[RD] Abortion, once again

[EgonSpengler]

Should've posted this, too. Go South Carolina!

AP, 5 January 2023 - "South Carolina Supreme Court strikes down state abortion ban"

The South Carolina Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a ban on abortion after six weeks, ruling the restriction enacted by the Deep South state violates a state constitutional right to privacy.

The decision marked a significant victory for abortion rights’ advocates suddenly forced to find safeguards at the state level after the U.S. Supreme Court overtured Roe v. Wade in June.

With federal abortion protections gone, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic sued in July under the South Carolina constitution’s right to privacy. Restrictions in other states are also facing challenges, some as a matter of religious freedom.

But since the high court’s momentous decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, no state court until Thursday in South Carolina had ruled definitively whether a constitutional right to privacy — a right not explicitly enumerated in the U.S. Constitution — extends to abortion.

 

[uppi]

You can get them on the dark web and not leave a paper trail.

Not a paper trail, but you will leave some kind of digital trail, anyway. I am not sure, how delivery from the dark web works, but somehow the package needs to find you. If you use a regular shipping company, they will likely store package tracking information.

You can try to make your trail as sparse as possible, but it is quite difficult to make it impossible to follow. Especially if you knew nothing about the dark web and now suddenly have to.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Any law enforcement in the US typically needs "probable cause" to get search warrants to investigate transaction records or check your bathroom cabinet. An informant might help with that if the police are aggressive. A law on the books just makes any random discovery of the pills easier to prosecute and is more threatening as a deterrent.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Man what a mess. I know its more anguish and pain for those already in termoil.. but I can imagine it very hard to catch, prove and prosecute taking an abortion pill?

nearly impossible in practice i'd imagine. like the state could try to do it, but the steps required would infringe on the constitution and make them look extremely bad really fast. they already look bad, granted. i'm saying in a way where they'd lose their base, because they'd have to do a lot of draconian things that would inconvenience even their own supporters.

the state would have a burden to prove a pregnancy was terminated, in addition to the burden of proving the pill was taken. it would also have to define every possible pill/medication that could do the job. it would then have to (somehow) screen purchases online at scale as well. it would be easy to trace a known suspect using a vpn for this, but it wouldn't be as trivial to catch in the first place.

complete waste of time and money to try to catch that, infringing on rights at crazy scale, and unless on the ball with levels of surveillance that would make china envious, likely insufficient evidence possible to secure a warrant, let alone start making charges.

Should've posted this, too. Go South Carolina!

[/URL]

privacy being the principle concern in abortion legislation is still stupid for the same reasons it was stupid earlier in the thread. the question is whether or not someone is being killed, and that's not, never was, and never will be a matter of privacy.

You can try to make your trail as sparse as possible, but it is quite difficult to make it impossible to follow. Especially if you knew nothing about the dark web and now suddenly have to.

fortunately, i doubt it needs to be that advanced. the hard step for the state is noticing an otherwise-legal drug being shipped, and burden of evidence required to prove it was used for abortion.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

privacy being the principle concern in abortion legislation is still stupid for the same reasons it was stupid earlier in the thread. the question is whether or not someone is being killed, and that's not, never was, and never will be a matter of privacy.

pretty much my sentiments exactly.
I can appreciate people wanting there to be abortions; I do not appreciate us inventing rules in order to validate them.

 

[EgonSpengler]

privacy being the principle concern in abortion legislation is still stupid for the same reasons it was stupid earlier in the thread. the question is whether or not someone is being killed, and that's not, never was, and never will be a matter of privacy.

Privacy isn't the concern, not really, it's just a tactic. As you point out, the law that's been struck down would be basically impossible to enforce, but that doesn't matter either, because it's just a tactic, too. Abortions aren't even the end-game here, they're just the current hill the sides are fighting on. This is all part of a legal & political war to determine who gets to dictate how everyone lives their lives, and what powers the government has or doesn't have to tell citizens how to live. In this instance, it's the Far Right who want the government to decide. For some of them, maybe for a lot of them, it's about adherence to a particular religious conviction. Some people, like Lauren Boebert, are forthright about it, but I can't escape the feeling that a lot of people agree with her and are just keeping their mouths shut. Because of that, I'm very interested to see how the lawsuits that are founded on freedom of religion come out.

pretty much my sentiments exactly.
I can appreciate people wanting there to be abortions; I do not appreciate us inventing rules in order to validate them.

