The Volokh Conspiracy
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South Carolina S. Ct. Holds: State Constitution Protects Abortion Rights
The case is today's Planned Parenthood South Atlantic v. State; the lead opinion is written by Justice Kaye Hearn and joined by Chief Justice Donald Beatty. Justice John Cannon Few concurs in the judgment, and Justices John Kittredge and George James, Jr. dissent.
A few short excerpts, from Justice Hearn's lead opinion:
We hold that our state constitutional right to privacy extends to a woman's decision to have an abortion. The State unquestionably has the authority to limit the right of privacy that protects women from state interference with her decision, but any such limitation must be reasonable and it must be meaningful in that the time frames imposed must afford a woman sufficient time to determine she is pregnant and to take reasonable steps to terminate that pregnancy. Six weeks is, quite simply, not a reasonable period of time for these two things to occur, and therefore the Act violates our state Constitution's prohibition against unreasonable invasions of privacy.
From Chief Justice Beatty's concurring opinion:
I believe the Act is also void ab initio and denies state constitutional rights to equal protection, procedural due process, and substantive due process.
From Justice Few's concurrence in the judgment:
(1) [T]he constitutionality of the Fetal Heartbeat Act turns on one particular factual question {Can a pregnant woman even know she is pregnant in time to engage in a meaningful decision-making process and—if her choice is to not continue the pregnancy—make the necessary arrangements to carry out an abortion?}, and (2) the General Assembly's failure even to consider this necessary factual question was arbitrary and renders the Fetal Heartbeat Act unconstitutional.
From Justice Kittredge's dissent:
I … interpret the ambiguous phrase "unreasonable invasions of privacy" in the manner in which its constitutional framers intended it to be read. In doing so, I conclude the Act does not violate the South Carolina Constitution.
And from Justice James's dissent:
Bodily autonomy is an intensely personal issue for South Carolinians and justifiably so. In particular, a woman's right to have an abortion is a subject of great debate and differing personal opinions. These personal opinions are deserving of consideration and understanding. However, when I put aside any personal preferences and review the issue under South Carolina law, I conclude a citizen's right to be free from unreasonable invasions of privacy does not extend beyond the context of searches and seizures….
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Pure results oriented judging. That six weeks isn't enough time to know one's pregnant, which is true, is a policy judgment, not a constitutional one.
If the right is a constitutional one, then any policy which would preclude the exercising of that right is necessarily unconstitutional.
In this case, it's a policy of 6 weeks.
Because one can get pregnant from sitting on a toilet....
But the right is NOT a constitutional one. Not in any good faith sense.
Yes, it is, you racist shit-stain.
Yes, grace periods, who needs 'em? Awareness, what use is that?
You'd thus be happy with getting a red light ticket for not coming to a complete stop .001 seconds after the light changes to yellow.
While I generally agree that mens rea ought to be a constitutional requirement, it is not. There are plenty of other laws imposing strict liability and granting no leeway for grace periods or awareness. They are bad policy but no court has deemed them unconstitutional merely for that reason.
I'm not seeing a relevant lack of a mens rea; Are we taking about people who accidentally get abortions? Who get abortions thinking they're doing something else?
Medical procedures here in SC that might result in an abortion if there's a pregnancy require pregnancy tests. At that point, if you proceed, you must intend to get/perform the abortion, right?
At that point, a check for a fetal heartbeat is mandatory on the part of the doctor or abortionist. Would the doctor not be aware they were failing to do it?
This is clearly NOT a question of mens rea.
I was sloppy in my wording. You are right that it's not mens rea. I was trying to draw an analogy to ABC's comment about grace periods that was not as successful as I'd originally thought.
As a great many of us (correctly and rather easily) predicted after Dobbs, we will see a large number of state courts now magically discover the right to abortion contained within their state constitutions.
"Return the question to the voters" was always a joke, plebes. Your debased elite (who are reaching Eloi levels of intelligence some 800,000 years ahead of schedule) will decide these questions for you.
The elite LOVE abortion, and they LOVE gay sex. Everything else is secondary to those.
It's not magic - it's that these rights have not had to be tested before.
But go off assuming bad faith in every judicial opinion you don't like.
How persecuted you are.
But go off assuming bad faith in every judicial opinion you don’t like.
The court "ruled" 6 weeks was not "enough" time. Under what constitutional premise is that based? We know the legislature wrote, debated, and passed a law setting the limit at 6 weeks.
