[RD] Abortion, once again

[sophie]

one of the nice things about states is that if you strongly disagree with a set of laws in one state, you can go to a different one. you can even do this before the topic of abortion is relevant.

*If you have the means and money to do so and are unburdened by other attachments that you can’t or won’t leave behind.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

one of the nice things about states is that if you strongly disagree with a set of laws in one state, you can go to a different one. you can even do this before the topic of abortion is relevant.

Do you actually have any skin in this game?

 

[Birdjaguar]

I foresee a growing black market for abortion drugs.

 

[Farm Boy]

Do you actually have any skin in this game?

Those of us who do are aware that asking for assistance interstate is not asking for something easy. They're asking for something important.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Those of us who do are aware that asking for assistance interstate is not asking for something easy. They're asking for something important.

I want to hear from him why he thinks this is an acceptable remedy when the same excuse was used to justify the worst bigotry

 

[Farm Boy]

Acceptable remedy is your language. I wouldn't use it and have no opinion on it to offer.

Edit: I mean, I guess I can try a more useful answer in a philosophical sense? There are any number of unacceptable things that show no signs of being fixed. There is still work to do, if you believe in things? Even if it doesn't make them right? I guess?

 

[The_J]

Let's hope the current public debate might change something in the decision. Although I doubt it.

 

[Synobun]

Let's hope the current public debate might change something in the decision. Although I doubt it.

https://twitter.com/akapczynski/status/1521494553877962754



"I clerked at the Supreme Court. Last night, I assumed a liberal clerk leaked the draft opinion overturning Roe. Now I think MUCH more likely it was leaked by a conservative fanatically committed to every word of Alito’s monstrous opinion.

Timing: This draft was circulated in Feb. If a liberal was mad about it, why wait until April to send it to Politico? The op will be out in June. What are the benefits of releasing it early? And a BIG downside – the focus on the leak itself instead of the opinion.

If you work inside the Court, you know that the most concrete impact of the leak is to lock in this opinion essentially as is. Any edits at this point reveal jockeying between Justices, undermine the majority, and Court itself. Embarassing to the majority.

Liberals have lived for years trying to eke out a sentence here or there in SCOTUS opinions to make these conservative decisions less terrible. Why leak something and undermine that whole strategy?

Far and away most likely impact of the leaked draft is that it locks in 5 votes for this opinion, essentially without edits. Who would want that? So: This is about as extreme an opinion as you can have overturning Roe.

It talks about fetuses being people as a matter of ancient law (teeing up idea that fetuses are constitutionally PROTECTED – no abortion anywhere as matter of conlaw.) And its arguments undermine all of SCOTUS’s gay rights and contraception decisions.

Back to timing. Draft majorities circulate first, and then concurrences and dissents. So this is about the right timing for concurrences to come out. I think best bet is that Chief Justice Roberts circulated one recently, adopting a more moderate position. Maybe Roberts says abortions ok in some time frame, preserving exceptions for the life of the woman, etc. And Kavanaugh is tempted by it – maybe not enough to vote for it, but enough to demand some changes to the Alito opinion.

Now let’s talk psychology of SCt clerks. The kinds of liberal students who end up at the Court are not an activist bunch. They are enormously risk averse and rule-abiding. Hard to see how one of them blows their career out of the water in this way (for what benefit?). Leaking is much more of the style of conservatives right now. Think about what Justice Thomas is doing as a model for a clerk here – making a mockery of the Court’s recusal rules re. his wife’s role in the Jan 6 coup attempts.

Conservatives have shown that they are willing to break the public trust in the Court to get their way. Conservatives also know that the leak will be blamed on the left, distracting from how devastating the reversal of Roe will be to the credibility of the Court. The career consequences of someone found out are far smaller on right than left, too, I’d wager."

- Amy Kapczynski (Professor of Law, Yale Law School)

 

[GenMarshall]

I foresee a growing black market for abortion drugs.

In red states l, perhaps.

 

[João III]

https://twitter.com/akapczynski/status/1521494553877962754

Where's the tin foil hat emoji when you need it?

 

[Lexicus]

If you work inside the Court, you know that the most concrete impact of the leak is to lock in this opinion essentially as is. Any edits at this point reveal jockeying between Justices, undermine the majority, and Court itself. Embarassing to the majority.

Interesting - I arrived at this conclusion myself after some thought about an hours ago. I hoped I was wrong. But I suppose we'll see.

Where's the tin foil hat emoji when you need it?

I would like to see a more detailed refutation of the points laid out there, actually. Just dismissing it out of hand as tinfoilhattery is not very convincing.

