Judiciary Commitee Recommends Alito

[Ebowed]

Abortion rights have been eroded greatly over the past 20 years and 87% of all U.S. counties have no abortion provider. Hell, there are 2 or 3 states where there is only one abortion provider in the whole state.

Great news!

[opebo]

Abortion rights have been eroded greatly over the past 20 years and 87% of all U.S. counties have no abortion provider. Hell, there are 2 or 3 states where there is only one abortion provider in the whole state.

Great news!

Please change your avatar to Religious Party, freedom-hater.

[Sibboleth]

There's no such thing as "abortion on demand", you insensitive jackass.

That depends entirely on what is meant by "on demand"; it's usually used to mean "as a form of birth control" and "at just about any stage of the pregnancy".
Happily that sort of thing is illegal over here.

[A18]

I certainly hope the federal partial-birth abortion ban is not upheld, but after that constitutional atrocity known as Raich, who knows?

As matters currently stand, only one conservative--Justice Thomas--will likely vote against the federal partial-birth abortion ban on commerce clause grounds. The two other principled defenders of federalism, Rehnquist and O'Connor, will have already left. Scalia is only a fair-weather federalist, and I suspect that Roberts, Alito, and Kennedy would all vote to uphold the ban.

Thomas is a fair-weather federalist. See his rulings on Gonzales v. Oregon and Bush v. Gore.

A fair-weather federalist is someone who finds a broad federalist principle in the Constitution, but fails to apply it when he comes across a result he wouldn't like.

With regard to Scalia, he abandoned the Lopez and Morrison reasoning in Raich.

Thomas did no such thing. Gonzales v. Oregon had nothing to do with the Commerce Clause, and of course neither did Bush v. Gore.

[WMS]

Not for lack of trying on your side's part, you bloody leftist hack.

Thanks for admitting you lied about "abortion on demand", and that you only use it because it's a cheap talking point.

I would love to put you in a woman's shoes and see if your opinion changes when the government gets the authority the control your reproductive decisions. The facts are a great majority of women don't want the government controlling their uterus.

It's so easy for men to judge this issue when it doesn't directly affect you. It must be nauseating for women to deal with all these authoritarian men who want to take away their rights.

That IS the position of the left - Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, anybody? The fact that Webster and Casey have made abortion on demand harder to achieve does not change the fact that the left wing desires it.

*sigh* Shall we argue about bad polling questions again? IIRC more women than men are pro-life. As for the rest of your argument...

...no, I don't support the right to kill an innocent life for the sake of convenience, which is where you seem to be coming from. And if you'd have ever bothered to pay attention all the other zillion times I've spoken out in this subject, you would also know:
- I wholeheartedly support contraception, including the morning-after pill, although not RU-486 which isn't contraception but another method of abortion.
- I would allow abortions in the cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother (I still find abortion horrific in those cases but I can see it being a necessary evil), rape/incest in 1st and 2nd trimesters, life of the mother always.
- I also support giving mothers health care and assistance during and after the pregnancy. Sorry Scoonie, but the 'you don't care about the baby after it's born' line doesn't work on me.
- As part of that, I would make damn certain that the fathers of these kids pay support for them. If you screw around without using protection and get someone pregnant, you deal with the consequences.
- More in general, I would definitely restrict abortion more in the 2nd trimester than it is now - no abortion on demand by this point - it's pretty clear we're dealing with a life at this point.
- I also strongly support educational and other programs designed to reduce the unwanted pregnancy rate in general to obviate the need for abortions in the first place. In fact, the lack of attention paid here is one of my criticisms of parts of the pro-life movement.

Now, 'doesn't directly affect you' is a crappy argument. Under that logic, why should I care about anyone or anything else if their well-being doesn't directly affect me? How sociopathic of you, Scoonie - I'd expect opebo to have said something like that. I care for the unborn for the same reason I care about refugees, animals, the poor, and the suffering and downtrodden in general. Click the link in my sig for more details on that. Your refusal to see the unborn as deserving of rights seems a bit inconsistent when compared to your positions on other issues.

And how about some goddamned personal responsibility on everyone's behalf? Except for certain exceptions (rape and incest being the foremost of these), there's no reason anyone should be having unwanted pregnancies in the first place. This is so damned preventable.

