To agree with the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade?

[thereareotherways]

Obviously I can predict the voting already! Ha.

TL;DR (at the top!): I support abortion but think Roe v Wade (and later cases) are not legally sound, and there are better ways to secure women's rights that would have more public support.

I'm personally not opposed to abortion in most real-life circumstances. I think after viability I would prefer other options to be explored, but I think most women having later-term abortions are doing it for serious medical reasons and I don't think that should be prosecuted. That said, I also am okay in principle with regulating abortion and I'm not an absolutist re: women's control: I think the fetus/baby does have some rights (which I weight proportionally more as the baby grows).

As I understand it, Roe v Wade and Casey rely on a right to "liberty" in the US constitution (primarily the 14th amendment), which otherwise doesn't mention abortion. I'm not a lawyer at all, I find this tenuous at best. Liberty has always had implied limits based on what's acceptable in society, and abortion was illegal until fairly recently. I don't think there's any justification for claiming that there's an implied consent of the people that abortion is morally acceptable - and the polarisation of the US on this issue reflects that.

I think the decision in Roe/Casey to impose abortion via activist judges was a poor decision both legally and politically. This is a clear case where elected representatives need to pass legislation that reflects their constituents' positions. If that legislation differs from state-to-state, well, that's the whole point of a federal system. Pro-choice candidates need to get elected in red states and then they will have the actual consent of the people, not tenuous implied consent.

The decision in Dobbs is here and good reading: www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf

I also have a faint hope that now that this has been overturned, both Republicans and Democrats might now return their focus to legislation instead of Supreme Court nominees. The power of the Supreme Court is too dominating in US politics: we should be pleased to see them ceding some power back to the legislature, i.e., the people's representatives!

if you are in a medical emergency, even if you are in a city with non-religious hospitals, the ambulance may not give you a choice of location. It depends on the severity of your case and how many calls they have that night. So there is no way for a woman to even guarantee that she will end up in a hospital that will provide her with all treatment options even in large cities.

This will be my last post in the thread - thank you to everyone who has contributed opinions, honestly, even if I've argued back. I think it's good to test opinions against people who earnestly believe the opposite but still trust that they're arguing in good faith. I know many of you likely think that I haven't been arguing in good faith, and I know I've probably seemed quite pompous/obnoxious with my multi-paragraph comments, but I've honestly been thinking a lot about this issue, I find the various strains quite complex, and I'm not at a point where I can express my point of view in a pithy slogan - so I want to take time to process it.

One last correction - I said a couple of times that Mississippi now allows 15-week abortions, which is incorrect - while Dobbs was about the 15-week law, they had a more restrictive law as well which will now come into effect. My mistake. This doesn't change my broader point about feeling that laws should be made by the legislature in the absence of a specific constitutional protection.

There is one positive from this. It reaffirmed the absolute requirement in a free democracy not to have political appointment of your judiciary.
USA are a parody of a democracy and a free society and we have to ensure we don't go the same way. Their nauseating diatribes about being free and leaders of the free world have to be seen for what they are, propoganda for an elitist society that controls and descriminates against their most vulnerable to maximise profit for the elite.
We share nothing with their society apart from a language, sort of.
We need to make sure it stays that way

Your stance is not original, I have heard this for at least the past twenty years. It's not a bad tactic, there was always one group that never got into the fetuses are babies debate, always more of an academic exercise. What rights do you actually have, blah blah.
Your Abortion Act of 1967 doesn't technically guarantee the right to bodily autonomy or to get an abortion. It merely outlines the circumstances under which it can take place. All of which can be modified at anytime and there have been at least five attempts to curtail what is currently permissible . I suspect another attempt will be made again.

Under His Eye.

Leaders of the free world !

😂😂😂😂

@ClareBlue
Before we fall into a mindset of “it couldn’t happen here” it is worth remembering that just a few short years ago there were women in the UK who lived with a system where abortion was effectively banned and even now, apart from NI, the UK doesn’t legally enshrine a woman’s right to choose at any stage of gestation. Current practices allow women to choose, but legally doctors police whether her reasons are good enough.

What about Supreme Court cases decided by justices who were put into stolen seats by a president who lost the popular vote? And what about legislation enacted by presidents who (like Trump) were elected by an arcane system that doesn't reflect the popular vote and signed off by congresses in which the red states have outsized representation in the population? Are those legislative decisions the will of the people?

