It has been widely reported in the media that the Supreme Court intends to overturn Roe v. Wade. A draft decision written by Justice Samuel Alito claims that the 50-year-old decision was wrongly decided. The implications of this decision—if it stands as written—are profound. The Supreme Court decided in 1973 that women had a right to decide what happens to their bodies. This Court is poised to say they do not.
This is Donald Trump’s legacy. This most ignorant of presidents appointed three of the Court’s most conservative justices. All three are Catholics who are staunchly opposed to abortion. they will join with at least two other Catholic justices to overturn Roe. (Neil Gorsuch was born Catholic but apparently is or may be Anglican.) Justice Sonia Sotomayer, who is also Catholic, will not vote for this decision. President Biden, an observant Catholic, opposes this decision and supports women’s rights to control their own body. Nancy Pelosi, another strong Catholic, supports Roe.
As an American, I ask how it is possible that a Court dominated by members of one religion can impose their beliefs on the entire nation? I am beyond outraged by this potential decision. The same decision could also have been written if the Court had a majority of Orthodox Jews, who oppose abortion. That too would be abhorrent.
Women who are not Catholic will be required to bend to the hardcore doctrine of the most ardent Catholics. That includes Protestants, Jews, and moderate Catholics, as well as those of other faiths or none at all.
Several states, anticipating this decision, have passed laws banning abortion after six weeks, before a woman knows she is pregnant. These laws make no exception for women who are victims of incest or rape. The victim must give birth to her rapist’s child. The victim must give birth to the child of her father or brother.
Abortion is a painful decision for most women. It should be their decision, made in consultation with a qualified health-care specialist. The Supreme Court wants the decision made not by those it affects, but by state legislatures. Women who have the money will travel to the states where it is still legal to get an abortion.
Women without the means to travel will seek abortions from back-alley abortionists in unhygienic circumstances. Or they will try to self-abort with wire hangars or other methods that risk their lives. Women will die because of this decision, if it represents the final decision.
Some states are trying to outlaw receiving abortion pills by mail. It’s hard to know how they will enforce this. It’s easy to imagine that the reddest states would devote more resources to stopping abortion than to caring for children after they are born, with medical care, good schools, nutrition, and the other supports they need. The extremists love the unborn more than the born.
Justice Alito says in his draft decision that one reason to overturn Roe is that it is so divisive. If this is the Court’s standard, we can anticipate the rollback of civil rights law, including the Brown decision, gay marriage, and anything else that is too controversial for the “Originalist” majority. (If Amy Coney Barrett were really an Originalist, she would resign at once since the original Constitution said nothing about women having the right to vote or participate in public life).
My own view is that the decision about abortion is private and personal. It should be made by a woman and her doctor. It should occur in a safe and hygienic clinic.
Those who oppose abortion should not have the power to impose their views on women who don’t agree with them. If you don’t believe in abortion, don’t have one. If you need an abortion, that should be your decision, not the Red-state legislatures or the Supreme Court’s ultra-conservative majority.
Well said, Diane. Thank you!
Alito’s opinion in Dobbs questions both the traditional reading of a right to privacy into the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the derivation of such a right from this and other Amendments (the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth). This part of the majority opinion opens the possibility that this activist, right-wing court will in the future overturn other decisions that relied upon a due process right to substantive privacy, including ones that overturned sodomy laws and allowed interracial and gay marriage. And this puts at risk opinions like Griswald, that affirmed the right to use contraception. Here, quoting from the opinion: “Roe, however, was remarkably loose in its treatment of the constitutional text. It held that the abortion right, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, is part of a right to privacy, WHICH IS ALSO NOT MENTIONED.” The caps, for emphasis are mine.
First they came for women’s freedom over their own bodies. Then, . . .
The illegitimate right-wing majority on the United States Supreme Court is pro-rape, pro-incest, anti-woman, and anti-child. Are you cool with that? —Mary L. Trump, on TWITTER
The right-wing majority on the Court representing a minority of Americans. You know, as was the case when Bush, Jr., and Trump both lost the popular vote but gained the presidency because of the Electoral College and, in the case of Bush, the Supreme Court.
