Kennedy retires, Roe is overruled then what?

[Person Man]

With Kennedy retiring. Maybe a poll in Gay Marriage, too?

[BudgieForce]

With Kennedy retiring?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

It would be one more step in the march towards breakup of the United States.

[Person Man]

With Kennedy retiring?

There's rumor that because Kennedy is getting Old, has Trump as a family friend, and has been reshufgling his schedule, that he is about to let Trump take his seat and that would effectively pack tge court.

[pbrower2a]

I expect the worst leader in American history to be more concerned with economic stances than with sex.


We will see  an intensification of political division. We will see unrest appear in ways that make the 1960s look placid. Opposition to the Trump regime will become increasingly loud, reckless, and ruthless. On the other side, expect the Right to become even more resolute in its punitive treatment of anyone who gets in the way.

I see even more destruction of liberal assumptions, like laws that states enact to outlaw labor unions. A Trump Court will stand behind the 'freedom' of economic elites to refuse to deal with labor unions. Remember that is in any inhuman, right-wing regime, no human suffering is in perceived excess so long as it promotes profit. Profit is sacred and even God must defer to the real god of a plutocracy, Mammon, who requires human sacrifices for satiation.

Human sacrifices in the sense of a priest sacrificing a child as a burnt offering to Mammon? No -- poor people dying because a few dollars in profit are more precious than any poor person. Such is the human sacrifice.

I can say this -- I have no desire to live in a second term of Donald Judas Trump as President. If I cannot emigrate from such an infernal nightmare, I want to die. Life is precious for what one can enjoy and not in its own right.     

[BudgieForce]

With Kennedy retiring?

There's rumor that because Kennedy is getting Old, has Trump as a family friend, and has been reshufgling his schedule, that he is about to let Trump take his seat and that would effectively pack tge court.

Kennedy is too concerned about his legacy to retire now.

[TheSaint250]

Hopefully none of that happens.

[Classic Conservative]

I expect the worst leader in American history to be more concerned with economic stances than with sex.


We will see  an intensification of political division. We will see unrest appear in ways that make the 1960s look placid. Opposition to the Trump regime will become increasingly loud, reckless, and ruthless. On the other side, expect the Right to become even more resolute in its punitive treatment of anyone who gets in the way.

I see even more destruction of liberal assumptions, like laws that states enact to outlaw labor unions. A Trump Court will stand behind the 'freedom' of economic elites to refuse to deal with labor unions. Remember that is in any inhuman, right-wing regime, no human suffering is in perceived excess so long as it promotes profit. Profit is sacred and even God must defer to the real god of a plutocracy, Mammon, who requires human sacrifices for satiation.

Human sacrifices in the sense of a priest sacrificing a child as a burnt offering to Mammon? No -- poor people dying because a few dollars in profit are more precious than any poor person. Such is the human sacrifice.

I can say this -- I have no desire to live in a second term of Donald Judas Trump as President. If I cannot emigrate from such an infernal nightmare, I want to die. Life is precious for what one can enjoy and not in its own right.     

Are you okay?

[Devout Centrist]

If you want to lose an entire generation of elections, strike it down

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Here's a scenario I haven't heard mentioned yet: Roe is overrules, but instead "leaving it to states", the Court explicitly rules abortion rights unconstitutional.

[Famous Mortimer]

Here's a scenario I haven't heard mentioned yet: Roe is overrules, but instead "leaving it to states", the Court explicitly rules abortion rights unconstitutional.

No one talks about it because there'd really be no grounds to do it.

[Cashew]

If you want to lose an entire generation of elections, strike it down

Wow what a wonderful scenario, striking down the constitutional monstrosity, and having the party of randists be cast into the wilderness, sign me up!

[7,052,770]

Here's a scenario I haven't heard mentioned yet: Roe is overrules, but instead "leaving it to states", the Court explicitly rules abortion rights unconstitutional.

It's less likely, but the ones who truly believe abortion is murder won't stop until this is the ruling.

Does anyone really think they'll just say "OK, it's up to the states. We win. It's over now!" ?

[Person Man]

Here's a scenario I haven't heard mentioned yet: Roe is overrules, but instead "leaving it to states", the Court explicitly rules abortion rights unconstitutional.

It's less likely, but the ones who truly believe abortion is murder won't stop until this is the ruling.

Does anyone really think they'll just say "OK, it's up to the states. We win. It's over now!" ?

I can see a lot of Trump voters becoming complacent if it goes back to the states.

but how would the SCOTUS enforce a Constitutional right for a fetus to not be aborted? Let "survivors" sue?

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Here's a scenario I haven't heard mentioned yet: Roe is overrules, but instead "leaving it to states", the Court explicitly rules abortion rights unconstitutional.

It's less likely, but the ones who truly believe abortion is murder won't stop until this is the ruling.

Does anyone really think they'll just say "OK, it's up to the states. We win. It's over now!" ?

I never understood why, if the Republican party believes abortion is murder, do they not pack the court tomorrow and overturn Roe?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Here's a scenario I haven't heard mentioned yet: Roe is overrules, but instead "leaving it to states", the Court explicitly rules abortion rights unconstitutional.

No one talks about it because there'd really be no grounds to do it.

If anything, the only purely constitutional basis for when personhood begins is birth thanks to the 14th. So while a Federal prohibition on infanticide makes constitutional sense, going earlier for a Federal ban on abortion has no justification. At most, a requirement that for potentially viable fetuses, induced labor be attempted.

