The Supreme Court: RIP Literally Everything

I believe in centrism on this particular issue because my study of public opinion suggests that the shape of what people believe actually conforms to more of a centrist configuration rather than being polarized.

The Mabo and Wik decisions establishing indigenous native title over ancestral lands were landmark cases in Australia, but they were clearly decisions about the meaning of law. Roe is total Calvinball deployed to achieve a policy outcome. I encourage anyone who hasn’t read it to read it critically, like start with the mindset that the Constitution is silent on the issue of abortion and see if it convinces you that it isn’t.

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11% would disagree the sky is blue. Pretty meaningless stat.

That said, it’s not impossible to understand why someone could be morally opposed to abortion. The question is whether their beliefs should dictate the law.

The constitution doesn’t have to explicitly mention abortion for it to support a woman’s bodily autonomy as a fundamental right.

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This has been my take on Roe (it has been years since I read it). At the end of the day I don’t really care, though. Calvinball goes the other way too much. I’m OK letting Calvinball lead to the correct result once in a while.

It’s evidence that there is a plausible secular purpose for restrictions on abortion so that such laws are not an unconstitutional entanglement between religion and government even if many opponents of abortion rights are motivated by religion.

No it isn’t

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Roe doesn’t hold that bodily autonomy is a fundamental right. The Court held that:

Appellant’s arguments that Texas either has no valid interest at all in regulating the abortion decision, or no interest strong enough to support any limitation upon the woman’s sole determination, are unpersuasive… As noted above, a State may properly assert important interests in… protecting potential life

Instead the Court held that Jane Doe had a right to privacy and that the state of Texas had a right to regulate abortion, but that both these rights were non-absolute and had to be balanced against each other. “Balancing competing rights against each other” sounds suspiciously like a policy question to me. The Court then appointed itself arbiter of that question and came up with the “no restriction of abortion in the first trimester” answer. Why then? Because Calvinball, that’s why.

If there is an inherent “right to privacy” in the Constitution, how come it applies to a public transaction (between a woman and a physician) but not to growing or making drugs at home for personal use, which is entirely private and obviously a question of bodily autonomy, and yet is super duper illegal? Weird. Almost like the right is there when the Court wants it to be and not when it doesn’t.

I know, I’ve read the opinion.

No it’s the opposite. There is no centrist solution. There is one right answer and that’s this isn’t a political issue no matter how much the stupid religious right wants to pretend it is. It’s a medical issue. There is no right, left or centrism in medicine. It’s science.

We need to stop accepting the false premise of the right on every issue. They are not only wrong assuming their false premise they are wrong about the fucking premise.

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So obvious this. A thousand hearts!

It’s evidence 11% of atheists are stupid and wrong.

Of course legal interpretation is going to be Calvinball. Adjudicating a case is attempting to interpret human language as applied to specific circumstances. It’s impossible to do it in some formulaic way that pumps out completely non-arbitrary results.

lol at giving up on abortion rights. Just disband the party and give up if that’s what we’ve come to.

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This has been an area of dispute in judicial philosophy. On one side is the use of balancing tests, espoused by Breyer. On the other side is the use of bright-line rules, supported by Scalia.

I’ve been a supporter of balancing tests and a Living Constitution, which at their worst can turn into Calvinball, but I think those are better than the alternatives.

Everything is a political issue.

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Bright line rules don’t avoid Calvinball. Don’t fall for that bullshit.

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In shithole America it is.

They are which is why you are about to lose the right because people conceded it was a political question.

https://twitter.com/jbenton/status/1521948007385739266

Villains tossing off their 'we dont want to hurt the mother, just those who facilitate her to reveal it was about hurting woman all along

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