Roe v Wade has been overturned. How do you feel about that?

[Dave_LF]

The lesson they're going to learn from this, 100%, is that violence, lies, and treason get them in four years what they failed to achieve democratically in 50. This makes it all the more crucial that the DOJ grow a spine over 1/6.

[N.E. Brigand]

I think that there IS a small possibility that the Democrats could get a net gain of two Senators (though I think it is unlikely). I think there is zero possibility of holding the House. I think they lost the House in 2020 when they unexpectedly lost so many seats and had their majority surprisingly shaved to a minimum. Between the historical precedent of the opposition party almost always gaining significant numbers of seats during the mid-terms, the perceived poor economy and high inflation (particularly gas prices) and Biden's law approval rate, I can't see even a surge of interest by people outraged by the Dobbs case and/or the 1/6 hearings making enough difference to overcome those factors when the current majority is so slim.

If Democrats fail now (and I agree, due to other circumstances, they very well might), then they just have to try again in 2024.

In the meantime, I'd like to see proposals for a monument to be erected that will list all the women who will have died as a result of the actions of Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Clarence Thomas. The longer the nation goes without Democrats having enough power to codify the protections I identify above, the bigger the monument will have to be to hold all the names.

[Frelga]

If Democrats fail now, there won't be a fair election in 2024.

tumblr_m5y26tBjhh1qc3sgso5_250.gif (652.34 KiB) Viewed 2053 times

[Eldy]

From Clarence Thomas' concurrence, on page 119 of this official PDF:

For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is “demonstrably erroneous,” Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 7), we have a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents, Gamble v. United States, 587 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (THOMAS, J., concurring) (slip op., at 9).

Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell are the Supreme Court cases which legalized contraception, same-sex sexual activity, and same-sex marriage, respectively. We knew these decisions would be next up on the conservative legal agenda, but it's still depressing as hell. Thomas went on to suggest the Court needs to determine if those rights are supported by other parts of the constitution, without offering an opinion on that question, but it's not exactly hard to imagine what will happen.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I think it is unlikely that the rest of the conservatives will follow Thomas' lead there. Alito made a point to add to his original draft a section distinguishing abortion from those other rights, and none of the other justices joined onto Thomas' concurrence. Instead, Kavanaugh wrote his own concurrence explaining why abortion is different, and why it is okay to overturn both Roe and Casey despite the doctrine of stare decisis. I could be wrong, but I think that is a clear signal that that is a bridge too far for them.

[Eldy]

I very much hope you are correct, V.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I do too! And I recognize the possibility that I might not be. After all, just a couple of years ago, it was Alito that was taking aim at same-sex marriage. But I do feel relatively confident that it would be hard to get a majority to go that far.

[Eldy]

Yeah, and while I don't trust Kavanaugh et al as far as I could throw them, they have much less reason to dissemble their beliefs now than during their confirmation hearings (or concurrent private meetings with Senators :V).

[Frelga]

Wasn't the same logic used to argue that people were overreacting about Roe?

[Eldy]

Wasn't the same logic used to argue that people were overreacting about Roe?

That people were overreacting during the confirmation hearings? There were a lot of bad takes then, obviously, but my point is that nominees will, like politicians during election campaigns, say what it takes to get confirmed, but once they have a lifetime appointment there's less reason for them to conceal their true thoughts. So I wasn't reassured by anything Trump's nominees said to the Senate, and I'm not really reassured now, but I'm more willing to consider that they might be telling the truth this time.

[Cerin]

This is not about "life", this is about enforcing gender roles in the service of theocracy.

I've observed in recent years and can say without hyperbole that, in my view, the Left have no understanding of the Right; the above is a prime example. I don't doubt that this is what it looks like from your perspective, articulated in your mind, but it has no relation to the way the Right think about themselves and the world. I don't know what significance these misconceptions have, other than leading to increased rancor (and statements that would have the subjects ROFL if they ever saw them).

To those opposing abortion, this issue is about life, it is about the belief that a gestational-age human being is human, is alive, and that therefore taking that life is a grave moral issue. There are millions of people who view the gestational-age human being as of equal worth to the person walking down the street, and they (while not being evil, mentally-impaired, misogynistic or mendacious) are as distressed to know of these lives being ended as they would be to see the person walking down the street hacked to death while passers-by neither flinched nor interfered.

(I don't intend to argue the issue, but just to observe that, imo, the characterization is mistaken.)

[Dave_LF]

There's no bridge too far for these people. Anyone who still believes that has spent the last six years living in a different country than I have.

If Ukraine is Gondor, then this--*all* this--is the despoiling of the Shire by ruffians and thugs.

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump has issued a statement praising today's horrendous decision.