Well, politics is all about inventing rules, but I get what you're saying. It'd be nice if there were some consistency. I think that's the idea behind the principles of precedent and stare decisis. But those are legal principles, not political principles. Mitch McConnell invented the rule that a President in the last year of his term can't appoint a Supreme Court Justice. This is why he did that. He wanted someone on the Supreme Court who would render rulings that would reflect and promote the conservative political perspective. And it worked - is working - like gangbusters. 'Cause here we are, with Roe v Wade overturned, the first time in American history a Constitutional right has ever been taken away.

 

[Remorseless1]

nearly impossible in practice i'd imagine. like the state could try to do it, but the steps required would infringe on the constitution and make them look extremely bad really fast. they already look bad, granted. i'm saying in a way where they'd lose their base, because they'd have to do a lot of draconian things that would inconvenience even their own supporters.

the state would have a burden to prove a pregnancy was terminated, in addition to the burden of proving the pill was taken. it would also have to define every possible pill/medication that could do the job. it would then have to (somehow) screen purchases online at scale as well. it would be easy to trace a known suspect using a vpn for this, but it wouldn't be as trivial to catch in the first place.

complete waste of time and money to try to catch that, infringing on rights at crazy scale, and unless on the ball with levels of surveillance that would make china envious, likely insufficient evidence possible to secure a warrant, let alone start making charges.


privacy being the principle concern in abortion legislation is still stupid for the same reasons it was stupid earlier in the thread. the question is whether or not someone is being killed, and that's not, never was, and never will be a matter of privacy.


fortunately, i doubt it needs to be that advanced. the hard step for the state is noticing an otherwise-legal drug being shipped, and burden of evidence required to prove it was used for abortion.

These are mostly performative legislation to appease the bsse. Witness the House, passing a law cancel a (needed) boost for IRS. The Senate won't even touch it meaning it's dead on arrival. The samPe will happen for abortion bills, trans bills, etc. The House GOP must be deliriously happy -- they can pass all the craxy, MAGA red meat legislation, knowing none of them will get through the Senate or a presidential veto. Really, the Republicans just want to investigate everything Democrat so they can do better at the ballot box in 2024.

Btw, no human being is being "killed" by legal abortion, but lots if women used to die in back alley abortions or self attempted abortions. I know people can have a different opinion, and I respect that. But really, if we were talking about a man's body instead if a woman's body, this wouldn't be a controversy. I still think in America, the government should remain out of people's lives.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Privacy isn't the concern, not really, it's just a tactic.

it's a bad argument and courts shouldn't use it, period. it is okay to say "we don't consider x a person yet, legally". same deal for deceased.

i'm in favor of individual liberty generally. the question here is whether/when that extends to a fetus. no matter where you put that line, the line still happens. the only way the right has any case is to put it on the same continuum as requirements to support dependents generally. at some point, even the left seems to feel it is ok for the state to compel that support. in fact the left seems to quickly flip to more compulsion in that regard.

i don't want to get into the weeds on that. we ultimately pick when a person is a person, hopefully for a reason that's passable to most people, and work with it until evidence can change minds.

These are mostly performative legislation to appease the bsse.

we agree on that at least

Btw, no human being is being "killed" by legal abortion

depends at what time abortion is legal. or are you just per-supposing your opinion as correct? there must be some point at which a fetus becomes a human. answering "birth" to that appears to be an extremist view in a literal statistical outlier sense.

I still think in America, the government should remain out of people's lives.

pretty wild how selectively this gets used. i agree, but don't forget you said it in other threads.

 

[Angst]

depends at what time abortion is legal. or are you just per-supposing your opinion as correct? there must be some point at which a fetus becomes a human. answering "birth" to that appears to be an extremist view in a literal statistical outlier sense.

obviously remorseless was referring to the law as is, so what about you drop the just asking questions stuff. for example, provide or reiterate when you believe abortion should be illegal

i'll start: denmark's doing alright here. abortion is always legal the first 12 weeks, although certain conditions may have a specific team of court+doctors grant special allowance of abortion past that (eg poor socioeconomic condition of the woman, risk of birth defects in the baby, the pregnancy being the result of rape, or mental health risk to mother).

here's a translation of the law https://cyber.harvard.edu/population/abortion/Denmark.abo.htm

mind you that some of the wording is unfortunate... but it's both a translation and we tend not to update our original legal writing (our constitution still insists the king is our executive power)

and a note on possible alarm bells: i know what some people will think reading the document. OH NO RAMPANT ABORTIONS. no. understand what the court does: this is not random third trimester abortions for people regretting to have children. late abortions are rare and basically solely happen because of medical danger

edit: had massively misphrased a sentence so it's deleted now

 

[Arwon]

what happens then if someone buys a bunch of abortion pills in a legal state and moves them over the border? is a state allowed to track such purchases outside itself?

also vaka said abortion pills aren't over the counter. that confuses me. they are in denmark i believe, so..?