Now why don't you come down from your ivory tower a bit there, Scoonie? You started all this with an unwarranted personal attack, after all.

[WMS]

There's no such thing as "abortion on demand", you insensitive jackass.

That depends entirely on what is meant by "on demand"; it's usually used to mean "as a form of birth control" and "at just about any stage of the pregnancy".
Happily that sort of thing is illegal over here.

Exactly, Al. I suggest a perusal of the abortion rates for the District of Columbia if anyone thinks this doesn't happen...

[TheresNoMoney]

That depends entirely on what is meant by "on demand";

"On demand", if you go by the true definition of the word, would mean that a woman would march into an abortion clinic, demand an abortion, and have it done right there on the spot. Obviously, this is far from the actual reality.

it's usually used to mean "as a form of birth control" and "at just about any stage of the pregnancy".

Close to 100% of abortions are performed in the first 5 months of the pregnancy, with a vast majority in the first 3 or 4 months. Late-term abortions are only performed under very special circumstances.

Happily that sort of thing is illegal over here.

What is the law in England?

[Sam Spade]

Uh, Stenberg v. Carhart struck down the Nebraska law which banned partial-birth abortion because it presented an undue burden on the right to have an abortion.

I don't see what this has to do with federalism.

Uh, did you read the quotes before posting that? We were talking about the federal partial-birth abortion ban.

Nah, I'm still stuck on Stenberg.  As for partial-birth abortion bans, I basically think state laws are ok, federal laws aren't.  Which means I probably agree with you.

[TheresNoMoney]

That IS the position of the left - Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, anybody?

There was no exception for life of the mother, which is why many Democrats voted against it. Many also didn't want to vote for an unconstitutional bill. Democrat-bashers always fail to leave out these facts when they discuss the PBA ban.

The fact that Webster and Casey have made abortion on demand harder to achieve does not change the fact that the left wing desires it.

Again, there is no such thing as "abortion on demand" so your insistence to continue to use that term shows your intellectual dishonesty.

*sigh* Shall we argue about bad polling questions again? IIRC more women than men are pro-life.

The majority of women do not want the government controlling their reproductive decisions. Reasonable restrictions are fine, but many states would institute a complete ban if RVW was overturned, which would be tragic.

- I wholeheartedly support contraception, including the morning-after pill, although not RU-486 which isn't contraception but another method of abortion.

This is the way to go. Increase sex education and access to contraception (espeically emergency contraception) and you will see abortions go down. I am also fine with reasonable restrictions (parental notificaition and make abortion illegal in last 3 or 4 months of pregnancy).

- I also support giving mothers health care and assistance during and after the pregnancy. Sorry Scoonie, but the 'you don't care about the baby after it's born' line doesn't work on me.

I never acccused you of that.

As part of that, I would make damn certain that the fathers of these kids pay support for them. If you screw around without using protection and get someone pregnant, you deal with the consequences.

I definitely agree with that.

I also strongly support educational and other programs designed to reduce the unwanted pregnancy rate in general to obviate the need for abortions in the first place.

This is another common sense approach that would be a great step to reducing abortions.

Now, 'doesn't directly affect you' is a crappy argument. Under that logic, why should I care about anyone or anything else if their well-being doesn't directly affect me?

Because in this instance, you're directly controlling another person's body (specifically 51% of the population) and I'm not OK with that. I believe we should be giving people more rights, not taking them away.

Your refusal to see the unborn as deserving of rights seems a bit inconsistent when compared to your positions on other issues.

I obviously want to see abortions reduced as much as possible, but we disagree on the solutions. I think you come up with some great solutions up top, but we disagree on the main point of criminalizing abortion or not. I think criminalizing abortion would be a disaster. If I was a woman, I would not want the government to force me to give birth if I was pregnant.

The better steps would be reasonable restrictions, increase education, increase access to contraception, and work to decrease poverty in the country. You have to look at the root cause of the problem, and not just the outcome.
 

And how about some goddamned personal responsibility on everyone's behalf? Except for certain exceptions (rape and incest being the foremost of these), there's no reason anyone should be having unwanted pregnancies in the first place. This is so damned preventable.