[Crumpets]

Roberts seems to care enough about the integrity of the court that I can definitely see him looking at a hastily brought case and either declining to hear it or ruling to keep Roe.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Roberts seems to care enough about the integrity of the court that I can definitely see him looking at a hastily brought case and either declining to hear it or ruling to keep Roe.

You only need 4 votes for cert

[Shadows]

Roe vs Wade is very unlikely to be over-turned. Roberts is a Sure shot vote for Roe vs Wade which makes it 5 (with the 4 Liberal judges). I can see Gorsuch, Thomas & even Alito voting to over-turn but not Roberts.

[KingSweden]

Roberts seems to care enough about the integrity of the court that I can definitely see him looking at a hastily brought case and either declining to hear it or ruling to keep Roe.

I would not be surprised to see rulings that narrow Roe and make it difficult to get abortions in many states. I'm still skeptical about it being overturned, entirely, at this point in time

[MarkD]

Even Alan Dershowitz has turned anti-Roe. He talked about the idea that Roe was wrongly decided in his book published 16 years ago, "Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000," and a couple of years after that, when he participated in a panel debate at Regent University, one comment he made during his turn to talk was: "I believe the Court has, on occasion, overstepped its constitutional mandate. I'll give you two examples; one won't surprise you, the other one will. I believe that Bush v. Gore was a clear instance of overstepping. ... But the other occasion was Roe v. Wade. I myself personally, strongly support a woman's right to choose abortion. But I do not support the constitutionalization [sic] of that particular right." Dershowitz's position has become very similar to that of one of his former colleagues at Harvard: John Hart Ely, who was one of the first constitutional law scholars to take the position, I'm pro-choice, but what the Supreme Court did in Roe v. Wade was not a valid interpretation of the Constitution.

On another note, my assessment of Kennedy's retirement plans are that he will not retire. I think he intends to be carried out of the Supreme Court on a stretcher, not walk away.

On yet another note, I think that various states will react to the overturning of Roe in various ways. Several of the states that just voted for Hillary will adopt laws, even amendments to the state constitutions, keeping the basic tenet of Roe. Several states will ban abortion, but have various exceptions. And several of the battle-ground states will continue to have internal battles over the subject for decades to come. But just because it will be excruciating for those states to have to deal with it does not mean that it would be "better" for Roe to remain a precedent. Prof. Ely was right back in 1973 that Roe v. Wade "is not constitutional law, and it gives scarcely any impression of it even trying to be."

On one last note, do not forget that Planned Parenthood v. Casey altered the scope of the "right to abortion" quite significantly. In Roe, the Court said that getting an abortion is a "fundamental right," and that any legislation interfering with that right must be subjected to "strict scrutiny." However, in Casey, the Court said that getting an abortion is a "liberty interest," and any legislation that interferes with that "liberty" must not "unduly burden" that "liberty." As a leader of National Abortion Rights Action League said right after the Casey decision, "The difference between 'fundamental right' and 'undue burden' is itself fundamental."

[Antonio the Sixth]

Let's not get ahead of ourselves please.

[Indy Texas]

I personally am a pro-choice person who is lukewarm regarding Roe. Dershowitz's reasoning is fine with me. I'm not a lawyer, I just think that from a political standpoint, if the abortion rights movement had had the patience to continue slowly chipping away at state-level statutory restrictions, you'd likely have abortion legal in every state in at least some cases and you wouldn't have created the backlash and the fuel to keep the Christian-Republican Industrial Complex going.

This is not one of those "arc of history" issues like racism and LGBT rights. It will always be a 55/45 issue in one direction or the other because you're dealing with a very esoteric ethical question of what personhood is.

I've said before that while I think abortion will always be legal in some form, it's going to be a less compelling issue because medical advances will make it less necessary. You could have a situation in 50 years where a woman who has an unwanted pregnancy can have the fetus removed from her uterus, she can sign a waiver indicating she wants nothing to do with it, and it can gestate in an artificial womb until it is born, at which point it will be a ward of the state.

My issue with the pro-life movement is how uninterested they are in what happens after they refuse to allow a fetus to be aborted and it is born. They are completely uninterested in the health and welfare of born children.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Dems shouldn't be worried about CRTs. They can't take away freedom. The Hughes CRT during FDR's term was right as well. Affirmative action as well as civil rights are in the Constitution. It's just gonna get a little tough. But, every state has ruled, even TX, 20 weeks for abortions is the limit.

[progressive85]

Here's a scenario I haven't heard mentioned yet: Roe is overrules, but instead "leaving it to states", the Court explicitly rules abortion rights unconstitutional.

It's less likely, but the ones who truly believe abortion is murder won't stop until this is the ruling.

Does anyone really think they'll just say "OK, it's up to the states. We win. It's over now!" ?

I never understood why, if the Republican party believes abortion is murder, do they not pack the court tomorrow and overturn Roe?

Good question.  If it is unthinkable to go one more day without one more baby's life being taken away unjustly, then why don't you call an emergency session of Congress, pass a constitutional amendment, pack the courts, do whatever you have to do so that tomorrow, abortion is banned everywhere.  

My guess is that to some of the Republican Party's most evil masterminds, it is more advantageous for the party politically to have Roe vs. Wade there.