That sounds like someone is angling for aiding and abetting charges and probably some trafficking offences.

Access method will depend on the medication and the jurisdiction. A number of "abortion pills" are primarily for treating something else but also work as abortifacients, one of the insidious things here is they'll be criminalising a whole swathe of unrelated healthcare because of their insane anti-abortion zealotry. One of the primary medidcal termination ones, RU486, is also used to treat a diabetes related hormonal condition, and can be used for endometriosis.

 

[Arwon]

privacy being the principle concern in abortion legislation is still stupid for the same reasons it was stupid earlier in the thread. the question is whether or not someone is being killed, and that's not, never was, and never will be a matter of privacy.

honestly whatever it takes to hold back the insane zealots of the american anti abortion movement is inherently good

 

[Remorseless1]

it's a bad argument and courts shouldn't use it, period. it is okay to say "we don't consider x a person yet, legally". same deal for deceased.

i'm in favor of individual liberty generally. the question here is whether/when that extends to a fetus. no matter where you put that line, the line still happens. the only way the right has any case is to put it on the same continuum as requirements to support dependents generally. at some point, even the left seems to feel it is ok for the state to compel that support. in fact the left seems to quickly flip to more compulsion in that regard.

i don't want to get into the weeds on that. we ultimately pick when a person is a person, hopefully for a reason that's passable to most people, and work with it until evidence can change minds.


we agree on that at least


depends at what time abortion is legal. or are you just per-supposing your opinion as correct? there must be some point at which a fetus becomes a human. answering "birth" to that appears to be an extremist view in a literal statistical outlier sense.


pretty wild how selectively this gets used. i agree, but don't forget you said it in other threads.

The concept of America is my rights end where yours begin. If you shoot yourself in the foot st home, well that sucks but its generally not against the law. If you shoot yourself in the foot in a grocery store, you'll be arrested for firing a gun or n a public place, because you might injured someone else while injuring yourself. Yeah, I remember I have said that before and will do so again. Btw, I'm for a 20-week cutoff for abortions IF something is actually done about terrible rate of maternal and infants mortality and long-term conditions. See, the people who like the idea of telling strangers what they can do, you know, the anti-abortion crowd don't care about fetuses or people. It's about exerting control over others and assuring themselves they are truly virtuous and holy.

 

[Arwon]

Y'all don't need to define a "cutoff time", it's way too prescriptive and just hurts people who struggled for earlier access to reproductive healthcare and those who were intending to carry to term then had a medical complication and the tragedy of losing a wanted pregnancy late in the development. It pretty much comes down to what is necessary, and that's an individual circumstances thing between a patient and their medical professionals, not a subject for inflexible law.

In the ACT there's no time defined, it's just abortion if you need it (also free these days). Unfortunately though, there's also currently no practitioner who performs complex surgical abortions in the ACT, so in practice for later abortions, the primary abortion clinic in Canberra sends people to their bigger clinic in Sydney. That is a cost impost and difficult for some people to do, so hopefully the current inquiry into abortion access ends in the availability of such procedures locally soon. There's other problems like the Catholic hospital not performing a bunch of procedures even where they're not actually abortion (they won't remove miscarriages for instance), issues with information like a lot of people not knowing GPs can provide medical (non surgical) abortion, etc.

Really the debate about abortion, inasmuch as one exists, needs to be about eliminating practical barriers such as cost and information and ensuring easy availability.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

There's other problems like the Catholic hospital not performing a bunch of procedures even where they're not actually abortion (they won't remove miscarriages for instance), issues with information like a lot of people not knowing GPs can provide medical (non surgical) abortion, etc.

Really the debate about abortion, inasmuch as one exists, needs to be about eliminating practical barriers such as cost and information and ensuring easy availability.

Won't remove miscarriages...

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

A miscarriage is not a "sin." It's either a sad thing if it happens due to an accident or violence and the fetus was otherwise healthy, or a fortunate thing if the fetus was not healthy and the eventual result would have been a dead or severely impaired baby. It's a medical situation that nobody calling themselves a medical professional should refuse to deal with.

Clearly, eliminating barriers is not enough. What also needs to be eliminated is self-righteous ignorance.

 

[Arwon]

My understanding is certain procedures for removing miscarriage remains are mechanically and administratively the same as a kind of surgical abortion, so the Catholic hospitals choose just not to do those at all. Perhaps they're worried about not being allowed to distinguish the procedure by purpose, or perhaps they're worried about their staff using it to provide abortion on the sly.