That sounds great on paper but reality is much different. People make mistakes in life, and you shouldn't have the rest of your life ruined if you had unprotected sex once or twice when you were a teenager.

[Emsworth]

There was no exception for life of the mother, which is why many Democrats voted against it.

Actually, there was an exception. See Section 1531 (a): "This [ban] does not apply to a partial-birth abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother."

[nick]

I think he was refering to the bill vetoed by Clinton in the 90's...

[Brandon H]

Not for lack of trying on your side's part, you bloody leftist hack.

Thanks for admitting you lied about "abortion on demand", and that you only use it because it's a cheap talking point.

I would love to put you in a woman's shoes and see if your opinion changes when the government gets the authority the control your reproductive decisions. The facts are a great majority of women don't want the government controlling their uterus.

It's so easy for men to judge this issue when it doesn't directly affect you. It must be nauseating for women to deal with all these authoritarian men who want to take away their rights.

The government is forcing women to have sex and get pregnant? I'm sure a majority of unborn children don't want the government giving control of their life to their mother.

[WMS]

I'm baaaaaack! And I had to cut my old responses due to message length, OK?

There was no exception for life of the mother, which is why many Democrats voted against it. Many also didn't want to vote for an unconstitutional bill. Democrat-bashers always fail to leave out these facts when they discuss the PBA ban.

Emsworth covered this already. And it makes such a good issue to compare various politicans' votes on in the Almanac of American Politics, Dem and Rep alike - the consistency is striking, and you can identify the libertarian Reps and communitarian Dems pretty easily by this vote. It was basically a statement of principle, given Constitutional issues with it. Seriously, if it was a legal bill, and if there was a exception for the life of the mother whoops, there was one, how many Democrats would really have changed their votes in support of it?

Again, there is no such thing as "abortion on demand" so your insistence to continue to use that term shows your intellectual dishonesty.

How many votes for option 1 are there? And who cast them? That poll *at this moment, w/17.1% for option 1* is a pretty good reflection of the percentage of the American population that favors unrestricted abortion, i.e., abortion-on-demand, and note that those who have come out of the shadows to indicate their option 1 votes are all very socially leftist. I voted for Option 3, of course, BTW. And as I mentioned in my reply to Al, if you don't think it exists, look at the District of Columbia's abortion rate (IIRC David S once posted a map of those stats by state). I chose it for two reasons: 1) it is pretty clearly run by the left, and 2) at the time of the map, there were more abortions than live births in D.C.! Oh yes, abortion-on-demand can exist...

The majority of women do not want the government controlling their reproductive decisions. Reasonable restrictions are fine, but many states would institute a complete ban if RVW was overturned, which would be tragic.

OK, we need Brandon H to provide the link to the abortion polling data again. The data, taken as a whole, demonstrate the complexity of the issue and wipe out the '70% of Americans are pro-choice' fallacy I keep hearing from the social left. It's way, way, more complicated than that - there's four blocks of opinion on this, and you can say Americans are majority pro-choice or pro-life depending on how you define the two middle groups - the 'allowed with some restrictions' and the 'prohibited with some exceptions' groups (who of course could be further subdivided...). And that complexity extends to women as well.

Your second sentence is a separate issue. Defining 'reasonable restrictions' is the contested part of the argument. The AOD (Abortion-On-Demand) Left says ANY restrictions are unreasonable (Option 1 voters again ), the Total Ban Right (that would be Option 2, I believe) says NO restrictions are unreasonable. The option 3 Center debates which restrictions to implement. As for what states would do after Roe/Casey/etc/ is removed...Ernest has the most likely vision of what would happen. Most states would probably restrict 2nd trimester abortions more than they are now and put parental permission requirements in place, but would not outright ban the procedure. A total ban might be tragic, but so is the current situation, from my perspective - there's a LOT of killed babies since Roe...

This is the way to go. Increase sex education and access to contraception (espeically emergency contraception) and you will see abortions go down. I am also fine with reasonable restrictions (parental notificaition and make abortion illegal in last 3 or 4 months of pregnancy).