Absent some direction, the Court just made it up.
If the state legislature says you can only buy guns in the first second of every year, is that a good enough policy?
If the state legislature says you must obey a law as soon as it is passed, no time to read it, is that OK with you?
Non responsive.
Why do those in robs, overrule the PEOPLE
Those in robs cite nothing that supports their random time line.
The PEOPLE debated the issue and arrived at a consensus.
"Those in robs" actually cited precisely why 6-weeks is unconstitutional.
Maybe your issue is that you can't read well?
Yes, they said that a woman couldn't be expected to know she was pregnant by 6 weeks. Which is completely irrelevant. Statutory rape laws, as an example, are strict liability, even if the victim shows a fake ID and the defendant has every reason to think she's of age.
“Those in robs” actually cited precisely why 6-weeks is unconstitutional.
It's a personal opinion not tethered to statute or Constitution.
The legislature determined 6 weeks was plenty of time. Unless the court can cite some legal basis, they are way out of their jurisdiction.
So we've determined that the issue is in fact, that you cannot read very well.
If a right exists, and a limitation on that right is implemented by the legislature to the point where the right cannot be meaningfully exercised, the judicial branch has the authority to declare it unconstitutional.
They did so in this case. You don't like it - that's too bad.
Letters actually asked you a legitimate question about a comparable 2nd Amendment hypothetical 'law' and you failed to answer it. Why?
Because it exposes the hypocrisy that is really driving your complaint.
"If a right exists, and a limitation on that right is implemented by the legislature to the point where the right cannot be meaningfully exercised, the judicial branch has the authority to declare it unconstitutional."
You just made that up, you stupid mick. The crux is whether a right exists. The Constitution is silent on it. The judges made it up because it's their policy preference. The same way you and your butt pirate friends invent rights to sodomize each other to completion.
Your comparing an enumerated right...that cannot be infringed, with "Privacy" judges are forced to infer from the penumbra, and emanations.
Some hypotheticals don't warrant a response.
That's not how any competent litigator operates.
When challenging a statute, he will naturally argue that it violates the federal AND state constitutions if he possibly can. Of course, in the abortion context, the federal argument is now foreclosed. This has two rather obvious advantages: it gives you two shots at a statute and, if it is struck on state grounds, that forecloses an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Do you really think no one in history has ever challenged an abortion statute on state grounds in a state court?
While litigators argue in the alternative, courts need only decide a case on one rationale.
Some of them should have been tested before 1973, although I don't know if that applies in this particular case.
"...these rights have not had to be tested before."
Because the world came into existence in 1973, right?
The South Carolina Constitution is a lot easier to amend than the U.S.:
Maybe.
It's still easier than amending the US Constitution. Whether such an amendment will pass remains to be seen. Seems likely someone will try.
I should have thought a likelier route would simply to be replace one members of the majority on the court. According to wiki, it is the SC Legislature which appoints the justices, for 10 year terms. So presumably one of the three justices in the majority will come to the end of his or her term at some point in the next few years, and if the Legislature wants a new justice who would rule the other way, then they have an easy means to get one.
If the SC state legislature sets out to overturn this ruling with a constitutional amendment, they would be well advised not to go maximal. Courts may follow the election returns, politicians absolutely do.
They won't be able to get 2/3rds. Remember, South Carolina is 27% negroid and 7% Lateeno. The white population, while conservative, isn't unanimously Republican.
Does this white, male, conservative blog generate bigots, or merely attract them?
I believe it attracts them. By design.
0r is it false flag?
I do wonder if there is a "poisoning of the well" by troll organizations deliberately planting racist or other BS opinions, as an attempt to associate this or that position with it.
We may never know, though, ironically, three letter agencies probably track it internally.
Of course you do. You, Brett Bellmore, and . . . well, most of this white, male, right-wing blog's delusional fans.
Has a single instance of suggestions, accusations or insinuations of 'false flag' ever actually been borne out? Apart from the Gulf of Tonkin incident?
I think there's some seepage from the main Reason site.
Sewers need repair.
The Volokh Conspiracy is right where it wants to be. And where it belongs.
And them neegros and lateenos aren't universally Democratic.
It's bigots like you that make me wish freedom of association were a thing, so your job would be a living hell of having to put up with neeegro delivery drivers and lateeeno accountants who refused to do business with you.