Setting aside the occasional rumor about Trump's own personal life, I remember what I noted here how the finance chair of the Republican National Committee in 2017, as well as two of the three deputy finance chairs at that time (all four men surely had Trump's support), were involved in sex scandals: Steve Wynn (RNC Finance Chair) was alleged by nine women who worked for him to have committed sexual harassment and assault (and as regards other improper conduct, he's now being sued by the Dept. of Justice to register as a foreign agent), Michael Cohen (RNC Deputy Finance Chair) pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws to help Donald Trump cover up an affair, and Elliott Broidy (RNC Deputy Finance Chair), besides later pleading guilty to being a foreign agent (for which Trump pardoned him), apparently paid more than $1 million to his Playboy-model girlfiend to have an abortion. And Cohen had a hand in the Broidy scandal, and apparently he likes to recycle code names, since in the deal arranged between Broidy and his mistress, he used the same alias for Broidy as he had used for Trump arranging the payoff to Stormy Daniels. I would be surprised if Trump didn't know about Broidy's situation before it became public.

Powerful people, including Republicans, will still be paying for abortions in the post-Roe world.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

To those opposing abortion, this issue is about life, it is about the belief that a gestational-age human being is human, is alive, and that therefore taking that life is a grave moral issue. There are millions of people who view the gestational-age human being as of equal worth to the person walking down the street, and they (while not being evil, mentally-impaired, misogynistic or mendacious) are as distressed to know of these lives being ended as they would be to see the person walking down the street hacked to death while passers-by neither flinched nor interfered.

And this is why I don't believe that this decision will be followed by decisions overturning Griswold, Lawrence, or Obergefell, despite Thomas's comment. Abortion just falls into a separate category.

x-posted with N.E.B.

[Eldy]

Powerful people, including Republicans, will still be paying for abortions in the post-Roe world.

Yep. “The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion” remains as relevant as ever.

[N.E. Brigand]

This is not about "life", this is about enforcing gender roles in the service of theocracy.

I've observed in recent years and can say without hyperbole that, in my view, the Left have no understanding of the Right; the above is a prime example. I don't doubt that this is what it looks like from your perspective, articulated in your mind, but it has no relation to the way the Right think about themselves and the world. I don't know what significance these misconceptions have, other than leading to increased rancor (and statements that would have the subjects ROFL if they ever saw them).

To those opposing abortion, this issue is about life, it is about the belief that a gestational-age human being is human, is alive, and that therefore taking that life is a grave moral issue. There are millions of people who view the gestational-age human being as of equal worth to the person walking down the street, and they (while not being evil, mentally-impaired, misogynistic or mendacious) are as distressed to know of these lives being ended as they would be to see the person walking down the street hacked to death while passers-by neither flinched nor interfered.

(I don't intend to argue the issue, but just to observe that, imo, the characterization is mistaken.)

I agree with you that a significant number of the people who oppose abortion are sincere in their beliefs about life beginning at conception.

But many of those same people effectively stop caring about the unborn the moment they become born.

And less than 25% of the population wants abortion banned entirely, so even among those who describe themselves as pro-life, there is not much agreement about when life begins, or what balance to strike between the potential life of the unborn and the needs of the mother.

[Frelga]

Do you plan to address the death and suffering of post-birth humans that this decision will cause, or nah?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Do you plan to address the death and suffering of post-birth humans that this decision will cause, or nah?

Who is this directed to?

[Frelga]

Cerin, in case that wasn't clear.

[N.E. Brigand]

1. Does today's decision prove that terrorism works? The so-called pro-life movement is littered with bodies and bombings in a decades-long right-wing terror campaign meant to yield the result achieved today. By contrast, there was very little violence from the pro-choice side. Was that a mistake by the left? (And if your answer is just that violence is always wrong, remember that this nation would not now exist without a violent revolution against the British and then, 84 years later, an even more violent suppression of the Confederacy.)

2. What lessons should Democrats take from three other events that led to today's decision?
--2A. Republicans stole a seat from Democrats by letting a Court seat remain vacant for a year following Justice Scalia's death, contravening all precedent.
--2B. Justice Kennedy, who had upheld Roe but who was appointed by a Republican, agreed to retire at a moment when his successor would be named by a Republican, even though his successor opposed Roe. Justice Ginsburg meanwhile had declined to resign when Democrats controlled both the presidency and the Senate.
--2C. Republicans hypocritically undermined their own stated precedent following Scalia's death by rushing a replacement for Justice Ginsburg onto the Court in less than two months just weeks before the 2020 election.
Does this prove that might makes right?

I don't have the answers, but the questions seem inescapable.

Edit: While I don't have the answers, I do have my answers, which are that the right was morally wrong to use violence and power to achieve this end, but Democrats never took this issue seriously enough to pursue it vigorously (through non-violent means). For example, just as the January 6th Committee is now showing how Donald Trump's actions caused the violence at the Capitol and thus are deserving of prosecution, Democratic officials over the years should have done more to connect the pro-life movement writ large to the actions its most violent members. More broadly, Democratic politicians and activists were just not as enervated as Republicans, who, as with the case of those three SCOTUS replacements, played norm-breaking but legal hardball in a way that pearl-clutching Democratic politicians refused to do, while far left activists dreamily abandoned the work of sustaining what had been achieved.