 

[Synobun]

Where's the tin foil hat emoji when you need it?

If you have a better theory, by all means.

 

[EnglishEdward]

The same SCOTUS proposing a repeal to Roe vs. Wade? I don't see this as likely

There would likely be battles against those seeking abortions relocating on various dubious fringe grounds.


Delaying by demanding written permissions from all parents and guardians for an under age or mentally incapacitated individual

Imprisonment under spurious charges with denial of bail etc

But I doubt that this SCOTUS will go along with laws overturning Freedom of Movement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_United_States_law

 

[João III]

I would like to see a more detailed refutation of the points laid out there, actually. Just dismissing it out of hand as tinfoilhattery is not very convincing.

If you have a better theory, by all means.

Well, Professor Kapczynski references Occam's Razor and based on Occam's Razor, I'd say the simplest answer is that the goal of the leak was to create a public pressure campaign in an effort to alter the decision. It's a simpler and more obvious theory than some sort of conservative conspiracy

 

[TheMeInTeam]

*If you have the means and money to do so and are unburdened by other attachments that you can’t or won’t leave behind.

not going to assume peoples' agency away, and i'm not sorry about that. it's not that hard to grasp your circumstances and at least somewhat base choices on them/make the tradeoffs.

but remember, the fundamental question here is when a person becomes a person. if you are killing a person, the things you are talking about are trivial/not worth considering weighed against it. if you are not killing a person, then the burden of travel isn't relevant...you're somewhere that doesn't consider whatever amount of progression that has happened to be killing a person yet.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, Professor Kapczynski references Occam's Razor and based on Occam's Razor, I'd say the simplest answer is that the goal of the leak was to create a public pressure campaign in an effort to alter the decision. It's a simpler and more obvious theory than some sort of conservative conspiracy

A simple answer that is not consistent with some facts that Professor Kapczynski adduces. Such as this one:

If you work inside the Court, you know that the most concrete impact of the leak is to lock in this opinion essentially as is

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Incredible that conservatives can argue fetuses are people when they are not people themselves.

 

[João III]

A simple answer that is not consistent with some facts that Professor Kapczynski adduces. Such as this one:

Can we really say that's a fact? Sounds like we're just supposed to take her word on that

 

[Lexicus]

Can we really say that's a fact? Sounds like we're just supposed to take her word on that

Well, let's see. From her bio at Yale:

She also served as a law clerk to Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen G. Breyer at the U.S. Supreme Court, and to Judge Guido Calabresi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She received her A.B. from Princeton University, M. Phil. from Cambridge University, M.A. from Queen Mary and Westfield College at University of London, and J.D. from Yale Law School.

So yeah, I guess you could say I'm prepared to take her word on that. Particularly when I suspect your underlying reason for contesting her claim is that you more-or-less agree with the draft opinion.

At the end of the day, what does it really matter who leaked the thing? If you wanna pretend that the leak itself is a bigger issue than the court's abandonment of stare decisis, the perjury committed by Trump's appointees, or the suffering that will ultimately be inflicted on the innocent and vulnerable as a consequence of this decision, then you're pretty much telling us where you stand anyway.

 

[El_Machinae]

I can, technically, emigrate.

It is however, something I can't realistically do at the moment (or anytime soon), and not just for financial reasons. But financial reasons are still important.

Betting people's bodily autonomy on "they can just move" has historically been a poor argument, and remains so here.

Neither you nor I live in a region where "move to the laws you like" is anywhere near as possible as it is in the States. Now, obviously, the entire discussion agrees that 'resources are essential and thus this freedom is functionally tiered', but it's still true. If someone doesn't like where they live, they can move (with effort). And if that person can bring something of value with their immigration, then the receiving region should want them.

Now, I want to keep this "oh, you're free to move" knife available, because I think it's most useful for Libertarians who resent taxes. They're given free eduction, some of the best in the world, and armed with the most useful language, well-before they owe any taxs. If they think their taxes are unfair, they're very capable of moving.

Now, as as aside, TMiT likes to focus on the actual 'personhood' question. I think that's fair, but also misses the realpolitik. Whatever happens will be a compromise that is a function of the sum of the democratic mandate influenced by the exercise of political power. But it will be a compromise surrounded by slippery slopes. This means that the compromise lines also need to consider the weakness of the various positions and what's necessary to trigger the slippery slope. I've mentioned before, but there are too many on the 'pro-life' for whom no compromise is possible, which means that whatever compromise is agreed to needs to be one that has a foundation that can be constantly defended. Even if that armistice line is 'unfair' to the personhood question, the cost of losing the line also needs to be accounted for.