It's a good argument for just fully nationalising the Catholic hospitals. They're functionally public hospitals anyway and funded as such, should just treat them like it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

My understanding is certain procedures for removing miscarriage remains are mechanically and administratively the same as a kind of surgical abortion, so the Catholic hospitals choose just not to do those at all. Perhaps they're worried about not being allowed to distinguish the procedure by purpose, or perhaps they're worried about their staff using it to provide abortion on the sly.

It's a good argument for just fully nationalising the Catholic hospitals. They're functionally public hospitals anyway and funded as such, should just treat them like it.

Do they not understand that if a miscarriage has occurred, there is no way that the woman has an actual viable fetus inside her? Do they not understand that a woman can die if this is not dealt with promptly?

 

[Arwon]

Oh I don't mean to imply this is causing regular or ongoing danger. There's a public hospital too, and I don't think this concerns emergency situations.

The specific case that was presented to the inquiry, it was remaining tissue post miscarriage that presented a medium term infection risk, and the choice was either the non-emergency waiting list at the public hospital, or paying about 1000 dollars at a private hospital.

The situation is essentially the allegedly full service Catholic hospital is putting basically all the reproductive health workload onto the rest of the system as much as it can get away with.

 

[Angst]

Y'all don't need to define a "cutoff time", it's way too prescriptive and just hurts people who struggled for earlier access to reproductive healthcare and those who were intending to carry to term then had a medical complication and the tragedy of losing a wanted pregnancy late in the development. It pretty much comes down to what is necessary, and that's an individual circumstances thing between a patient and their medical professionals, not a subject for inflexible law.

In the ACT there's no time defined, it's just abortion if you need it (also free these days). Unfortunately though, there's also currently no practitioner who performs complex surgical abortions in the ACT, so in practice for later abortions, the primary abortion clinic in Canberra sends people to their bigger clinic in Sydney. That is a cost impost and difficult for some people to do, so hopefully the current inquiry into abortion access ends in the availability of such procedures locally soon. There's other problems like the Catholic hospital not performing a bunch of procedures even where they're not actually abortion (they won't remove miscarriages for instance), issues with information like a lot of people not knowing GPs can provide medical (non surgical) abortion, etc.

Really the debate about abortion, inasmuch as one exists, needs to be about eliminating practical barriers such as cost and information and ensuring easy availability.

the miscarriage thing is absolutely horrifying, yes, i read your other post, but have to say, i'm shooketh

regardless, re: the cutoff time; this is why denmark specifically has a court for these things. terminating pregnancies after the 12 week cutoff isn't uncommon, it's exactly qualitative reviews by the commitee overseeing individual circumstances, and at least for a good time after the 12 week cutoff, they're quite lenient.

that said i know that some people will read about the court as some sort of a morbid death panel and that they imagine the procedure in the vein of christian exploitation movies, with it being an 8 month baby being brutally and bloodily murdered or something. this is not what the danish court is. it's some legal people and a bunch of doctors that indeed review individual cases and take the applicant's wishes & rights seriously

i'm not sure the same thing would work in the states though. it requires a fundamental rework of legal culture, particularly the proneness to pack such courts with insane people. i don't want, for example, no legal cutoff in the us, and everything being up to such courts, simply because the professionals needed in question would not be installed. so i believe a set week blanket allowance is necessary. there, i believe remorseless' 20 weeks is more reasonable as to the way things are in the states

 

[Arwon]

Having to go to court to exercise reproductive rights after a mere 12 weeks of gestation sounds very restrictive! No matter how much of a mere formality it is, that's still quite an intervention.

 

[Angst]

Having to go to court to exercise reproductive rights after a mere 12 weeks of gestation sounds very restrictive! No matter how much of a mere formality it is, that's still quite an intervention.

for the record, i agree. i would extend the default allowed time quite a bit. it's just not as restrictive as one would think in practice

a lot of danish government is like that, installations of experts that review things case by case. this works if we can get the experts on the seats. we're highly dependent on people being qualified rather than the law explicitly saying stuff is to be done specific ways. i'm not a big fan of it; we've seen in the states how such trust-based systems can be abused by the cruel, and the states even have more rigid frameworks of rights etc than denmark does. in denmark, too, there's become something of a tradition uninstalling people from such councils that are not amiable to your position (started in the early 2000s). just haven't happened in abortion. yet

again, i refer to our constitution. it's far and away from how government works in practice, but it's still explicit law. this is bad if at any point push comes to shove