Yes, opposition to this makes me hit my head on my desk at times...
Ah, so that's what you mean by 'reasonable restrictions'. As expected, the primary area of disagreement between us is over that 2nd trimester, where I'm more restrictive than you are. There's not too much difference over the 1st and 3rd trimesters (although I will always consider it abhorrent even in the 1st trimester, that doesn't mean I'd rush to ban it then). I suspect that if the states had control, we'd move away from trimesters to issues of brain function, viability, and so on. I had a pretty good debate with Nym over this back in the day...

I never acccused you of that.

In every abortion argument on these forums, it comes up eventually. I was just seizing the opportunity to foreclose that line of debate. And Texasgurl has something in her signature right now that suggests it would come up, sooner rather than later. Of course this ties in with my views on health care in general...Here's that extremely good discussion on health care I mention from time to time. Read it...you may be surprised...

I definitely agree with that.

Excellent. One more thing that isn't mentioned enough...

This is another common sense approach that would be a great step to reducing abortions.

Remember what I said about hitting my head on my desk sometimes?

Because in this instance, you're directly controlling another person's body (specifically 51% of the population) and I'm not OK with that. I believe we should be giving people more rights, not taking them away.

But from my perspective, you're taking all rights away from the unborn, and directly controlling their bodies in ways far more severe and intrusive that just about anything we've discussed. And I'm not OK with that. I do try to balance the competing sets of rights, but err more on the side of protecting life. And from my POV, I am giving people - the unborn - more rights. And thus we argue with each other.

I obviously want to see abortions reduced as much as possible, but we disagree on the solutions. I think you come up with some great solutions up top, but we disagree on the main point of criminalizing abortion or not. I think criminalizing abortion would be a disaster. If I was a woman, I would not want the government to force me to give birth if I was pregnant.

That first sentence sums up position 3 on that poll. The second sentence is a pretty good description of our debate. As for the third sentence, criminalizing abortion by itself won't stop abortions from happening, thus my search for other aspects of a solution. I think it's far too easy to get an abortion as it is right now de facto thus I do support restricting it more thanit is now. Maybe the foreigners can answer this next bit: hasn't it been said before that most of Europe has more restrictive abortion laws than the U.S. does, contrary to established belief? As for the last sentence, well, competing sets of rights come into play, as well as the personal responsibility I mentioned below. It's much better to do, oh, wait, you mention that next. Hold on a second.

The better steps would be reasonable restrictions, increase education, increase access to contraception, and work to decrease poverty in the country. You have to look at the root cause of the problem, and not just the outcome.

With the exception of our disagreements over what construes 'reasonable restrictions' - a debate that should happen among the people and the states, not in a courtroom IMO - I agree with the rest of what you said.
 

That sounds great on paper but reality is much different. People make mistakes in life, and you shouldn't have the rest of your life ruined if you had unprotected sex once or twice when you were a teenager.

Competing sets of interests strike again! This problem will take time to fix. People do make mistakes, but should an innocent be killed to avoid the consequences of those mistakes? And the rest of your life would not be ruined under my ideas. There's something I forgot yesterday...
- I also support revamping and sufficiently funding the adoption system so that it is a real, viable alternative to abortion and so that these kids can get adopted by good families quickly. The problem is not a lack of loving adopting parents - said parents are going overseas to adopt children, so clearly the demand is there - it is...you're not going to like this, Scoonie...anti-white racist attitudes among leftist social workers who think that black children shouldn't go to white parents, or for that matter that all children should be raised by their racial/ethnic group. Can we agree that is absolutely ridiculous?

If you were expecting a Pat Robertson rant from me, sorry to disappoint you. I can yell at you and tell you you're going to hell if you like, but only if you ask nicely.

[Sibboleth]

"On demand", if you go by the true definition of the word, would mean that a woman would march into an abortion clinic, demand an abortion, and have it done right there on the spot.

Just because something is demanded doesn't mean it happens automatically; it's not a brilliant term, but it's better than most used in abortion debates...

Close to 100% of abortions are performed in the first 5 months of the pregnancy, with a vast majority in the first 3 or 4 months.

True

Late-term abortions are only performed under very special circumstances.

Not true

What is the law in England?

