Roe vs Wade overturned

[Sommerswerd]

Well, it has happened:

Roe v Wade: US Supreme Court strikes down abortion rights

Concurring opinion from Thomas:

Looking back through some past discussions, I stumbled onto this post by me back in 2018, during the Kavanaugh confirmation fight AFAICT:

TBH, sometimes I feel like maybe the Democratic leaning electorate needs something to get them more engaged and motivated to vote. Maybe a hard-right 5-4 SCOTUS overturning Obergefell v Hodges is what it will take Or maybe they overturn Roe v. Wade? Maybe a finding that state-level medical/recreational marijuana laws are unconstitutional would do it? Maybe a finding that affirmative action is unconstitutional would do it? What about a series of rulings that do away with public sector unions? Or maybe just teacher's Unions? Would that do it?

What if hypothetically, the Ginsberg seat becomes open for some reason and we then have a hard right 6-3 SCOTUS? The possibilities are endless... hell, then we could possibly bring back segregation! Maybe even limit suffrage to landowners-only? We could probably get the Rule-Against-Perpetuities deemed unconstitutional nationwide and start re-establishing a real heredity-based feudal system! That would be fun.

Scary foreshadowing, in retrospect, sadly BTW @Lexicus you responded to the above by stating that you thought it would probably put the SCOTUS overturning Roe, and more on the table and @metalhead responded that he thought that this kind of thing might be the only thing that was enough to properly motivate the Democrats' voters.

 

[Lexicus]

I actually would not be too surprised if they bring back something like segregation. There's already a basis in some of their decisions on free exercise to permit racial segregation if someone claims it is their sincere religious belief that the races should not mix.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I actually would not be too surprised if they bring back something like segregation. There's already a basis in some of their decisions on free exercise to permit racial segregation if someone claims it is their sincere religious belief that the races should not mix.

It's funny because in that same post you made that I referenced you pointed out that we don't actually need an official reinstating of segregation, given the high level of defacto segregation that already exists, based largely on other policy that are technically legal.

 

[Takhisis]

I actually would not be too surprised if they bring back something like segregation. There's already a basis in some of their decisions on free exercise to permit racial segregation if someone claims it is their sincere religious belief that the races should not mix.

‘Can't mix with these dark-skinned people, my religion doesn't allow it’?

 

[Birdjaguar]

‘Can't mix with these dark-skinned people, my religion doesn't allow it’?

The Bible separates the "races". Well, except the Native Americans; god forgot to include those. It took the Mormons to set the record straight.

 

[Lexicus]

The Bible separates the "races". Well, except the Native Americans; god forgot to include those. It took the Mormons to set the record straight.

It actually doesn't, this is a headcanon retcon made by racists

It's funny because in that same post you made that I referenced you pointed out that we don't actually need an official reinstating of segregation, given the high level of defacto segregation that already exists, based largely on other policy that are technically legal.

The Inventors of America’s Most Dangerous Idea

Freedom was once a rallying cry for justice, but the country’s Realtors had a better use for it.

www.theatlantic.com

The Atlantic had an interesting piece on this last year.

 

[Sommerswerd]

The Inventors of America’s Most Dangerous Idea

Freedom was once a rallying cry for justice, but the country’s Realtors had a better use for it.

www.theatlantic.com

The Atlantic had an interesting piece on this last year.

Thanks for the article. A paragraph in particular jumped out at me as being particularly relevant to this particular thread:

Everything that is not one of these carefully selected rights becomes, by definition, a privilege that government cannot protect, no matter how fundamental. Since January 6, two-thirds of Republicans—more than 40 percent of all Americans—now see voting not as a basic right, an essential part of our freedom, but as a privilege for those who deserve it.

What occurs to me, is that part of what seems to be going on with abortion rights... pregnancy being seen as the deserved result of conduct, that you do not deserve the privilege of opting out of.

 

[Lexicus]

Thanks for the article. A paragraph in particular jumped out at me as being particularly relevant to this particular thread:

What occurs to me, is that part of what seems to be going on with abortion rights... pregnancy being seen as the deserved result of conduct, that you do not deserve the privilege of opting out of.

This also closely dovetails with reporting in the New Yorker about Clarence Thomas wanting to completely strip away the so-called "rights revolution."