If the Repugnicans take the House and Senate in the midterms, win the presidency and hold onto those in 2024, then expect extreme voting restrictions to ensure that the Repugnican minority can rule. That’s how the Greying Old Party rises phoenixlike from the ashes of democracy.
Thanks for sharing that, Yvonne!
neal gorsuch was BROUGHT UP catholic by a fanatically catholic mother. he allegedly became anglican when he married an english anglican woman.
>
I knew that Gorsuch’s mother was a fervent anti-abortion zealot from reading about him. Decided to leave it out. Wrote that post in 20 minutes, from the heart.
Beautifully said, Diane!
I wrote this in another comment thread, but this has me remembering the many, many comment threads during the 2016 presidential campaign in which swing-state voters explained why they couldn’t vote for Hillary. Here’s just one, for a stroll down memory lane.
FLERP,
During the 2016 election, I wrote countless posts and comments about the issues at stake between Hillary and Trump. There were a few who claimed it didn’t matter. I insisted that what was at stake was control of the Supreme Court. McConnell cynically refused to give Obama’s nominee to the Court a hearing (Merrick Garland) because it was too close to an election (which was months away). Then McConnell rushed through the appointment of extremist Amy C. Barrett in the very month before the election of 2020.
Why haven’t the Dems ever codified Roe as law? Both Obama and Biden ran on that, and Obama had a supermajority for a while.
Why didn’t RBG put her ego aside and step down in 2014 so Obama could replace her?
Why did the DNC rig the 2016 primaries in favor of the one candidate ever to lose to an orange reality show host? Why did the DNC promote said orange reality show host in the first place with their “Pied Piper Strategy”?
Dienne, you are a good one to ask those questions in light of your vehement hatred for Hillary. At the time, I responded to your critiques by saying that she was the candidate because she won the most votes in the primaries. You continued to attack her mercilessly.
It takes a lot of chutzpah for someone who said they didn’t care one bit if Trump appointed Supreme Court Justices to then turn around and scapegoat RBG and not their own vote in which they self-righteously voted against a Democrat appointing Supreme Court Justices for the next 4 years and said it wasn’t important to them whether Trump did. They believed having Trump appoint far right Justices was a good trade off for them getting to vote against a Democrat and spend their time trying to undermine her candidacy with exaggerated lies while telling people they were exaggerating how bad Trump would be.
Given that these folks know full well that Trump appointed 3 new far right Justices, and that RBG’s early resignation plus a Trump victory was still going to insure Citizens United was never repealed, they won’t accept responsibility for their actions.
“I was wrong”. Say it, dienne77. Stop blaming RBG when her early resignation would not have changed a thing, but electing a Democrat in 2016 would have changed EVERYTHING and made it easier for progressives to already achieve many victories.
“I was wrong”. Trump can’t say that because there is something psychologically and morally wrong with him. Diane Ravitch can say it because she is a good, thoughtful and truthful person.
Is there any point in reading a post from someone who – like Trump and Tucker Carlson and many others on the far right – can never ever admit to being wrong? Those who can’t admit they are ever wrong should not have any credibility, period.
I agree that RBG should have stepped down in 2014.
Diane,
I agree that with 20/20 hindsight it might have been better for RBG to step down, but I don’t understand why anyone would scapegoat RBG when it is absolutely not RBG’s fault that the Supreme Court is in this mess. It is not. Her stepping down in 2014 would have changed nothing What would have changed EVERYTHING is electing a Democrat as president in 2016.
Diane, you voted for the Democrat, and you never said that you didn’t care if Trump or the Democrat had the power to nominate Supreme Court Justices. But these folks specifically said that it wasn’t important if Trump appointed Justices.