It sometimes seems internet commentary for right-wingers works like some kind of rotating, greased, centrifugal platform, with a slightly elevated center. For a while they perch close to the center, hang on and spin there, almost securely. But then they stray outward, lose traction, and begin a slide toward the fringe, about to catapult over the edge into darkness. Maybe it works that way for left-wingers too. Either way, it's a puzzle why no one figures out a way to depress the center, slow the rotation, and reverse the slide.
You guys can't even keep your bullshit narratives straight. On one hand, you say that a growing Hispanic population means permanent Democratic Party control, because "demographics are destiny."
Now you're saying that Hispanics are not universally Democratic. Which is it?
Abortion is NOT popular in the Black community -- it has racist roots. Read Margaret Sanger's stuff.
I don’t know about the Black community, but I like being able to go to the pharmacy and buy a box of condoms from time to time. And I like being able to read the scientific journal Contraception without being thrown in jail for reading it. Thank you, Margaret Sanger.
Margaret Sanger was so racist that Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and W. E. B. Du Bois, and Dr. John Lawlah (Dean of the Medical School at Howard University) and Mary McLeod Bethune (whom the magazine Ebony called “The First Lady of Negro America”, she later became an advisor to Eleanor Roosevelt) all worked enthusiastically with her on her birth-control agenda, which they considered (part of) their own agenda. And James H. Hubert, Executive Secretary of the NY Urban League (a prominent Black advocacy group) begged her to open a birth control clinic in Harlem.
(Contrary to popular belief, her clinic in Harlem was NOT her first birth control clinic. Her first birth control clinic was in Brooklyn, in a dirt-poor neighborhood populated almost entirely by Italian immigrants and Ashkenazi Jews.)
You may not realize this, Ed, but birth control is good for you and your community.
The South Carolina General Assembly is currently just under 2/3 Republican; I have no idea of the breakdown between Democrats who want to ban abortion and Republicans who don't in the chamber, but it is possible that they currently couldn't pass the first part of the amendment process. The other question is what the majority would actually do. Kansas had a similar vote over the summer and voted 59/41 to protect a right to abortion, and it's clear that a number of independents and Republicans voted in the majority position. South Carolina may be more conservative than Kansas, and is certainly less college educated (other than Utah, Kansas is the most college educated state to have voted for Trump in either 2016 or 2020). Kentucky and Montana also voted against referenda restricting abortion rights this fall. So it's not at all clear to me that a majority would vote to restrict abortion in this fashion if given the opportunity to vote directly on the question.
It's over 2/3 after the election. 86-36.
I think the amendment would pass the legislature pretty easily.
Before Kansas I would have thought it would pass the referendum also. But now I'm not so sure.
I think they'd have to draft an amendment that wasn't, as I said above, maximal. Maybe a fetal heartbeat amendment rather than statute.
Nothing that could be construed as a flat ban.
"Before Kansas"
SC is not Kansas. Kansas has a big "moderate" GOP bloc, always has had one.
Kansas is not as bigoted or poorly educated as South Carolina. Not nearly.
Probably not as supersitious.
The state of South Carolina is going back to its good old days - dehumanizing an entire class of human beings. Pass the mint juleps.
Abortion rights do not dehumanize the fetus.
There's nothing dehumanizing about saying "Sorry, pal, but you can't have that, no matter how much you need it, because it's part of someone else's body, and she doesn't want to share with you any longer."
Yet you leftists say that it's "dehumanizing" to kick out (or not allow in in the first place) migrants for the same reasons.
Idaho went the other way today, fyi
As always, the legislation addressed abortion in their attempt to protect life.
The debate has always been about the right of the baby to life.
"The debate has always been about the right of the baby to life."
For the "pro life" side of the debate, that's true. But for the "pro choice" side of the debate, it's always been about a woman's right to make that decision.
It would appear that in your definition of "the debate," there isn't any. You might consider introducing an other side to your debate.
I recall Peter Jennings leading off a story long ago with "People opposed to a woman's right to choose..."
So both sides deliberately slant the rhetoric.
It’s those people against the ones who have little regard for the sanctity of human life.
The other guy is so evil that he doesn’t deserve to have his position represented honestly.
it’s always been about a woman’s right to make that decision.
The decision to kill a baby.
The legislation need to protect the baby. Not play by the rules as defined by pro abortion.
