US abortion law - fcuking hell

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Consequences like this are or course entirely predictable, but no less abhorrent.

I think we are only just beginning to realise the wider implications of all this both for women and girls in the US and around the world.

”10-year-old rape victim forced to travel from Ohio to Indiana for abortion.”

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/03/ohio-indiana-abortion-rape-victim?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Interesting discussion of Roe v Wade and the implications for American women here.

I should say some of her views/advice regarding DIY contraception and abortion are a bit "out there" imo but I recognise that I live in a country where contraception and abortion are both free and readily available. We don't know how lucky we are. This is the future for millions of USA women, many of whom won't be educated enough to be able to follow the advice effectively.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/feminist-current/id603245791?i=1000567941186

Or have I completely misunderstood how a Republic rather than a democracy works? The issue isn’t republic vs democracy, but federal state (with a balance of power between a central government and its individual regions) vs unitary state (where the national government holds power and delegates or devolves specific rights and responsibilities to its regions). Individual US states - or Australian states or Canadian provinces or Swiss cantons - have powers that the UK's devolved administrations can only dream of.

Nevertheless, popular claims that Roe v Wade had to be overturned as abortion rights aren’t clearly protected by the US Constitution and therefore must revert to the states are untrue. In addition to its Constitution, the USA has a body of federal law, passed by the two US Houses of Congress and signed into law by the President, that states cannot violate or limit. (Federal law can’t violate the Constitution; both Constitutional law AND federal law are arbitrated by the Supreme Court.)

Many federal laws deal with necessary nationwide competencies, e.g. determining how to declare war, or who holds citizenship. But some are designed for the equal protection of all citizens, for example the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act (which guarantees specific voting rights to citizens which can’t be abridged even in a state or local election). The federal level can also act to prevent states from making laws that breach its own international obligations, such as human rights. The UN has already stated that the USA is now in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Arguably, the USA may have an obligation to place limits on states criminalsing or excessively restricting abortion, or at least to legislate that they must mitigate the impact so that women are not unlawfully injured or disadvantaged.

In Canada, abortion rights are guaranteed by the Health Canada Act and can't be abridged by the provinces. Provinces can’t make abortion illegal, even solely within their own borders. They can’t add additional restrictions like age limits or time limits. They can’t pass laws that let a parent, spouse, doctor, employer, bio-dad, or rapist (as allowed in some US states) interfere with a pregnant woman’s decision to abort. They must honour the federal commitment to subsidise abortion for those covered by universal healthcare, although healthcare is managed at the provincial level.

The US federal govt CHOOSES not to do any of that. It chooses NOT to protect US women and girls, despite proof that some states have passed dehumanising laws that systemically, disproportionally disadvantage and endanger women and girls. It chose not to mitigate the chaos resulting directly from the decision to overturn Roe v Wade.

Even Poland, when its highest court removed certain existing abortion rights in 2020, provided a grace period. Texas, in contrast, cancelled ALL existing appointments for ANY abortions the same day the legal decision was made, leaving patients in the waiting room and on the operating table, some with no options at all as anyone assisting them in leaving the state to obtain an legal abortion could be charged with a criminal offence. There’s no justification for what the USA has done here that is compatible with or defensible under even the most basic and wishy-washy idea of “feminism”: the idea that women are human beings and full citizens with the right to be treated equitably.

Wasn't there another 'progressive' judge who decided to retire under Trump rather than hanging on until there was a Democrat? Yes; Anthony Kennedy. Not a progressive (he was a Reagan appointee), but a swing vote as newer Republican-appointed justices are even more regressive. His record on abortion was mixed. He'd said he wouldn't strike down Roe v Wade, but so did Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.(There’s a persistent, unconfirmed rumour that AK had top-level persuasion to resign. As is customary in contemporary US politics it involves allegedly illegal activities, on the part of a family member, in the service of an unnamed foreign power whose leader’s name rhymes with gluten.)

The major group behind the overturning of Roe is the far-right Evangelical Christians who have a very patriarchal concept of Christianity. That's what drives this in the US.