Illegal after 24 weeks (IIRC there are the usual exceptions in cases of life of mother after that limit... but that's a different issue IMO) and before then it is not "on demand"; you have to have a legitimate reason (and birth control is not one of those; it is legal for recognised socio-economic reasons (the main reason why it was legalised at all was due to backstreet abortions after all) and while this is sometimes abused, it isn't abused as much as you might think) and it has to be approved by (IIRC) two doctors and so on. Lot's of other regulations as well.
Personally I'd like the limit reduced to 18 weeks (and if the legislation had been passed at a later date (ie; when more medical knowledge of pregnancy was avaliable) then this would probably be the case).

[Brandon H]

Sorry, I wasn't the one that provided the polling data. Maybe it was Jake since we both have C-LA Avatars?

[TheresNoMoney]

"Abortion on demand" is an awful term that is far from the truth. A much more accurate term to what you desribe is probably "abortion without restriction", although by my estimate less than 10% of the population would fall into this category, if not lower than that. I find it quite offensive that people still use the term "abortion on demand", which is nothing more than a right-wing talking point from the RNC used to scare people. I would think that non-Republicans would have the decency to not use the term.

Pro-life people are those who want to ban abortion except in instances of incest or rape. You are not pro-life if you want to keep abortion legal, even in only the first trimester.

Pro-choice is the term I use for everyone else (including those who want some restrictions as well). By these terms, a good majority of the country is pro-choice.

The tragic thing about RVW being overturned is that many states would ban all abortions. Many state legislatures are dominated by far right-wingers right now who would love to ban all abortions. Now I understand what Ernest said about this eventually working itself out, but in the meantime many women would be greatly hurt by it. I just don't think it's worth it. I shudder to think of the disaster it would be in the short-term. 

[A18]

Alternately, we could define pro-choice as opposing any restrictions at all, and pro-life as everyone else. By these terms, a good majority of the country is pro-life.

[riceowl]

Well, I don't fit either terms scoonie mentioned, as I'm only in the case of risk to mother's life.

[WMS]

Sorry, I wasn't the one that provided the polling data. Maybe it was Jake since we both have C-LA Avatars?

Oh, sorry, I thought it was you. Hmm, it might have been Jake, then...

"Abortion on demand" is an awful term that is far from the truth. A much more accurate term to what you desribe is probably "abortion without restriction", although by my estimate less than 10% of the population would fall into this category, if not lower than that. I find it quite offensive that people still use the term "abortion on demand", which is nothing more than a right-wing talking point from the RNC used to scare people. I would think that non-Republicans would have the decency to not use the term.

I think Al and I already addressed this point above. And how else do you explain the rates in places like D.C.?

Pro-life people are those who want to ban abortion except in instances of incest or rape. You are not pro-life if you want to keep abortion legal, even in only the first trimester.

Pro-choice is the term I use for everyone else (including those who want some restrictions as well). By these terms, a good majority of the country is pro-choice.

"Want to" is not the same as "necessary evil". Sometimes you allow things you despise in the name of necessity. Oh, as for the terms:

Alternately, we could define pro-choice as opposing any restrictions at all, and pro-life as everyone else. By these terms, a good majority of the country is pro-life.

Well, I don't fit either terms scoonie mentioned, as I'm only in the case of risk to mother's life.

I think they just helped me make my point.

The tragic thing about RVW being overturned is that many states would ban all abortions. Many state legislatures are dominated by far right-wingers right now who would love to ban all abortions. Now I understand what Ernest said about this eventually working itself out, but in the meantime many women would be greatly hurt by it. I just don't think it's worth it. I shudder to think of the disaster it would be in the short-term. 

Actually, I doubt they'd ban Life-Of-The-Mother abortions, and most of them would likely allow Rape and Incest exceptions, although not for the entire course of the pregnancy. After that, it's going to vary a lot. NM, for example, is very likely to severely restrict abortions after the first trimester - I paid attention to the candidate responses to newspaper questions back in 2004 and there's a LOT of pro-life New Mexico Democrats, Hispanic and Anglo alike - but not ban it outright. I suspect the worshippers of NARAL would be shocked at how weak their position is here...

And if one thinks that this process would result in saving innocent lives, then it would be worth it, wouldn't it? Balance of interests, yet again.

[MODU]

HAHAHAHA

[WMS]

HAHAHAHA

I think she deleted the post!