And now the very same folks who said they didn’t care if Trump appointed justices are now scapegoating RBG and blaming her for their strong and unwavering desire to prevent a Democrat from filling an open seat, instead of admitting they were wrong.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised they would scapegoat a Jew (RBG) who had nothing to do with why they preferred that Trump and not the Democrat filled that open seat, especially given their defense of Putin and Trump, two politicians with many neo-Nazi supporters.
In 2016, when these folks who hated the Democrat said that Trump nominating Supreme Court justices wasn’t important, they HAD to say that Trump nominating Supreme Court justices wasn’t important. Because there was an OPEN SEAT!!!
There was an OPEN SEAT and these folks said they didn’t care. The new president was going to appoint a Justice who would change the balance of the Court – change a conservative court to a liberal court that would make decisions that would hugely benefit the progressives – and these folks said they didn’t care.
Let’s all stipulate that the folks whose goal was to prevent the election of a Democrat in 2016 were fine with Trump and the far right filling 8 Supreme Court seats with 8 far right Justices. Let’s stipulate that the only seat that they were okay with having an “evil Democrat” fill was RBG’s.
I’m sorry, but that makes these folks look really bad.
They voted to prevent the Democrat from filling the open seat because it was not RBG’s seat and therefore they wanted to prevent the Supreme Court from tilting left and making decisions that would help the progressives. Did I mention these Trump/Putin defenders who voted to keep the Supreme Court a right wing majority in 2016 are not progressives? If they were, they would acknowledge their error in judgement.
It takes true chutzpah to say you are good if Trump fills an open seat that will decide whether the court is liberal or conservative and you are good if Trump fills any other seats that come open in the next 4 or 8 years EXCEPT the seat of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Honestly, I have never heard something that offensive. I know that isn’t what you are saying Diane, but this is basically how our resident Putin/Trump defender justifies her vote instead of admitting she was wrong.
We are supposed to accept her absurd defense that it was fine if Trump filled the open seat because it wasn’t RBG’s seat.
Furthermore, no one knows the good or the harm that would have been caused by RBG stepping down in 2014 and a brand new justice with none of her gravitas replacing her and having absolutely no influence on John Roberts or any of the liberal justices for the next SIX years.
Maybe Roberts was influenced during those extra 6 years with RBG and became a slightly better man than he would have been. RBG was unique. She wasn’t just a justice, but she showed others on the Supreme Court how to be a justice for 6 years longer at a time when those justices needed her influence.
If the folks who now say they wanted a Democrat to fill 1 Supreme Court seat but wanted to prevent a Democrat from filling any of the other 8 Supreme Court seats believe that is the way to the progressive nirvana, they are lying.
If you are good with a right wing Republican filling 8 of 9 Supreme Court seats — including one that is currently open — you are a right winger. Scapegoating RBG because that person says they wanted a Democrat to fill just that one seat is an embarrassing justification for their error.
If they can’t admit they were wrong, it suggests they would do it again because having a far right Supreme Court doesn’t matter to them. White privilege.
I agree with most of your comment but disagree about RBG.
I thought in 2014 that it was time for her to step down.
She was 85.
She couldn’t let go.
She survived several major cancers but she knew she was in the end game.
She died in September 2020, hoping she could survive until January 2021.
She rolled the dice and gave Trump another seat.
Obama was cheated of two seats.
Hers and Antonin Scalia’s.
She was greedy and her fame went to her head and harmed our democracy.
Diane Feinstein should step down!
But Ginsberg was still sharp! I don’t know why she chose to stay on in 2014, but I am surprised you seem to have knowledge that she was greedy and her fame went to her head!
Justice Brennan served until he was over 90 and I remember wishing he would stay on! (he lived another 7 years!) George HW Bush replaced him, so in hindsight had Brennan stayed on 2 years, a Democratic president could have chosen his successor.
Justice Stevens, who served with Ginsburg, stayed on until he was 90, (and lived another 9 years).
