S Dakota Abortion law

[juliod]

Will the new law banning abortion bring about the final defeat of the anti-abortion side?

It's a very risky move, and one certainly not supported by more worldy conservative leaders. They want to use abortion to "motivate the base" but don't want to take on a directly an issue that will be a long-term looser for them.

If RvW is overturned, then the repubs are going to have to go out and campaign on a strong anti-abortion platform and they will likely loose. Badly. If they choose not to, then they will loose the support of their base, which will be worse.

OTOH, a rush to the Supreme Court is quite likely to yield just another precedent in support of RvW, and leave them in worse position than before. Much worse. I think the last thing anti-abortion strategists want is an early review of a blanket ban.

My bet: (write this down for consultation later) The Supreme Court will bust a gut to find a technicality on which to throw out this law. Then they won't have to rule on the issues.

DanZ

[McCulloch]

Yes, but going to a public abortionist is hardly a private matter, especially when the so-called secular right to abortion is no more private than the privacy of marriage these days.

Where do you live? Abortion is a private matter.

If Christians or Muslims in foreign countries were killing the offspring of atheists and secularists without their informed consent, I'm sure some seccie American lawyers would let the US public know about it once they found out.

The difference is that no one is performing abortions without the informed consent of the woman involved. If anyone were performing abortions on atheists with only the informed consent of the pregnant woman, I would expect no outrage.
Jcrawford, however feels that just because some of his co-religionists make a woman pregnant, they should have the legal right to control her pregnancy.

[jcrawford]

Yes, but going to a public abortionist is hardly a private matter, especially when the so-called secular right to abortion is no more private than the privacy of marriage these days.

With all due respect, this is baloney. Doctor patient relationships and decisions on what medical attention to seek and whom to seek it with are clearly private matters. The fact that any member of the public can go into a medical clinic does not make it otherwise. You are merely engaging in word play here.

Now that public doctors and abortion mills have invaded and destroyed the privacy of marriage, their business premises are not off-limits to public authorities who have the secular right to conduct public investigations into deceptive, fraudulent and mis-leading medical practices.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'a right to identify others.'

Gee, what's do difficult about understanding our basic civil right to identify others according to race, religion, sex, country of national origin or what have you. Businesses do it all the time when they hire people.

[micatala]

Now that public doctors and abortion mills have invaded and destroyed the privacy of marriage . . . . .

I'm ignoring the rest of your statement because this first part is unsubstantiated at best, and most likely plainly false.





Getting back to the OP.

Will the new law banning abortion bring about the final defeat of the anti-abortion side?

It's a very risky move, and one certainly not supported by more worldy conservative leaders. They want to use abortion to "motivate the base" but don't want to take on a directly an issue that will be a long-term looser for them.

If RvW is overturned, then the repubs are going to have to go out and campaign on a strong anti-abortion platform and they will likely loose. Badly. If they choose not to, then they will loose the support of their base, which will be worse.

OTOH, a rush to the Supreme Court is quite likely to yield just another precedent in support of RvW, and leave them in worse position than before. Much worse. I think the last thing anti-abortion strategists want is an early review of a blanket ban.

My bet: (write this down for consultation later) The Supreme Court will bust a gut to find a technicality on which to throw out this law. Then they won't have to rule on the issues.

The real issue of this thread is whether this new law is actually going to lead to the outlawing or at least greater restrictions on abortion, or will it ultimately have the opposite effect, and why.[/quote]

[jcrawford]

Yes, but going to a public abortionist is hardly a private matter, especially when the so-called secular right to abortion is no more private than the privacy of marriage these days.

Where do you live? Abortion is a private matter.

Abortions and marriages are now matters of heated public controversy and debate. Not even one's religion or atheism is private anymore.

The difference is that no one is performing abortions without the informed consent of the woman involved.

Do you have any evidence to support that extravagant claim?

Jcrawford, however feels that just because some of his co-religionists make a woman pregnant, they should have the legal right to control her pregnancy.

Aw, don't US guys get to control anything in our private lives and marriages anymore? Some of my fellow Cannucks seem to think that big strapping white and black American men ought to be dominated by their wives just like they were dominated by their mamas when they were little boys.

Do they still sing God Save the Queen up there? It's been awhile since I migrated south as another lost youth of my draft-dodging hippie generation.

[jcrawford]

The real issue of this thread is whether this new law is actually going to lead to the outlawing or at least greater restrictions on abortion, or will it ultimately have the opposite effect, and why.

How would I know, not being a prophet of any sort? That's why I refrained from posting on this thread until someone mentioned in one of theirs, that I didn't.

Sorry if I drifted off-topic. No offense taken, I hope, since none was intended.

[micatala]

Abortions and marriages are now matters of heated public controversy and debate. Not even one's religion or atheism is private anymore.

You are confusing public policy issues with private relationships and decisions. In addition . . . .

Aw, don't US guys get to control anything in our private lives and marriages anymore?