I think this might be why so many here in the UK just find this whole issue incomprehensible - religion seems far more embedded in politics, and civil life generally, than it is in the UK/Europe. And the religion itself seems far more authoritarian and traditional than, say, C of E or C of S.

Thanks @ProfessorFusspot your post was very informative, I'm grateful for the clarification.

So Norma McCorvey wasn't a perfect woman, so 'she lied'. She seems to have had a difficult, hardscrabble life and probably lied lots. I don't see what difference it makes. I am reminded of the perfect victim tropes trotted out to help effectively decriminalise rape.

I think this might be why so many here in the UK just find this whole issue incomprehensible

I think it'll become a lot clearer when the UK dumps the ECHR.

So???

Is that likely to have an impact on abortion?

I read this article, but it doesn't really make clear what the effect would be:

www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/healthcare/2022/06/protect-abortion-rights-uk-dont-let-ditch-echr-europe

But there are no federal abortion laws in the US, that's the issue. The SC court can't make them.

If they want to pass such laws then they have to make the argument to Congress that such laws are appropriately made at that level rather than at the state level. Maybe they could but there are lots of people who take the view that it should be at the state level, and that is independent of their view of what the laws should say. Plenty of libertarians think abortion should be widely available but regulated by states.

Canada is a bit more complicated because there is no federal law as such at all, although there almost certainly could be. The Canada Health act doesn't guarantee abortion, it guarantees medically necessary care. In some ways it is the opposite of the American situation, where people who want to guarantee access to abortion want to avoid federal laws around it.

Or to put it another way, pro-choice people want abortion to be covered by the constitution because then they don't have to do the political work of convincing people to pass the kinds of laws they want. Realistically they are likely to have to compromise to get any laws passed - although the majority of Americans are moderate most activists, on either side of the issue, are not.

Poor, poor little girl. It's barbaric.

This is how you know its not about life being precious.

Because a 10 year old giving birth is life threatening in itself. Quite possibly killing both of them. Don't tell me that's better.

Its about complete and utter control of women. Or they'd have at least waited until there was a cure for all fatal foetal conditions and made America safe for women of colour to give birth in.

Fuck them.all 🤬

The ECHR is analogous to SCOTUS. It exists to protect the citizen from the state

Once removed, the state has absolute power. After all, it makes the laws doesn't it ?

If you think you can trust Boris Johnson and his increasingly depraved cabal of antichrists then by all means piss away that protection.

Once you free the state from the inconvenience of having to follow it's own laws then you may as well not have laws.

You're saying that without the EHRC we may as well not have laws?

Not quite sure why you're so cross with me, btw, I'm not personally hovering over a button that prompts the UK's withdrawal from the EHRC.

Also, although I am not really sympathetic to Tory principles on the whole, I do think 'depraved cabal of antichrists' might be just slightly OTT.

No I am not saying that.

What I am saying is that without some notion of a power that stands above the state - be it a constitution, or undertaking to an international body - you have fuck all rights.

State seizes your property ? Who ya gonna call ?
State seizes your children ? Who ya gonna call ?
State decides that homosexuality doesn't exist, so anyone who claims to be needs to be "cured" ? Who ya gonna call ?

Of course you could just sail blithely through life whistling "couldn't happen here" as you slowly remember all the broken promises and lies of every government ever. And suddenly realise that the only protection you have from the state is the capricious good will of the government of the day.

It's well worth quoting what a lot of Americans - moderates, extremists and even gun control supporters genuinely believe. And with good reason.

Do you know why there's a second amendment ? In case the government forgets the first.

Right. I don't think any of that applies to the UK, tbh.

So what do you think protects you from the power of the state ? Human decency ?

Or do you think it doesn't matter somehow because we are "British" and that means just that bit better than the Americans (who need a constitution) or the French to Germans (who are foreign after all).

Incidentally, the US constitution was borrowed from the English Bill of RIghts of 1689 if memory serves. In much the same way as the ECHR was based on English common law.