in reality a small number of nutters.
The size of the tantrum we are seeing shows how long they’ve been getting their own way.
And they only want the majority decision when the majority wants what they want, another sign of their immaturity.
I always marvel at the ability of the Lefties to believe their own rebranding.
The German National Socialist Party were right wing evil people…
Yeah, right.
The fascists invented the gulags…
Yeah, right.
We on the left are kind, loving and wonderful people. Everyone else is a piece of shit…
Yeah, right.
The “will of the people” has always been derided by the left, never more so than when we voted to leave the EU. So absorbed are they in their own narcissism that they rebranded a second referendum as a “peoples vote”. Was the first not a vote by people?
That the American constitution was written by the Founding Fathers (doing what I can to keep that phrase alive) to make it really hard for the wishes of the majority to determine government policy is one of its greatest features. The direct election of Senators was a vital aim of those who wanted to subvert that.
The Wine Aunt is immunised against all danger: one may call her a roaster, a slapper, a munter, a silly moo, it all runs off her like water off a raincoat. But tell her she’s not allowed to stick a knitting needle into her newborn’s skull and you will be astonished at how she recoils, how injured she is, how she suddenly shrinks back: “I’ve been found out!”
Just stop letting them dictate the terms used in the debate and you’ll see how insecure and unsure of their position they actually are.
Stop referring to it as aborting a foetus and start referring to it as killing and unborn child. Most of the pro-abortion crowd suddenly get very upset. They don’t like being reminded of what it is they are actually arguing for…
Good point Chernyy.
Propose a hunting season for pre-schoolers. See how they respond.
“The size of the tantrum we are seeing shows how long they’ve been getting their own way.”
The power base of the very liberal Democrats is largely in the NE and the west coast (with a nod to Minnesota and Chicago). However, over the past two generations the south and western states have grown much faster, so Congressional seats have been reallocated and more power has shifted to the south. Now, they’re fairly evenly matched up. It’s getting harder to impose your will on the nation as whole, though you still might be able to do it in your state. That is causing considerable howling about the unfairness of it all. Tim often observes that things can settle down with more local control, and I agree, but NY liberals will always be unhappy that they can’t force Texans to be more like them, whereas for now at least Texans are happy to tune NY liberals out.
But the screaming harridans of California and New England do have access to abortion. They are deliberately ignoring they live in a federal country, set up as a federation to deliberately prevent one set of people imposing their opinons on other sets of people.
@jgh.. The people of Mississippi who oppose abortion are imposing their opinions on the people of Mississippi who wish to have abortions, aren’t they? An imposition on a more local level, is still an imposition. Roe vs Wade, right or wrong, said that the set of people opposed to abortion could not, anywhere, impose that on others. Dobbs says that, actually, they can. So whilst the founding fathers expressed no view on abortion, they did have the view that certain rights should be above the imposition now set to be, er, imposted. The argument is about whether or not the right to abortion should be one of them. Regardless, what we now have is more scope for imposition, not less. And people who usually cheer the government being told to fuck off, now cheering it, at the state level, being given more scope to impose.
It’s funny to see the way y’all are gymnasticing around it because either you just don’t approve of abortion (fair enough) or you only care about beating the ‘libs’… but this isn’t a triumph of democracy or the constitution. It is an empowerment of legislatures to remove rights which previously they could not.
The logical conclusion of these arguments is that it is better if every constitutional right is removed and passed down to the states. Not sure the founding fathers would be up for that.
Thom
I suppose you could call that an argument…..if you’ve never seen one in the wild.
All ‘Laws’ are “imposing”, whether it be about Weights & Measures, DUI, Telecommunications, Licensing, etc., etc..It’s what comes of living in communion with our fellow citizens.
As for rights, invented or otherwise, what are rights but the “imposition” of a duty on others?
There isn’t a ‘right’ to kill an unborn foetus, it’s a legitimate point of dispute that should be resolved democratically (in a democracy). Many EU countries have significantly greater restrictions on abortion than apply in most US states post the Supremes’ decision.
@Thom
You are wittering about a “right” that was invented out of whole cloth in 1972. At that time only a few states allowed abortion. Europe was similar. The US went into stasis for the next 50 years. Europe continued to develop a consensus in each country about what abortion policy should be. Now the US needs to go through that process with the states.