Just protect the life of the baby and abortion becomes the ancillary consideration it actually is.
Bwaah : For the “pro life” side of the debate, that’s true. But for the “pro choice” side of the debate, it’s always been about a woman’s right to make that decision.It would appear that in your definition of “the debate,” there isn’t any. You might consider introducing an other side to your debate.
No, very dodgy framing. The “debate” involves :
1. the baby’s right to life 2. the mother’s right to decide what happens in her own body 3. the clash between the two and the proper resolution of the conflict
“a woman’s right to make that decision” is a possible conclusion to the debate. It’s the answer to stage 3, or an answer, not part of the actual debate. By the time you get to ” woman’s right to make that decision” the debate is over.
Generally, pro-lifers do not dispute the reality and relevance of 2, and so it is not debated. The only thing to debate about it is the weight it carries into 3. But since pro-choicers generally “debate” by denying that 1 is a thing – eg it’s not a baby, it’s not alive, it's not a human being, it’s just a blob etc, then 1 is the thing that gets debated.
If pro-choicers were right about 1, then 3 would be child’s play. Zero plays a woman’s undoubted right to bodily autonomy. How hard is that ?
So that’s why the debate is always about 1. That’s the bit that’s in dispute.
The right to life doesn't include a right to do whatever you need to do, nor to be wherever you need to be, nor to take whatever you need to take, in order to remain alive.
Not sure who is taking what
Major Life Events for the Average Liberal:
Age 4: Win first prize in anal sex lessons at the Montessori Pre-K
Age 8: Dad comes out as gay; Mom's first nervous breakdown
Age 10: Mom embarks upon 3 decade long addiction to prescription medication
Age 12: Lose virginity to local gang-banger hand selected by Mom, who watches
Age 13: First Abortion; Family reunites at Applebee's to celebrate
Age 17: College visits; Inquire at registrar about courses in BDSM and holocaust studies
Age 22-24: The Starbucks Years; 13 more abortions
Age 25-32: Realize that abortions decrease food stamp and welfare payments, and have 7 children with 5 different men
Age 33: Sign up for an Obamaphone
Age 35: First fraudulent disability claim
Age 40: Navigate to Reason; register first account
Age 42: overcome disgust, marry soy boy, become birthing person, squeeze out non binary child
Age 45: Join Antifa, attack police
Age 47: Stage fake hate crimes, cry when caught
Age 49: Apply for job at Twitter for head of censorship and gay orgy outreach until Musk purchases Twitter and throws him out
Age 51: Make false rape accusations, get hailed as hero by left
This is what you spend your time on.
Pathetic. Goodbye!
That list is this blog (and the Federalist Society's guidestar) in a nutshell.
Also the reason the liberal-libertarian mainstream can't avoid winning the culture war.
Justice Few's concurrence Is weird because he essentially says an absolute ban—i.e., a ban from conception—would not violate the state constitution’s right to privacy, but this law, which bans abortion after a few weeks, does. In other words, the legislature can “fix” this by just banning abortion altogether (presumably, the standard exceptions for the health and life of the mother would not cause him to rule otherwise).
Yeah, that;s what I focused in on, too. This whole conception of six weeks not being "enough" time is ridiculous. Somebody who intentionally goes and gets an abortion before six weeks, BY DEFINITION, knows they are pregnant.
Um… if you get an abortion before six weeks (assuming that “heartbeat” is not actually different than 6 weeks) the law wouldn’t affect you. This is about abortions AFTER six weeks remaining legal.
The legislature can just increase that interval gradually and see what the Court will insist on.
From Ballotpedia: "Justices of the South Carolina Supreme Court are chosen by the South Carolina General Assembly from a list of names provided by a nominating commission. Although official sources use the term election to describe this process, because it does not involve voters casting ballots in an open election, Ballotpedia considers this process an appointment."
After the election, SC was 88-36 Republican. These judges are toast when their terms end.
Justice Kaye Hearn: 2028
Justice John Cannon Few: 2026
Chief Justice Donald Beatty: 2024
Theoretically they could be impeached before then, but though SC's general assembly COULD impeach on a party line vote, I don't know if they'd hold enough votes. They likely will try, though.
A state constitutional amendment seems the easier course, and besides, unlike impeachment, it would overturn the result.
" list of names provided by a nominating commission"
The weak link. Those "non-partisan" commissions almost always get captured by liberals pretending to be "independents".