Blackmun resigned at 86 and lived another 5 years. Thurgood Marshall was 83 at retirement and I wished he could have hung on, but he was clearly much more sick since he died 15 months later. Rehnquest died in office at age 80, as did Scalia in his late 70s.
Ginsburg came from an era where lots of male Justices stayed on and on. She probably thought she could safely resign anytime during Obama’s presidency, which is a very normal thing to do, but then we had abnormal and unprecedented times where a Republican Senate paid no political price at all by simply refusing to confirm anything Obama wanted for the last 2 years of his term.
I also think it’s sexist that RBG gets blamed when the male justices who served long terms and retired and were replaced by Republicans are not. Is Thurgood Marshall to blame for not resigning earlier and letting GWB replace him with Clarence Thomas? Is Brennan?
If RBG had resigned in 2014, then we would have the same situation we have now with the far right controlling the Supreme Court. The only difference is that from 2014-2020 the left wing of the Court would be missing the powerful and influential voice RBG and whatever influence she might have on John Roberts.
The Supreme Court is what it is entirely because of voters who knew there was an open Supreme Court and did NOT want a democrat to fill that open seat and did not want a democrat to fill any of the new open seats that were going to come up.
How great would it have been if 2017 started 4 years of RBG leading the now 5-majority liberal wing of the court! The people who voted against the Democrat knew that voting for the Democrat would guarantee that outcome! RBG in 2017 leading a 5-4 majority!
That would have been so great.
How much chutzpah does someone who voted to PREVENT that outcome have to blame RBG? RBG didn’t make them vote to protect the right wing majority in the Supreme Court. That was their choice. They voted to prevent a Democratic president from filling the swing seat on the Supreme Court with a liberal.
APOLOGIZING is what they should be doing.
RBG was not just old—87. She had had four bouts of cancer. Including deadly pancreatic cancer. She should have stepped down when she was 85, in 2014.
Diane I thought the same at the time, and still do. . . RBG should have retired in a politically-timely fashion. It wasn’t about a politically charged Court decision. It was about the very nature of the Court itself.
Also, it’s not a matter of blaming who is responsible for our present situation; but rather that, given her health, her clear understanding of women’s rights, AND of what easily COULD have occurred and most likely WOULD occur, though she did not know for sure what would occur at that time, in my view, she should have stood down.
I can hold that position without leaving blameless others who, knowingly or not, actively contributed to our present situation.
The situation reminds me of Bill Clinton. I will never forgive him for his zipper situation. If it hadn’t have been for that, he could have stumped for Gore and easily pushed that election over to the democrats, given his likeability. Instead, he made himself persona non grata . . . they actually hid him from public view because he had made himself poison to Gore’s campaign at the time. Imagine the difference. CBK
Yes, never know what twists and turns will lead to disaster. RBG should have stepped down before it was too late to replace her. She was wise enough to know that she was mortal and cancer-ridden.
I didn’t join in the public lamentations for RBG when she died. Sure, she was great. But she was replaced by the odious Barrett, who will reverse everything RBG did
FLERP!
Thanks for that link. I especially thought it was telling to hear how much the anti-Hillary folks were demonstrating their true ignorance:
“And Arthur, do you REALLY believe that Donald Trump will sanction violence against American citizens? ”
“And to my dear friend FLERP: you have a guarantee somewhere about the judges HRC plans to appoint? The ones Trump plans to appoint? We’ve gotten progressive and moderate judges from GOP presidents, and turkeys from Democratic presidents. If Obama’s current choice at all reflects what HRC will do, no progressives of the Stevens/Douglas/Brennan/Brandeis/T. Marshall variety are in the offing.”
And our resident Putin-defender was already revealing extreme pro-Putin biases (hmm, which might have explained the constant excusing of Putin’s puppet Trump):
“And note, she’s [Hillary] already called for a no-fly zone in Syria, a direct provocation of Russia.”
So Russia attacks on civilians and the death and destruction they reign are always “provoked” by people doing “evil” things like calling for a no-fly zone to when those Syrian civilians deserved to be attacked, or pushing the false narratives about Ukraine “Nazis” provoking Putin.