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecies of Clarence Thomas

For decades, Thomas has had a deeply pessimistic view of the country, rooted in his reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. After the Supreme Court’s recent opinions, his dystopia is becoming our reality.

www.newyorker.com

Thomas’s argument against substantive due process is more than doctrinal. It’s political. In a speech before the Federalist Society and the Manhattan Institute which he gave in his second year on the Court, Thomas linked a broad reading of the due-process clause, with its ever-expanding list of “unenumerated” rights, to a liberal “rights revolution” that has undermined traditional authority and generated a culture of permissiveness and passivity. That revolution, which began with the New Deal and peaked in the nineteen-sixties, established the welfare state, weakened criminal law, and promulgated sexual freedom. The result has been personal dissipation and widespread disorder. Workers lose their incentive to labor. Men abandon wives and children. Criminals roam and rule the streets.


Today, the left ties itself into knots over whether it should defend sexual minorities, dismantle the carceral state, or fight for social democracy. For Thomas, these are three fronts of the same war. To reverse the downward spiral of social decadence and patriarchal decay, conservatives must undo the liberal culture of rights, starting with the unenumerated rights of substantive due process.

 

[Sommerswerd]

This also closely dovetails with reporting in the New Yorker about Clarence Thomas wanting to completely strip away the so-called "rights revolution."

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecies of Clarence Thomas

For decades, Thomas has had a deeply pessimistic view of the country, rooted in his reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. After the Supreme Court’s recent opinions, his dystopia is becoming our reality.

www.newyorker.com

Looks like he's be fooling everyone all along afterall... I can remember wondering whether he was simply Scalia's sidekick faithfully following his lead... or maybe he was a genius pulling a giant bait and switch, whereby after Scalia died, he would end his career by turning on the conservatives on his way out the door...

Come to find out, it was Thomas all along who was the true arch-conservative mastermind. He was the one quietly pulling the strings the whole time.

It actually makes me chuckle a bit... thinking about it ... but then I think... "Oh right..."

 

[Farm Boy]

It's strange to me to watch the seamless pivot in the mainstream camps between the battle for voting rights, which has always  always been based on positive liberty being required to extend and preserve the right, to the negative liberty battle of the right to create and destroy human life without interference from the government.

 

[Arakhor]

Or it's the positive liberty of not being forced to carry an unwanted baby, wherein dead people have more say over their body than young women.

 

[Farm Boy]

No, they have no rights over that, they're dead.

 

[Arakhor]

Organ donations can't be taken from a dead body without prior permission or existing law.

 

[Farm Boy]

Doesn't require their permission. Really doesn't.

 

[Lexicus]

It's strange to me to watch the seamless pivot in the mainstream camps between the battle for voting rights, which has always  always been based on positive liberty being required to extend and preserve the right, to the negative liberty battle of the right to create and destroy human life without interference from the government.

I suppose this would be a good time to say I think medicaid and medicare should cover abortions lol

 

[Arakhor]

Doesn't require their permission. Really doesn't.

Well, you may know more about it than me, but the very existence of donation registers and opt-in legislation strongly suggests otherwise.

 

[Farm Boy]

The default is still no. But the dead are the dead.

I suppose this would be a good time to say I think medicaid and medicare should cover abortions lol

It would fit my preconceptions just fine.

 

[Sommerswerd]

It's strange to me to watch the seamless pivot in the mainstream camps between the battle for voting rights, which has always  always been based on positive liberty being required to extend and preserve the right, to the negative liberty battle of the right to create and destroy human life without interference from the government.

There is nothing seamless between voting rights and destroying human life... and the notion that there is, presents as agenda driven, or dishonest, or both... but I know better, so I assume some third option.

As an aside, government interference is obviously one of the biggest destroyers of human life the world has ever seen... 90 some odd million dead due to super government fun time FIGHT!!! 1939-1945.

 

[Farm Boy]

That was quite a storm. But voting rights definitely form the shape of the seasonal soaking rains.

 

[EnglishEdward]

In the UK, the default option is that you have opted in to organ donation.

What is the opt out system?

The law around organ donation is changing in England. This page answers to some of the most common questions about the coming law change regarding organ donation and the opt out system, including: How is the law changing? | What is Max and Keira's Law? | Why do we need an opt out system? | Am I...

www.organdonation.nhs.uk

What has changed?

​

The law around organ donation in England has changed. All adults in England are now considered to have agreed to be an
organ donor when they die unless they have recorded a decision not to donate or are in one of the excluded groups.

Unless you specifically opt out, any part of your dead body that may be deemed useful is de fact government property.