"The South Carolina Judicial Merit Selection Commission, also known as the JMSC, is an independent state commission in South Carolina that plays a role in the state's judicial selection process. The commission was established in 1997 by a legislatively referred constitutional amendment. The JMSC has 10 members: five selected by the speaker of the House, three selected by the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, and two selected by the Senate president."
All three positions are held by Republicans. I really doubt it's been captured by left-wingers, here in South Carolina, but if they decide it has been, they can easily replace them.
I was making a generalization but looking at the roster, you're probably right.
then its just malpractice by the GOPers in the legislature
As long as Roe was around, it simply wasn't an issue for state level judicial selection, so pro-'choice' judicial candidates had little trouble hiding it. Now they'll be intensely grilled on the topic, and vetted.
As they should be.
The opinion author is leaving the court. Pick someone from Right to Life and re-pass the law.
True, although it's only going to be relevant in a handful of red states with a sleeper liberal cell on their top courts. In the blue states, it won't matter, as the legislatures will provide for abortion on demand anyway.
Florida passed a stand-alone privacy amendment in 1980, well after Roe v. Wade, when the term “right to privacy” had been clearly associated with abortion, both as an established legal term of art and in general use. It would therefore appear eminently reasonable, as a matter of the fair meaning of constitutional provisions independent of policy considerations, to conclude the ratifying electorate meant it in that way.
But South Carolina’s protection from “unreasonable invasions of privacy” had been part of South Carolina’s protection against searches and seizures for some time before Roe. Given both its age and its context and in a section devoted to things like searches and seizures, It seems unlikely any of South Carolina’s constitutional framers would have understood the phrase to cover abortion.
That "some time" was only two years.
South Carolina has a mandatory retirement age of 72 for trial and appellate judges, and judges mist retire by the end of the calendar year in which they turn 72. Justice Kaye Hearn, the authoress of this opinion, dated January 5 of this year, turned 72 last year. So, how is she still around to give this parting gift to the abortion industry?
I believe the answer is that according to a South Carolina AG opinion, a judge may stay past retirement age if a successor has not been named or qualified yet. Also, the Chief Justice can designate a retired justice to sit by assignment, though I don't believe that process was followed in this case.
Ah. So it was a freebie, she knew she was totally unaccountable.
I wonder why supporters of legislation of this type insist on calling it a "Fetal Heartbeat Act." At six weeks gestation, there is no fetus, and there is no beating heart.
I suppose that the Humpty Dumpty rules of language usage apply.
Possibly because they're not pro-abortion solphists, I suppose.
What does this mean for vaccine mandates in South Carolina?
Ah, nothing. Pro-abortion "privacy" arguments never get generalized beyond sex related stuff, and not all of that; For instance, conversion therapy being legal would be a slam dunk if they took any of those arguments seriously.
Funny that so many conservatives still think the rules will be consistently applied. "Fuck you, liberals win" is their ideology.
Evangeline Lilly generalized pro-abortion privacy arguments.
That's not what "privacy" even is though. Privacy would be the right to have people not *know* whether you had an abortion.
"Privacy" used to protect the perps of domestic violence....
There's a long line of cases setting out to shoehorn other things into "privacy", because the judiciary doesn't want to recognize an enforceable general interest in simple "liberty".
Well, the SC state constitution says, "in cases of serious crimes or serious misconduct in office", and rather like "high crimes and misdemeanors" at the federal level, it's entirely a political decision, non-judiciable by the courts. But does require a 2/3 vote in both houses, and the Republicans fall just short of that in the state senate.
But that same constitution provides a procedure where two thirds of the General assembly can remove state-wide officials "For any willful neglect of duty, or other reasonable cause, which shall not be sufficient ground of impeachment,"; It just requires them to clearly state the reason, and allows the target to defend themselves. Functionally the effect is the same as being impeached, but it's not considered impeachment, just 'removal"
As the General Assembly is more than 2/3 Republican after the 22 election, this is probably the route they'd go.
Again, you completely refuse to acknowledge that not any judicial ruling is morally and philosophically legitimate simply because it's a ruling. Not every "disagreement" is automatically in good faith.
"judicial disagreement?"
Yes. Way past time for GOP states to get rid of lefty judges, by any legal, means necessary.
Dem states re-select better, they seldom get burned by rogue judges.