Hooray for the commenter who calls herself “ponderosa” for clearly stating what was most likely to be true given the ENTIRE history of Hillary and not just the cherry picked negatives the folks who kept saying the Supreme Court didn’t matter kept amplifying (which was outrageous since everyone who knows her history understood that she had always supported many progressive causes, even though she was more conservative on others.)
“I like Hillary, and I think that, in her heart, she’s a liberal and not a neoliberal. I don’t blame her and Bill for tacking to the right in the 90’s –they had to adapt to the Reagan-esque zeitgeist then. After decades of being pummeled by Republicans, and with a progressive wind at her back, she’s going to be a liberal battle-axe as president. No one with a conscience would use the presidency to make the world safer for rich people at this juncture in history. Hillary has a conscience; Trump doesn’t. Very disturbing to see so many here willing to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
I am not happy about the prospect of President Trump, possibly followed immediately (like right after he takes office and then quits or simply stands aside) by President Pence. But the alternative of Hillary Clinton is unacceptable.”
Like Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump, and every other far right demagogue who is wrong over and over again, these posters are never held to the same standard that they always hold the Democratic politicians that they don’t like to. Hypocrites. And like Trump and the far right politicians who they always like much better than the Democrats, these folks never ever ever admit they were wrong. Not ever.
Lest anyone think I am overexaggerating about the scope of this decision (beyond abortion), let me quote from it:
“Respondents and the Solicitor General also rely on post-Casey decisions like Lawrence v. Texas . . . (right to engage in private, consensual sexual acts) and Obergefell v. Hodges, . . . (right to marry a person of the same sex). . . . These attempts to justify abortion through appeals to a broader right to autonomy and to define one’s concept of existence prove too much. . . . Those criteria, at a high level of generality, could license fundamental rights to illicit drug use, prostitution, and the like. . . . None of these rights has any claim to being deeply rooted in history.” [Earlier in the opinion he argues that being deeply rooted in history is one of the acceptable arguments for an implied but not explicitly stated right.]
So, there you are. He lays here the groundwork to throw the legality of homosexuality and gay and lesbian marriage back to the states.
Yes, it’s plausible, especially in the case of Alito and Thomas.
But of course this is also where the question of revisions and concurrences in the judgment come into play.
The Dems should pass a federal law codifying Roe as an emergency stopgap measure. They can do that.
They can do it only if they abolish the filibuster
I’ve been opposed to abolishing the filibuster, but I think this is probably the time to do it.
It wouldn’t solve the problem long-term, though. And it would open us up to a whip-sawing form of government where major policy can swing back and forth with each election. So it is a deep and dark hole to go down.
Such a bill failed to pass on March 1 of this year:
A bill to codify abortion rights into federal law died in the Senate on Monday, after it failed to amass enough support to pass a procedural vote.
The Women’s Health Protection Act needed the support of several Republicans to reach the necessary 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster in the evenly split Senate. It was co-sponsored by all but two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania.
It failed to advance after the Senate voted 46-48 to block the bill, with Manchin joining Senate Republicans in opposition. Six senators didn’t vote.
–Newsweek
They should have done that long ago. As they promised they would.
Dienne,
I recall many comments you made in 2016 attacking Hillary and saying that she should not be elected because she did not meet your purity test. I always responded that Roe v Wade would be overturned if that idiot Trump was elected, and you didn’t care. I said that gay marriage would be reversed. You didn’t care. There were very many reasons to elect Hillary and not the idiot, and you rejected them all.
Joe Manchin (D-WV) is on the record for banning abortion. No way the Dems can pass a Federal law codifying Roe with under 50 votes in the Senate.
That isn’t true, because Collins and Murkowski, and perhaps some other politicians might vote for it.
I would love to see the filibuster abolished. After all, the only reason these justices are serving is because the Republicans abolished the filibuster in 2017 to get them confirmed.
