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!

You what fixes that? Laws. SCOTUS does not make laws. The interpret legal cases against the constitution. If we’re being honest the court who decided on Roe v. Wade kicked the can down the road to this SCOTUS who has essentially done the same thing.

Let’s put this another way. When the constitution was written slavery was allowed and women couldn’t vote … now these laws have been enshrined in the constitution. There is no question about either of these issues now.

Federal laws (as long as they a constitutional) override state laws, so this is another method to preserve abortion choice. And finally State laws will also achieve the same goal.

Once again, I’d rather all of the energy focused on the SCOTUS ruling being spent working on a permanent solution.

different people have different ideas on where the balance should fall

In that case, people should be given the option on being able to make different decisions - rather than take away the rights of some people to decide for themselves.

What really worries me is that we have Rees-Mogg in our government who is fanatically against abortion, chances are that this will come up here.

YANBU OP but your nuanced view is lost on the majority of MN alas.

Haha. Always the problem with nuance...

@Nat6999
I can't see it getting a look in here. I hope I'm right on that!

"YANBU OP but your nuanced view is lost on the majority of MN alas.

Haha. Always the problem with nuance..."

How bloody patronising.

There is no nuance to a woman's own mind and her own body. None. Both belong to her. No one else. End

This isn't about the potential life of babies (and I say potential because the vast number of abortions occur before a foetus is able to exist independently), this is about controlling women.
They don't care about babies - women in the US get next to no help with medical bills, or state help to raise these children once they're born.
They don't give a shit.

They just hate women and want them exhausted and downtrodden. And women like the OP are just making it easier for them.

Today I am scared. Scared thar we will absolutely lose our minds in the same way the SCOTUS has.

I have supported conservative values my entire life. Freedom, self reliance, CHOICE. maybe I’m supporting the wrong people.

it seems the US is being overrun by two extremes. It is the normal middle of road Americans who will suffer.

I know two people who have had abortions. Both were for very good reasons. It’s not a decision that is ever taken lightly.

Yeah, whatever.
sod off back to your interest group.

This was part of my longer post that got eaten… both sides are sprinting to the extreme and it’s the rational middle(ish) that seems to be left in the dust.

I am anti-abortion (as having one is my biggest regret and something I will Never EVER forgive myself for) on a personal level but ABSOLUTELY pro choice for everyone else. My body is my body, what I choose to do with it is my business (I later continued with a Pregnancy against medical advise as drs thought it might kill me) . Who this judgement will affect is the most vulnerable out there - the women and girls who, through difficult financial circumstances, fear, shame or lack of ability, are unable to travel to access safe termination of a pregnancy. It is abhorrent that a government can have this level of control over its female citizens - yet allow teenagers to buy loaded guns over the counter. I absolutely despair.

This exactly. If the pro-life campaigners put half as much effort into regulating guns as they did trying to overturn RvW… maybe you wouldn’t have hundreds of dead children every year as a result of mass shootings. Pro-life only for unborn the fetus but not for living children. When it comes to guns they won’t stop ranting about ‘choice’ but if women want choice then that’s not allowed.

Oh and Americans don’t lift a finger to help caged Mexican children at the border … but yeah they really care about life… apparently.

YABU.

Frankly, you can argue the toss about Roe v Wade not being legally sound all you like, the fact is that this ruling is going to put women at risk. Thousands of women die each year because men think they have the right to control what women do with their bodies.

It's got fuck all to do with being pro-life or caring about the rights of a clumb of cells and fucking everything to do with fucking arseholes thinking that they know better than some daft woman who has been stupid enough to get herself knocked up.

Pro-lifers and anyone who supports this ruling can just get to fucking fuck.

I agree with this. It’s a way to control women, period. If these people cared about the lives of women and children, they’d vote for universal healthcare, subsidised childcare, a sound welfare state, to give the foetuses they are championing the lives they deserve. Instead they are focusing entirely on abortion and removing women’s rights. They aren’t pro-life, they are anti-women.

Under his eye.

YABVU
And a bit silly

This has got to be one of the most idiotic posts on MN ever and I have been on here for donkey years!

Presumably the next step for all these “pro life” states will be to invest heavily in maternity care, as maternal death rate in the USA is relatively high compared to a lot of other western countries. Otherwise their pro life stance doesn’t filter down to the human incubators.

You know that Justice Clarence has said that this opens the gates to overturning Griswald, Lawrence and Obergefell - namely the right to obtain contraceptives, the right to engage in private consensual sex acts and the right to same sex marriage. So you can fuck off with calling the previous decision a result of activist judges. This is an act of gross conservative activism with wide ranging implications.
The majority should not use political power to pass laws that oppress a minority and the constitution should prevent this from happening and yet this is exactly what this judgement is setting in motion.

I think that you are very unreasonable to try to discuss this in terms of the legal nuances of strict constitutional interpretation and states' rights on a British forum.

The ramifications of this ruling are that in many places in the US women will have no say over the course of their pregnancies from the moment of conception, prior even to the implantation of an embryo into her womb. This includes any method of birth control labelled an abortifacient. So, IUDs and hormonal methods.

Far beyond what you so artlessly bring up as a 37 week fetus example.

It's privacy, not liberty, that Roe v Wade was based on.

You're a fucking idiot. Can't you see that we're speeding into Handmaid territory. This is a disastrous day for women.

If the 12yo decided at 37 weeks to terminate the pregnancy for no medical reason... I'd struggle with that morally and I think many people would too.

But this isn't about you and what you believe is morally right or wrong.

Its about what is the right thing to do for women collectively

you can believe what you like.

If heaven forbid you were raped, you could choose not to have an abortion, that's your decision.

but what you do and what other women have the opportunity to choose to do are two different matters.

Turning a humanitarian crisis (because that's what it will become) into some strawman debate is really insensitive, crass and clueless.

No it isn't balancing competing rights, it is about a woman's right to her own body.

Lets take the example of the 12 year old rape victim, lets say it's her father who raped her, does he have rights? He might want that baby.

The US constitution was written by and for men. Correction, white men, it included continuing with slavery.

How the hell do you think an American can be nominated to stand for anything on women's rights?

Also arguing that states should have dedicated time to putting pro-abortion statutes in place when they had Roe v Wade is ridiculous. You don’t waste precious time and resources having to fight tooth and nail to pass them when you have other pressing bills to work on.

The states are free to legislate what they want argument is a smug way of saying that if a particular group is able to gain power they can impose their will on everyone else in the state, regardless of whether that is in the best interests of the people not in power.
That's the whole point of having rights, it protects you from people who want to control you. This point is clearly acknowledged by conservatives when it comes to possessing guns.

"From the moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of"