PS You might expect to read this sort of dumb and ignorant ranting in The Guardian (which is now 99% clickbait for Islington residents), but there have been several articles in The Times along similar “OMG the sky has fallen” lines:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/janice-turner-i-took-my-rights-for-granted-we-all-did-zk5vbfbrp
(behind a paywall, soz)
My body my right to choose. I have tried unsuccessfully to get some of my US contacts – currently in tantrum mode – to say whether euthanasia is a Constitutional Right on the same grounds as Constitutional Right to abortion… my body, my choice.
This dichotomy:
Those who want to uphold a Constitutional Right to abortion, which is not actually in the Constitution, to allow killing of the young in wombs, at the same time want to eradicate the Constitution Right to bear arms which is actually in the Constitution to prevent killing of the young in schools.
@Recusant ok, so you understand, then, why talk of this all being about preventing an imposition is bollocks. I guess my argument WAS bad if you didn’t realise you agreed with it.
Not sure your characterisation of ‘rights’ is entirely correct, mind. They do tend to be framed as something which cannot be imposed upon. If you have a right, it is imposed on me that I have to deal with that.. but the general idea is that the right is of great value to you, but the imposition on me is small. So you’re in the realms of ‘technically correct, but missing the point on purpose’ there. Still, let’s not waste time on secondary stuff.
The logical conclusion of these arguments is that it is better if every constitutional right is removed and passed down to the states. Not sure the founding fathers would be up for that.
They would have been very much up for it – almost all of them would have insisted upon it. Without it there would have been no Constitution and no United States.
The founders regarded the US Constitution as applying to (limiting) the federal government only. So the First Amendment stopped the (federal) Congress establishing a religion but had no effect on the various states. Massachusetts had an established church and continued with it. Likewise, Congress had to butt out of citizens’ rights to free speech but a state (or town) could still hang someone for burning a flag.
It was only after the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 that the federal constitution began to be applied to the states – and that was gradual, selective and mostly via US Supreme Court overreaching interpretations.
I’m pro-abortion (with limits) but approve of the Dobbs decision. Roe v Wade was bad jurisprudence (making shit up out of unicorn farts bad). In a federal system contentious issues like abortion belong at the state level, closer to the people.
Thom – And people who usually cheer the government being told to fuck off, now cheering it, at the state level, being given more scope to impose.
Ha ha, baby maker go brrr
“My body my right to choose.” Aye, you get the right to choose between Pfizer and Moderna.
So, most of the country is just going to what is standard in Canada, Australia, and Europe while in most of the rest of the world abortion is illegal and they will kill you over it.
But we’re the most horrible nation in the world.
You can tell the people who’ve never traveled outside their own country.
@John B – “whether euthanasia is a Constitutional Right on the same grounds as Constitutional Right to abortion”
Assisted suicide obviously should be a right. If someone is suffering to the extent that they want to kill themselves, only a very cruel person would force them to continue enduring it. However note that euthanasia is different as it also includes killing people who you feel ought to want to die even if they don’t.
“the Constitution Right to bear arms which is actually in the Constitution to prevent killing of the young in schools”
Nonsense. The constitution says it is for “the security of a free State”. It has nothing to do with helping kill children in schools, even though that’s what it is used for nowadays and it seems exceedingly unlikely it will ever be used again in the defence of the state.
@ Mohave Greenie – No I’m not. I already said I don’t think the right to abortion should have been read into the constitution.
@ PJF – Thanks, that sounds like a perspective/point reasonably made. It’s not the story of constitutional rights that I know, but it is one I will bear in mind.
@ John B – I can’t speak for your American contacts, but I would estimate that 100% of the people I know who are pro-abortion rights are also pro-assisted-dying. Although mostly they would not see the two as especially similar because they do not consider that a foetus is particularly comparable to a person wot has been birthed. But if you’re looking for some kind of double standard around the two issues, you should bark up a different tree.
Dominic Sandbrook nails it
Get a grip, Honey – Stop pretending Britain is America
Thanks Pcar.
As for democracy, when the majority wins the minority naturally loses. Think of poor old me now that my electorate has a /shudder/ Greenatick MP. And my poor old dad spent several unpleasant years of his life fighting national socialism too.
Of course my favourite example of democracy in action is the Hutus.
Being a majority, the Hutus naturally voted for what they preferred. Understandably outraged by this wicked discrimination against a MINORITY, the Tutsis, quite in accordance with modern ethics, decided to kill some Hutus. The horrid Hutus, being hicks from the sticks, pondered this and then decided to kill the Tutsis. Since they had a majority, they were quite successful. A splendid demonstration of how a democracy should function in a crisis.
Since the Yanks are entitled to bear arms, no doubt they’ll be able to handle this far better than we Aussies would.