It would be sweet justice for these far right Justices to be the reason the filibuster is abolished for legislation.
“..None of these rights has any claim to being deeply rooted in history..”
As if there was a constitutional condition of being “deeply rooted in history”
We are having this discussion because there is no general will for the definitive definition of a right to privacy. If it is not inherent in Amendment 14, then we should add a privacy amendment post haste. Medical privacy is the most important right a citizen has. If you cannot make a private decision in consult with your doctor, unimpeded by judicial fiat, what individual right is sacred?
One web site discusses the right to privacy this way:
“The Supreme Court, however, beginning as early as 1923 and continuing through its recent decisions, has broadly read the “liberty” guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment to guarantee a fairly broad right of privacy that has come to encompass decisions about child rearing, procreation, marriage, and termination of medical treatment.”
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html
Thus this impending decision, if it is indeed impending, is turning 100 years of legal precedent on its head. Coupled with the encouragement of vigilante justice to enforce personal restrictions, this may lead the country closer to fascism than any other judicial decision since the Fugitive Slave Act required everyone to help catch runaways back in the 1850s.
This overturning of an implied right to privacy deriving from the due process clause of the 14th Amendment has been a goal of the rightwing legal extremists for a long, long time. This decision advances that.
And there will be no Privacy Amendment, alas, though clearly, one is sorely needed.
Your reading of this, Roy, is spot on. It’s judicial activism that runs roughshod over a basic theory of legal interpretation that the Court has relied upon for quite a long time–since Griswald v. Connecticut in 1965. The existence of a right to privacy has been the law of the land for 57 years. But that’s not “historical” enough for Alito and his ilk. These guys want to go back to the future, I mean way, way, way back.
As if the country weren’t divided enough already.
Fasten your seatbelts. Turbulence ahead.
Excellent points, Roy.
There is no right in the Constitution that says “corporations can spend as much money as they want on elections”.
The far right has always found “original intent” in the Constitution when it served their political interests. The founders wanted corporations to spend as much money on elections as they wanted to spend. It’s right there in the Constitution!!!
Original intent! Don’t you remember that the Constitutions intended to make sure corporations could spend money to elect their candidates? Sure, that’s the ticket!
The overturning of Roe vs. Wade will generate an immense amount of hysteria, but it will have very little practical consequence. Many states will not outlaw abortion, and those states will become destinations for women who choose abortion. Looking at the map of the United States and the political leanings of the various states, the only region of the country that likely won’t have legalized abortion within easy driving distance is the southeast. But women in those states can still travel to where abortion is legal.
A still little known fact is that almost all the western European social democracies have much more restrictive abortion laws than the U.S. currently has. And the idea that any state – even the most conservative ones – will ban birth control is risible to anyone who understands political reality. 90+% of American women of childbearing age have used or will use contraception at some point in their lives; it’s safe to say that almost all of their male partners also support contraceptive use. No way will any state ever ban birth control in 2022 and beyond.
Some states have passed laws saying that it is illegal to travel to another state to get an abortion and that it is illegal to get abortion pills by mail.
You are right that women who can afford to travel to New York, California, or other states where abortion is legal will do so. But those who cannot afford it will have babies they don’t want, can’t afford, and can’t care for. These will be children of impoverished families. And states that ban abortion will have many more children to take care of, despite their pinched budget and indifference to children’s lives after they are born.
well said
https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2021/10/26-states-are-certain-or-likely-ban-abortion-without-roe-heres-which-ones-and-why
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/03/us-abortions-travel-wave-of-restrictions
Please see the links I just posted, Sarah. And ever since I learned about Germany from 1932 to 1945, I have stopped saying, “No way will any state [or nation state] ever. . . .”
And some people, Ms. Wilson, don’t have $140 to fill up a car twice for a trip out of state and $50 for an overnight stay in a cheap hotel, on top of the money for the abortion procedure. Some people have to scrape together the bus fare to get to work.
Some don’t even have access to a car.