Right, because simple "liberty" would lead to all sorts of things liberals don't like, like the right to run a business without ridiculous regulation, freedom of association, and so on.
Only to you.
Liking abortion doesn't remotely preclude liking birth control of either sort.
No one suggested that States didn't have Justices that needed hanging too.
The idea that "privacy" included the right to kill is not reasonable, but I get why a left wing extremist wingnut wouldn't get that.
I think the idea is that, as gallinalg85 says, by appending "privacy" to it they can avoid recognizing the dreaded economic liberty. The qualifier allows them to pick and chose more effectively.
It's not a contradiction, there's even a general theme, in that abortion ends new lives, contraception prevents new lives, and gay sex doesn't start them in the first place. All three are anti-natal.
Queenie : Gay sex doesn’t create opportunities for abortion moron.
Just out of interest, is this authoritative, or just your own view ?
I am somewhat hazy on the intersection between gay and trans. Are you "gay" if you are attracted to people of the same sex (ie same gamete type, and therefore no chance of reproduction, hence no abortions ?)
Or is "gay" now a question of being attracted to people of the same gender as you ? ie is a cis man attracted to a trans man straight or gay ? Because intercourse between a cis man and a trans man could result in something abortable.
What's the current deal ?
That's a plausible argument but it doesn't look to be one that the court actually made. And I'm not sure that the court could have made that argument since the "legislative findings" at the front of a bill do not really have any legal weight. Courts have regularly upheld laws that said "we find that X is good but we outlaw X anyway".
It's not reasonable to think that the Constitution doesn't protect your right to run your business without undue interference, but does protect your right to run your uterus and your penis without undue interference.
So if you allow something ridiculous to exist for 50 years, it becomes non-ridiculous?
"blastocyst"
You can't even get your dehumanizing terms right.
"About 10 to 12 days after fertilization, the blastocyst develops into an embryo." Cleveland Clinic
Yes. The "surprises" always come from the Republican picks. Democrat judges never stray. They're always reliable left wing votes, whether on abortion, gay sex, gun rights, "public accommodation" laws, affirmative action, or anything else.
Big deal. The Medicaid expansion was not a a hot button issue. Come back when Kagan or Sotomayor upholds the right of a baker not to make a cake for you and your effeminate husband.
Of course it's false. Dem judges who are in the minority on a court - including SCOTUS - are sometimes willing to vote the "wrong" way when they're going to lose anyway. Helps burnish the illusion of moderation, and sometimes they can get the squishier GOP appointees to trade something imprtant in return for the token votes.
In the Medicaid expansion case it is highly likely that extra Dem votes on that were part of the process of sweet talking Chief Justice Squish into caving on the mandate.
But here's an exercise for you. Find us any case in, say the 21st century, where a Dem judge on SCOTUS, or any Federal Appeal Court, has defected on a case with liberal v conservative political salience, and where their defection changed the result.
The right to kill a baby does not. You're an idiot.
The right to make a living is much more fundamental than the right to penetrate your husband.
You should suggest making that statement this "often libertarian" blog's motto. The Conspirators would love it!
Just because people don't particularly enjoy watching movies about other people working, or job hunting, doesn't mean it isn't a fundamental aspect of life. You don't see movies about people sleeping, either, but that's pretty crucial to your continued survival.
Biology 101
I've got to disagree with Brett here. Sure earning a living is important to survival, but even survival is less important than reproduction. Of course you need to stay alive long enough to get a shot at reproducing, but surviving as an alternative to reproducing is just wasting your time on Earth, and contributing pointlessly to global warming. Ask any redback spider. Or any female one, as you probably won't get an answer from the guys.
So reproductive sex beats earning a living. Non-reproductive sex is of course worthless.
Brett Bellmore : “It’s not a contradiction, there’s even a general theme….”
Absolutely true :
(1) The anti-abortion movement punishes sluts, harlots, and hussies for having unreproductive sex. They must not be allowed to “get away with it”. Please note how few of Womb Police follow their own standards on “life’s beginning” when the issue is IVF clinics, which serve pious maidens wanting to fulfill their womanly duty.
(2) The anti-abortion campaign against contraceptives as “abortion” punishes sluts, harlots, and hussies for having unreproductive sex. Please note how the Womb Police ignore scientific evidence that the targeted contraceptives don’t meet their own definition of abortion. Shouldn’t they be happy about that? But they’re not. Those sluts can’t be permitted to “get away with it”.
