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Roe V Wade overturned?

In which case let's those of us who call ourselves socialists stick to our principles, regardless of how relevant they are to the modern world, or heaven forbid the electorate, and we can enjoy another 3 terms of Conservative government. Maybe more, if like Jeremy Corbyn we can concentrate on "winning the argument" rather than elections. Who needs MPs after all? Not me, let's have another few years of Boris. After all, it's going so well, why change a winning team?

Ok, now I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You seem to be inferring views that I simply do not hold.
 
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Not too keen on Rowson usually, but this was spot on from today's Guardian.
 
Not seeing anything via that link on it being from the moment of fertilisation. Any pointers?

https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1276214

Section 2. Acknowledging the sanctity of innocent human life, created in the image of God, which should be equally protected from fertilization to natural death, the legislature hereby declares that the purpose of this Act is to:

(1) Fully recognize the human personhood of an unborn child at all stages of development prior to birth from the moment of fertilization.
(2) Ensure the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all unborn children from the moment of fertilization by protecting them by the same laws protecting other 17 human beings.

The sponsor of this amendment, Danny McCormick, is also opposed to IVF and some birth control methods (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_McCormick).
 
Correct. The Supreme Court has an ultra-conservative majority thanks to T***p. What is changing as a result are state laws where the GOP hold majorities.

There are only two ways to get more liberal justices on the Supreme Court: death or expansion. Obviously, Dems can not control when someone dies, and expanding the court would require two senators - Manchin and Sinema - to vote for an exception to the filibuster. Neither said they will do so, so expansion will not happen.

Calls for Biden to be “stronger”, to somehow just make things happen, are unfortunately coming from people who do not understand how the US government works. Yes, he can issue executive orders, but there are limitations and he can always be challenged in court. That same Supreme Court, that one in the process of overturning 50 years of settled case law on abortion rights, has final say over whether or not a Biden executive order is constitutional.
I just assumed the right to have an abortion would be federal law, all this case law and the part it plays in the US political system seems weird to me.
 
Yes, the b@astards have become emboldened, for sure - maybe that's why the leak? Just a thought - so it could be a leak from the right?

It's been hotly debated. Some think it's a left leaning whistleblower, others think it's a leak from the right about "locking in" everyone's votes so Kavanaugh and Barrett don't get persuaded from supporting such an extreme opinion.
 
I just assumed the right to have an abortion would be federal law, all this case law and the part it plays in the US political system seems weird to me.
The US legal system is based on a combination of British common law/equity (a number of the Founding Fathers were lawyers and steeped in these principles) and the US Constitution. The thing about the common law and equity is that they are nowhere written down - they are based entirely on precedent, and they confer (still) many fundamental rights. Although much of them has been superceded by (written) statute law, they are still there, and the respect for precedent is (or was?) built into the system. The legal term is stare decisis (to stand by things decided). Thus, in its interpretation of the Constitution (its primary function), the Supreme Court should respect precedent, unless there are very good reasons for overturning it.

The Constitution was written by 18th century gentlemen of the Enlightenment. At the time, "enlightenment" did not extend to women or people of colour. And naturally abortion doesn't get a mention. There is a strong legal argument that the original Roe decision was poorly argued, but it has subsequently been confirmed on a number of occasions. To overturn it now smacks of religious zealotry of the worst kind. If this is the final decision (and I suspect that what emerges will be somewhat less harsh), it sets the scene for further chaos.
 
I just assumed the right to have an abortion would be federal law, all this case law and the part it plays in the US political system seems weird to me.

Roe v. Wade was a Supreme Court decision that said women have a constitutional right to an abortion under the 14th amendment (right to privacy).

There is no specific federal law guaranteeing the right to an abortion. The Senate will vote on such a bill this week to make it so, but it will not pass.

In general, Federal law supersedes State law, and as we saw in Roe v. Wade, a state law (in this case, Texas) can be ruled unconstitutional by a federal court.
 
The Constitution was written by 18th century gentlemen of the Enlightenment. At the time, "enlightenment" did not extend to women or people of colour. And naturally abortion doesn't get a mention. There is a strong legal argument that the original Roe decision was poorly argued, but it has subsequently been confirmed on a number of occasions. To overturn it now smacks of religious zealotry of the worst kind. If this is the final decision (and I suspect that what emerges will be somewhat less harsh), it sets the scene for further chaos.

At the time of the Constitution, and well into the 18th Century, abortion was not illegal. The law just didn't care, it was commonplace but rarely spoken about, one of those dirty little details of womanhood.

It was commonplace enough that, if the Founder had been offended by it, they would have done something. Their silence on the issue should be sufficient.
 
Just to shine a little further light on what this particular can of worms contains here is the Wikipedia list of “Pro Life” terrorist events in the USA. A disturbingly lengthy catalogue of murders, attempted murders, assaults, kidnappings, bombings, arson, vandalism and anthrax attacks.
never seen that article ... utterly horrific . Especially attacks of garson romalis who pointed out the thousands of cases of sepsis he had seen and was shot for it
 
Some reaction from Good Law Project regarding implications for the UK (Twitter).

PS I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion America is done. It probably needs another civil war to purge the fascists, religious bigots and white supremacists.
Nobody needs a civil war. But the purge part sounds good to you just now. It's where the mind goes when you feel the bad people are becoming truly dangerous. It's usually right wingers that get caught up in this fear and loathing trip, so they are the one's usually caught expressing public death wishes on others.
 
Until being from Texas becomes a crime in the blue states
I can see the right of travel/migration between red and blue states becoming restricted in the future. Red states would not like losing the best and brightest; blue states would not like gaining benefit shoppers.
 
As the USA turns from the refuge of persecuted minorities to the persecutor of minorities.
Here's an excellent speech, considering the prospect that in terms of freedoms, the USA has reached a high point and is about to drop back into darkness -

 


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