. . . you seem to be contradicting yourself. It seems you want to have certain decisions and information be 'public' when it suits your whim and 'private' when your whim changes.



In addition, you still do not seem to be addressing the topic.



And finally, you are up an hour later than I am, given your time zone. I know I am getting up and going to church in the morning.

Goodnight.

[jcrawford]

In addition, you still do not seem to be addressing the topic.

Sorry. I'll try not to post on this thread anymore, if you don't mind.

And finally, you are up an hour later than I am, given your time zone. I know I am getting up and going to church in the morning.

Goodnight.

Goodnight, sweet prince. May flights of angels serenade thee during thy heavenly rest and bless your loving church-going heart.

I went to church last week and am taking some time off with my family this week.

[ST88]

but RvW is not the be-all and end-all of abortion decisions.

Ah, but I think it is.

If I understand things right (I'm not a legal scholar, just a brilliant lay person) RvW established as law a prohibition on banning abortion.

Yes, but there are many other decisions that have upheld this right. In Doe v Bolton (1973), for example, the court ruled that a Georgia state law limiting abortion rights was unconstitutional.

The Georgia law in question permitted abortion only in cases of rape, severe fetal deformity, or the possibility of severe or fatal injury to the mother. Other restrictions included the requirement that the procedure be approved in writing by three physicians and by a special committee of the staff of the hospital where the abortion was to be performed. In addition, only Georgia residents could receive abortions under this statutory scheme: non-residents could not have an abortion in Georgia under any circumstances.
-- Wikipedia Doe v Bolton

SCOTUS struck down almost the entire law even though a lower court struck down only a portion of it. It basically says that a patient and her doctor have a right to decide what is best for the patient without "undue" state or administrative intervention.

Constitutional protection for abortion is claimed as Ninth and Fifth (Fourteenth) Amendments protection:

5th (14th) Amendment
nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

9th Amendment
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The right to privacy was defined previously in Griswold v Connnecticut (1965) based on those amendments.

What Roe did was to state that states are in no position to define when life begins:

"We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."
-- SCOTUS http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Roe/index.html

And therefore it is a personal decision, not a civic decision.

But in Doe, basically the same conclusion is made via a different route, via the physician's medical opinion. Whereas in Roe, the idea is more of a philosophical one.

In order to overturn Roe, someone would have to argue that a) the definition of a "person" extends to the point of conception, and b) that "when life begins" is a viable scientific concept that coincides with "personhood". I see nothing that exists now that did not exist at the time the ruling was made to contradict the above paragraph.

In order to overturn Doe, someone would have to argue that the state, and not the doctor, has the ultimate authority in what is medically necessary for the patient. I don't see that happening either.

[micatala]

In order to overturn Roe, someone would have to argue that a) the definition of a "person" extends to the point of conception, and b) that "when life begins" is a viable scientific concept that coincides with "personhood". I see nothing that exists now that did not exist at the time the ruling was made to contradict the above paragraph.

These statements clearly drove the Task Force that preceded the legislation in SD. Proponents of the ban tried to say that 'new science' has clearly shown that life begins at conception.

Really, to me it is a non sequitur. When 'legal personhood' begins is not a scientific question.

The first post-ban poll is out in SD. Out of 630 SD voters contacted:

* 22 percent believe abortion should be legal and left to the woman

* 15 percent believe it should be legal with parental consent for females under 16.

* 25 percent believe it should be legal in cases of rape, incest, and medical danger to the woman's life.

* 20 percent believe it should be legal only to preserve the woman's life.

* 13 percent believe it should not be legal under any circumstances.

In addition, 72% said the ban should be referred to a vote in November, and a Wisconsin man has already started a petition drive. If the ban was on the ballot, 57% said they would vote to overturn the ban.


I fully expect it will be on the ballot, and that we will have an ugly fight, with people on both sides trying to intimidate the public with scare tactics and moral approbation. I'm not looking forward to it.

[ST88]

* 15 percent believe it should be legal with parental consent for females under 16.

I've always wondered about the Minor exception that people seem to have regarding abortion. Isn't it more dangerous to carry a pregnancy to term for younger girls than it is for adults? Strictly speaking, the moral damage to the Minor's psyche is ostensibly already done, having become pregnant. The abortion procedure itself is not physically harmful, and is only psychologically harmful inasmuch as social pressure allows it to be. What makes it different for girls as opposed to adult women?

I suppose you could argue that minors do not have the responsibility of their own persons, but then it should be legal with parental consent. I think this particular statistic betrays more about the population's attitudes towards "bad stuff" than it does about minors. The purported reason for giving an exception to minors in most other cases is that they can't be expected to know any better, or their bodies have not sufficiently developed (smoking ages, drinking ages, etc.) So naturally, abortion is bad stuff so giving it to minors would be that much worse than giving it to adults. There is a fundamental squeamishness about this topic that people don't want to face or think about logically. You want to talk about decadence in America -- it starts with not wanting to think about "bad stuff" subjects.