(3) The Right’s campaign against Gays punishes (insert insult here) for having unreproductive sex. They can’t be permitted to “get away with it”.
If that isn’t a general theme, what is?
As we learned during Trump, siccing the impeachment power for purely political differences is a-ok. Literally loudly and brazenly. No need to hide it.
Same for requesting tax returns for "investigative" purposes, doing no investigation, and promptly releasing them to the public. They're brazen thugs.
Trump was actually impeached for attempted extortion and an attempted coup.
Hardly a 'purely political difference.'
75% of HIV cases are among gay men. If that isn't an argument for prohibiting gay anal sex, I don't know what is.
Bottom line? The standards are never consistent. The anti-abortion movement happily decimates the lives of tens of thousands each year, Their objective is to destroy the lives of many more women and families still. At times, they’re ethical monsters, as when they’d force a rape victim to bear the child of her attacker, or make a small child made pregnant by incest go to term.
Usually you can’t even get them to acknowledge the damage & evil they do because they just. don’t. care. Opposing abortion is an easy gig, piety-wise; it requires no hard choices or sacrifices (for them). It’s the most consumer-friendly piety found in today’s marketplace, so they want no complications. But make them see the misery they cause and they just put the appearance of faux-sanctity on their faces, and say they have to. Their standards – they brag – are so precise, exacting, & uncompromising.
Except they’re not. After Alabama passed a strict anti-abortion bill, its sponsor, state senator Clyde Chambliss, was asked about IVF clinics and the embryos they discard. His response: “The egg in the lab doesn’t apply. It’s not in a woman. She’s not pregnant.” If there’s no woman to punish, those precise, exacting, & uncompromising rules don’t apply.
In the end, it’s only about the women – making sure they pay the full wages of sin. The only reason a majority of the anti-abortion crowd moved off rape-incest exceptions was the hypocrisy involved made for irksome questions. They figured the number of women and children suffering was so small it wasn’t worth their own inconvenience. Perhaps they’ll reach the same decision about IVF clinics, because they like their convenience. They demand a simple easy preening piety.
Bakers can't be choosers.
Sure, if we want to go extinct.
No, a collectivist would mandate heterosexual sex, in that context.
You think the Democratic party doesn't attract some pretty hideous people, too? No organization of any real size is free of them.
Feminine you dope
Does she wear a strap on and put it in your rear?
Are we ranking the need for sexual prohibitions through the prevalence of particular stds resulting from engaging in different types of sex? Have you checked the stats on gonorrhea, chlamidia and HPV? For a start?
Those words have letters he hasn't reached yet in his alphabet training.
No, that wasn't treated as a right. It was treated as not being legally determinable; Prior to quickening, nobody but the mother would KNOW she was pregnant. It was the earliest point where you could prove pregnancy by an objective test, and thus would be able to establish in a court that an abortion had taken place.
They had a fairly hazy idea of what was going on inside a pregnant woman at the time, remember.
EVERY STD is more common in homosexual males. (And least common in lesbians.) A few of them are common enough over-all that the fact that most people are heterosexual gives heterosexuals larger total numbers, even though the percentages for the homosexuals are higher.
A lot of the more unusual STD basically would not exist if not for homosexuals, being so poorly transmitted otherwise.
Brett Bellmore : “EVERY STD is more common in homosexual males”
First, “more common” is different than sum numbers (as you know). I’m not sure you can defend gallinalg85’s bullshit with per capitia percentage rates. And you you are defending him, right?
Second, every STD is not more common in homosexual males. For instance, that’s the case with HPV – one of three diseases Nige listed above. (As an aside, I’d love to launch into the Right’s loathsome response to the HPV vaccine, particularly as it heralded their anti-vaxx politics today – but too off-topic. Sigh)
So you seem to have backed into gallinalg85’s solution: We’ll have to ban heterosexual carnal congress. Of course, for a good statist like yourself (abortion-wise), it shouldn’t be too hard to devise government mechanisms for population subsistence. Good luck with that!
grb 26 mins ago (edited)
Bottom line? The standards are never consistent. The anti-abortion movement happily decimates the lives of tens of thousands each year, "
At the same time - the pro abortions fail to grasp that abortion decimates the lives of 100's of thousands of innocent babies
Nor can the pro abortionists grasp the hypcrocy of being pro-life for murderers and rapist, yet be pro-death for innocent babies.
