Are Americans wasting their breath by debating abortion?

[Arakhor]

<quote="Hobbsyoyo"></quote> will do it. Replace the chevrons with square brackets, obviously.

 

[Farm Boy]

The abortion debate has teeth. The ability to regulate something that is classified by the supreme court as a fundamental right can very much increase or decrease access to that right.

Now without reading any direct statement on the merits of the abortion debate -- I hold up as example Jim Crow laws. You see, it was totally a legal right for blacks to be able to vote, just that few of them bothered to "correctly navigate the regulations." Poll taxes in the same vein. Etc etc. This happens all the time, governments are quite capable of making it hard to do things they don't want you to even if you are technically allowed to do so.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

OK, everything I am quoting in this post is from you (I don't know how to break down a post and still attribute every one to you.)

I didn't mean you have to attribute every quote. In the last post though, you put a bunch of my posts without attibution under a post that was from Celticempire that was attributed, which is confusing because it seems he wrote all my posts. Sorry, I should've been more clear.

I'm more focused on the first 99% absolutely.

Then support candidates who will help get those 99% (or whatever percentage of abortions that non-rape/incest/life of mother abortions are) first and foremost and keep that last percent as something to fight for long term. Also support birth control and stop complaining about 'insurers/churches shouldn't have to provide it because free market' when that leads to abortions.

Remember the drug legalization in Colorado and Washington?

That was basically nullification. There's a Federal law against drug use, but Colorado and Washington are ignoring it and legalizing marijuana anyway, in spite of that fact.

The DEA's drug scheduling is presidential fiat, not federal congressional law. The supreme court knocked down marijuana bans for a couple of years in the 60's which prompted Nixon to come up with the scheduling. So technically I don't the think the legalizations in CO and WA are nullification in the sense that they are overturning a law, just a fiat. But I do take your point that it is in much the same territory and both those legalizations are in grey areas now.

Edit for clarification: The law the Supreme Court struck down in the sixties was this weird and blatantly racist taxation law that effectively outlawne marijuana. Essentially, in the early 1900's, southern Congressmen were afraid that letting African Americans use cocaine or marijuana would lead to white women getting raped. So they passed a law that made it so that to own marijuana, you had to have a tax stamp for it. But to get the tax stamp, you first had to have the marijuana. But having marijuana without a tax stamp was illegal. So basically marijuana users/growers faced this chicken-and-egg dilemma where it was illegal. That was the law the Supreme Court struck down and I'm not sure how it effected other anti-drug legislation.

 

[Earthling]

Because again, it's a supreme court decision, the president can't do anything about it.

I understand that non-Americans aren't familiar with the intricacies of the government, but the standard answer that all American citizens should be aware of is that the President appoints Supreme Court justices. Modern cases of the appointment failing (due to the legislature rejecting the nominee) are pretty rare so effectively the President pretty much decides what new justices go on the bench. So for abortion and any similar constitutional and judicial matters, election of a President can and usually does have an effect. (It's expected there could be a couple new appointments during the 2012-2016 term simply due to the age of current justices.)

True, I also don't think Roe v. Wade would be likely to be overturned by the Supreme Court even if a Republican president had been elected or is elected in the next presidential cycles. For this particular issue there is still a difference on what the federal government would do to enforce laws when some state governments are trying to their own thing which does matter to people concerned over the issue. A Republican administration might look the other way when a state government is trying to do backdoor changes to say, effectively get rid of all abortion access in like Mississippi.