I’m not saying that there isn’t a point under here, but talking about “stolen” seats because the process didn’t go the way you wanted is highly divisive. It’s akin to talking about a “stolen election” because states had the temerity to count the votes of people who voted against you. Seats on the Supreme Court are not gifts for the President to give. The Senate broke with established practice in a way that was blatantly partisan and quite shocking to me. However, it is the Senate, not the president who has the constitutional authority to appoint justices. The president only has the power of nomination. What was done was, in my view, politically unjustifiable but not unconstitutional.

The issue of the electoral college is also irrelevant. It is an arcane system, but it’s the one they have. At the moment it favours the republicans. However demographic trends in Georgia and Texas could soon give the Democrats an advantage in the EC that Republicans might find difficult to swallow. I hope that Democrats will work with the Republicans to get rid of the EC when that time comes as I am sure the Republicans will change their tune on the issue as soon as it no longer works to their advantage.

I also think the comparison to segregation is not helpful. Jim Crow laws were an obvious violation of the fourteenth amendment as it was written and intended by those who wrote it. That is totally different to Roe, which was based on a reading of that amendment that even those who made the judgement never tried to claim was intended by the people who wrote it.

Hhmmm, I'd love to agree with you and I would have maybe 12 months or so ago but our PM is sticking like superglue and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. Our government are doing whatever the fuck they like currently and definitely not towing the line.

That's the nub of it. They don't give the tiniest of shits about the baby once it's actually born. They have no strategy, no ideas, no practical help and certainly no regard for the mothers physical or mental health. Its simply win at all costs and fuck the fallout.

This is really worrying, I hope you're wrong, I suspect you're not.

They'll be selling babies again. Agencies and the church

A fetus doesn’t have any rights. You can “believe” what you like. If a woman can consume something or endure a procedure that can end her pregnancy and wants to do so, she can. It’s her body and she can make that choice about her own body. Making it illegal will only stop women from doing it safely but it will still happen. You don’t get to stop that from happening and the fetus will have zero thoughts on the matter.

To the many advocating 'as early as possible, as late as necessary', are you campaigning to change UK law, to allow late abortions from 24 weeks to term, for non-medical reasons?

No.

The vast majority of non-medical abortions happen far before then, and if someone is having an abortion post 24 weeks, it means something has gone horribly wrong.

I'd guess a tiny number of women would get to 24 weeks and decided that they don't want to be pregnant any more.

You’re not pro-life OP. You’re pro-birth.

That’s much worse.

I trust the woman.

It seems it’s all v well saying abortion rights should be done by an act of law rather than through the constitution, but not considering in practice this leaves millions of women without access to abortion in the meantime whilst waiting for a law to past - unacceptable.

What absolute drivel.

I recently posted that i was surprised that 24 weeks is the cut off point for abortion and I didn't even know it.After being pregnant and knowing how far baby has developed I was shocked.I was told that women should have right to abort up to any time even a day before due date as whilst it is in her it's not a baby but a foetus ,regardless if viable or not.
This is mumsnet...

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10958087/Louisiana-judge-temporarily-blocks-abortion-ban-U-S-Supreme-Court-ruling.html?ito=social-facebook&fbclid=IwAR33fK-85kzC4lU9SkI5HwyIbzUpM5R5YvkggVprQ-p2GhDVB-XVLZt34p0

Totally agree.

I think the slogan is problematic - suggesting an extreme position which isn't supported by the (majority) pro-abortion centre-ground. And makes it easy for the extreme pro-life nutters to attack.

This!

I wonder how much the abortion rates would drop if, by law and dna testing, men had to pay a suitable amount for the upkeep of every child they had til the child was 21.

Isn't that generally the case though in the states, TheScenicWay? I thought they were doing a bit better than us here in the UK in terms of requiring fathers to pay child support. I know their system isn't perfect but I was under the impression men were less able to get out of paying for their kids?

Do you agree with this OP? Because it's where the decision is leading. Alabama attorney general says people who take abortion pills could be prosecuted Alabama attorney general says people who take abortion pills could be prosecuted

Do you agree with this OP? Because it's where the decision is leading.