!! Wholly mackerel!
Thanks, honestly. I was trying to figure out how to respond to such ignorance, and probably would not have been so polite.
Extortion and a coup are in the eye of the beholder. I think that's what Maxine "Angry black woman" Waters did with her anti-eviction stunt.
Uh huh. Excuse me for not being impressed. My wake-up moment was seeing the anti-abortion movement ignore scientific research and their own definition of what is/isn’t abortion in order to ban types of contraceptives. Given their copious crocodile tears over “murdered babies”, you’d think they welcome less “murder” by their own bullshit definition. Even celebrate it. Not a chance. Turns out they’re having way too much fun for that. They only thing they want to celebrate is more phony “victims” as they wail & moan with stage grief.
So let’s peel back the onion, shall we? The outer layer is hypocrisy, as movement-types define what is&isn’t life for their own smug convenience. You’ll never catch them worrying over that bothersome Sermon on the Mound-stuff; they’ve got their own little corner sandbox where they can play “Morality” at odd moments of their choosing. It’s fun!
The middle layer is spiteful petty malice. Listen to any group of womb control statists and inevitable some begin to say the quiet part out loud. They forget to talk about “murdered babies” and turn their attention to the effrontery of women. Why should a cherubic proto-baby zygote pay for some woman’s self indulgence? For her career? For her selfish pleasure? Because she didn’t properly use contraception? For her lax morals? So many character failings to punish…..
The deepest inner layer turns us to history itself. Because this is always been our minority American Taliban imposing religion control on everyone else, and this is what we know from human history: The first priority of a tribal religion is controlling women, with their sexuality and childbearing the obsessive focus of control. You can launder the faith thru years of history and launder the obsession thru platitudes and creeds but that will still be there, hardwired into the very DNA of the religion.
grb : My wake-up moment was seeing the anti-abortion movement ignore scientific research and their own definition of what is/isn’t abortion in order to ban types of contraceptives.
I'm pretty sure we've done this before.
It was of course the pro-abortion team who flipped the definitions, back in 1965, starting with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists redefining "conception" thus :
"conception is the implantation of a fertilized ovum."
Up until then, conception had meant "the formation of a viable zygote" - which is its natural meaning, and still the meaning when applied to any species except homo sapiens.
In this case, we are fortunate that someone on the pro abortion team said the quiet part out loud - a gentleman named Dr Bent Boving. He was the guy who had originally proposed the redefinition, and it was his definition that the ACOG adopted :
In 1959, Dr. Bent Boving suggested that the word "conception" should be associated with the process of implantation instead of fertilization.[23] Some thought was given to possible societal consequences, as evidenced by Boving's statement that "the social advantage of being considered to prevent conception rather than to destroy an established pregnancy could depend on something so simple as a prudent habit of speech."
Thus we see the purpose of the redefinition is explicitly stated - to manipulate the public consciousness so that methods that relieved the mother of her offspring post fertilisation but pre implantation could be described as "contraceptives." Joe Public would simply assume that if it was a "contraceptive" nothing had got started yet.
So in fact it was the pro-abortion team which ignored the science (biologically there's not the tiniest doubt that it is zygote formation which is the start of the new organism, nor that humans do not have their own special reproductive biology, different from the rest of the placental mammals.) And it was the pro-abortion team who tweaked the definitions of conception, contraception, pregnancy, abortion etc to achieve the "social advantage" that they sought.
Now that I have reminded you that your "wake-up moment" is a crock - nay, not a crock but actually a mirror image of what actually happened, I feel sure that you will actually wake up and put the blame for the semantic front of the abortion wars where it actually belongs.
I concede that I am an optimist.
The state constitution never mentions abortion, Keep tripping over your snark, its entertaining.
However as Brett explains a couple of comments above, you are mistaken.
The common law rule had nothing to do with the lack of a "recognised life interest" pre-quickening, it was an evidentiary rule. Pre-quickening there was no way to prove that there was a live child in utero.
Indeed the common law rule was very like the rationale for fetal heartbeat Bills. The fetal heartbeat - as therein defined - constitutes evidence that there's a crittur in there, and it's alive. These Bills do not deny their pro-life sponsors' conviction that there is a life from conception, they present an evidentiary bright line at which the existence of a life in utero can be proved.