Today in Supreme Court History: August 30, 1967

8/30/1967: Justice Thurgood Marshall takes the oath.

Justice Thurgood Marshall

Comments

[Krychek_2]

Mitch McConnell would never allow that to happen today.

[Cal Cetín]

I hope not, given his support of Roe v. Wade.

One might have hoped that his support of civil rights would have extended to the rights of the unborn.

[Dan Schiavetta]

His support for abortion rights, at the time, would have gotten him the support of most evangelicals and most Republicans, including the Governor of California, Ronald Reagan, who four years after that signed into law the most liberal abortion law in the county.

[Cal Cetín]

I've gotten burned before for allegedly using an "appeal to authority."

Anyway they changed their minds when they got better information.

What do *you* do in that situation?

[Cal Cetín]

Someone else who changed his mind was Dr. Bernard Nathanson, abortionist and one of the founders of NARAL.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Better "information"? Reagan?

Like George H.W. Bush and other Republicans of that generation, he didn't care one way or the other. But they followed the lead of the Christian right wing which decided to turn abortion into a culture war issue, and between 1970 and 1980 reversed themselves. It's not a coincidence that during this same decade they also reversed themselves on the Equal Rights Amendment.

[Cal Cetín]

"turn abortion into a culture war issue"

No, the blame for that falls on those who changed the laws' consensus position against abortion and made the controversial (to say the least) decision to legalize it.

Then anyone who dared question their innovation was accused of dragging politics and culture-war rhetoric.

Abortionist, heal thyself.

[Krychek_2]

I suppose that depends on whose civil rights you think are more important: The woman, who is unquestionably a person, versus the fetus, which is not. I'm inclined to support the rights of the person.

[Cal Cetín]

As am I. The fetus is a living member of the species homo sapiens.

If you want to have a more restrictive definition, well, so did [Godwin edit].

[Krychek_2]

A cancerous tumor is a living member of the species homo sapiens, but that doesn't make it a person. Please stick with definitions of persons.

You're entitled to your belief that a fetus is a person, and better informed people are entitled to disagree with you.

[Bob from Ohio]

"cancerous tumor is a living member of the species homo sapiens"

I think you skipped some biology classes.

[Krychek_2]

Actually my undergraduate degree is in biology, and you are confusing "member" with "person". An arm or a leg is a "member" but it isn't a "person". Neither is a fetus or a cancerous tumor.

[Bob from Ohio]

So you used an archaic definition of "living member" to intentionally confuse.

Member means in common language "person, animal, or plant belonging to a particular group", in this case "species homo sapiens”.

A tumor is not the same as a fetus in any event. A tumor will never be a "species homo sapiens”.

[Krychek_2]

Bob, so what do you understand to be the meaning of “dismember”?

No, a tumor will never be a person. On that we agree. A fetus will if the pregnancy is carried to term. But until then it’s a potential person. Just as a peach pit is only a potential tree.

[Cal Cetín]

Dismember is what often happens to the fetus during an abortion.

In contrast, even the Merriam-Wokester dictionary includes this definition of "member" - "one of the individuals composing a group."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/member

[Krychek_2]

But that's not a biological definition. In biology, "member" is a term of art that does not mean person. Which is why I keep asking you to give me an argument that the fetus is a person, not that it's a member.

[Cal Cetín]

What a devastating rebuttal - to anyone who said he was using a medical term.

I "merely" used a word which is *in the friggin' dictionary.*

This is an example of how the "pro-choice" crowd really doesn't have cogent arguments. So I don't mind if you dig yourself in deeper with this silly digression of yours.

[Krychek_2]

I don't have cogent arguments? You're the one who doesn't understand the difference between life and personhood.

[Cal Cetín]

I'm the one who thinks a living human being *is* a person.

I asked you to enlighten me on the difference.

And your lack of cogent arguments is shown by your silly discussion about how "member of the species homo sapiens" means a cancerous tumor, arm, leg, etc.

[Krychek_2]

Well, what exactly separates a human person from other living things? What is the difference between a chicken and a human (or for that matter a cancerous tumor and a human)? In order to define human personhood you need to find something that takes in all human persons, and only human persons. That's the standard requirement for any good definition. So, what is central to your essence that isn't part of a chicken's? What can you do that a tumor can't?

The answer is self awareness, volition, the capacity to think, and moral agency. For humans, that all happens at around 3 months into the gestation period.

[Cal Cetín]

I've already answered your question, you simply played word games with the answer.

The difference between a human and a cancerous tumor? Vive la difference, say I.

[Krychek_2]

No, we have a separate word for "person" for a reason.

[Cal Cetín]

The reason isn't to make it easier to designate inconvenient humans as unpersons.

Your definition of personhood is kind of narrow:

"self awareness, volition, the capacity to think, and moral agency"

So much for the insane ("moral agency"), people with dementia ("capacity to think"), not to mention those with severe cognitive disabilities.

So why don't you just draw up a list of "lives unworthy of life" who can be killed at will, whether they're inside the womb or outside it?

[Cal Cetín]

Oh, and what's your position on someone who's passed out drunk?

Such a person doesn't have “self awareness, volition, the capacity to think, and moral agency."

Or do you mean to say such a person has the capacity to acquire self-awareness, etc. in the future? Careful how you put it, you might set a bad prolife precedent.

[Cal Cetín]

Oops, did I say "person"? I meant "individual of the species homo sapiens who is passed out drunk and thereby lost his personhood status."

[Cal Cetín]

"cancerous tumor"

Congratulations, your dehumanizing rhetoric is worthy of [Godwin edit].

[Krychek_2]

I didn't say a fetus isn't human; I said it isn't a person. You seem wholly incapable of understanding that personhood is the relevant trait.

[Cal Cetín]

No, I think living human beings *are* persons endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights.

Which humans, in your mind, are *not* persons? Fetuses? The disabled? Gypsies?

[Krychek_2]

Your Godwinning aside, a fetus is not a human being; it's a potential human being, just like a fertilized egg is a potential chicken. It's human life in the same sense that a cell that gets killed when you scratch your nose is a human life, but it's not a human being or a human person.

You're entitled to your contrary opinion, and better informed people who actually know something about biology are entitled to disagree with you.

[Cal Cetín]

Better-informed people like Dr. Bernard Nathanson?

Better-informed people like the members of Physicians for Life?

http://www.physiciansforlife.org/

Where did you get *your* medical dagree, the close-cover-before-striking matchbook correspondence school?

[Krychek_2]

You can always find dissenters, even on basic questions like whether the earth is flat. Almost nothing is unanimously believed 100%. But the overwhelming number of people who do biology for a living would agree with me.

[Cal Cetín]

Was Dr. Nathanson a flat-earther when he was one of the country's prominent abortionists, or only afterward, when he renounced his past and became prolife?

[Krychek_2]

I don't recall saying he was a flat earther at all.

[Cal Cetín]

No, of course not, you simply *compared* him to a flat-earther, and that makes all the difference in the world.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Mitch McConnell would never allow that to happen today."

Mitch McConnell is not the boogeyman, he's the MF you send to kill the boogeyman!

[Cal Cetín]

Mitch McConnell has a big bag in which he keeps the Krampus.

When Freddy Krueger has nightmares, he sees Mitch McConnell and wakes up screaming.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Mitch McConnell is from the most important perspective just another culture war casualty, grimacing as he loses his grip.

[Prof A]

I believe this post is two days early: according to the Supreme Court, Justice Marshall was administered the Constitutional Oath on September 1, 1967.

[Cal Cetín]

Was it the long-form oath?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Today's Noble Prize for achievement in identifying error in Today In Supreme Court History is awarded to Prof. A.

From the Supreme Court website:

"The first African-American to take the oaths of office as a Supreme Court Justice was Thurgood Marshall. Senior Associate Justice Hugo L. Black administered the Constitutional Oath to Marshall on September 1, 1967. The Clerk of the Court administered the Judicial Oath to Marshall in the Courtroom on October 2, 1967."

(If Profs. Barnett and Blackman were to provide a persuasive argument supporting their assertion and contesting the Supreme Court's account, the Noble Prize Committee would reconsider not only the prize awarded to Prof. A but also the committee's scant regard for content published by This Week In Supreme Court History.)

[Syd Henderson]

Today is, however, the anniversary of Marshall's confirmation by the Senate.

[Caphon]

All props to Marshall, but that portrait was quite awful. If you took one of me enthroned upon my toilet, that’s precisely the demeanor and posture I’d have. Surely the photographer could have urged a few more - “One more, sir. Now if you’d just try to sit up a bit more, and the wrist resting on the knee perhaps. Mouth closed, a bit of a smile, aaand there! Perfect!”

[Cal Cetín]

Judge Thurgood and the Destroyers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9FyQNx8oyU