Amy Comey Barrett said at her confirmation hearings, “Roe has been affirmed many times and survived many challenges in court. And, it is more than 40 years old and its clearly binding on all courts of appeal…it would bind.”
Don’t believe anything Sarah Wilson writes. Jews were told not to fear the loss of their rights in Germany before the laws were passed that made them victims. At that time, people like Sarah Wilson, Susan Collins and Barrett made the false reassurances.
I recall Kavanaugh and Barrett pledging not to reverse settled decisions like Roe. I don’t recall whether Gorsuch did, although I am sure he was asked the question many times and found a way to dodge it
Liars on the high court.
Yeah, Diane, Gorsuch did, too. Liars, all three.
Liars appointed by the Liar in Chief.
Sarah Wilson said: A still little known fact is that almost all the western European social democracies have much more restrictive abortion laws than the U.S. currently has. end quote
Assuming that your statement is correct, western European democracies have universal health care which automatically makes abortions more open to poor women and people of limited means.
Not long ago, Ireland voted to legalize abortion. Ireland is a very Catholic nation.
It took the Irish long enough to learn the lesson from 1,000,000 Irish dying of starvation during the period of the Great Hunger which was characterized by hard right economics and the Catholic Church as an accomplice.
WEAR, the local Pensacola, FL, TV station took a poll on overturning Roe v Wade. What happened was a surprise to me. 74% were AGAINST overturning Roe v Wade. This area is the most conservative part of Florida, but I guess some people understand that many women will die if this law is overturned.
I don’t care that a woman can travel to a different state to get an abortion. She should be able to choose to do whatever she wants to or with her own body. How about a law abolishing vasectomies, because of course we can’t allow men to be prevented from procreating. Who is anybody to tell me that I can’t choose to have that procedure, and that I could just go to another state if I want to do so?!?! This is all just religious based & last time I checked, this country is not a theocracy. Righties used to cry about Sharia Law while clutching their pearls, but if it’s Christian theocracy, it’s ok. This is why our Founders wanted the country to be SECULAR
Thank you for your comment, loved to teach. The nation is harmed by refusals to acknowledge that abortion and LGBTQ opposition in America is drummed up by right wing conservative religion.
Thank you, loved2!
To some extent, however, Ms. Wilson, I have to agree with you. Abortions will continue. They will just be far, far more dangerous. They will be performed by Jane Collective-style activists, by back-alley providers, by roommates and friends, using illegal pills produced suing lord knows what components and distributed by criminal drug cartels. So, not an enormous decrease in numbers of abortions, but a vast increase in the numbers of deaths of women attempted to get this variety of reproductive healthcare.
cx: using illegal pills, attempting to get
This will be a great jobs program for the illegal drug cartels.
The argument Alito makes in this decision is basically as follows: In order to assert a Constitutional right not explicitly asserted in the Constitution, you have to prove that that right existed in Common Law or was historically affirmed. An implicit substantive right to make one’s own decisions in one’s private life doesn’t exist unless it meets those criteria. Under that legal interpretation, stare decisis doesn’t apply to such matters, and these cannot be decided by fiat the Court but must be decided by state legislatures. And so, under this interpretation, the right to contraception (Griswald), the right to engage in homosexual relations (Lawrence), the right to marry someone of the same sex (Obergefell), and many other rights would have to be overturned by the Court, despite precedent, and left to the states.
And this is exactly what the extreme right-wing jurists have wanted for a long time.
The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation!
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. We hold that Roe/Casey must be overruled. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” Alito
Digbysblog.net
Did the right of corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections exist in the Constitution?
Did the Constitution says “corporations are people”?
Nope
Good point.
I missed that in the Constitution.
Bob,
So when is Alito going to overturn Citizens’ United?
Republicans never get called out on their blatant hypocrisies.
GOP: “Liberty for me, but not for thee,” if you are a woman.
Haaa, NYC PSP! I don’t think this possible. Not unless it were possible for such as he to grow a heart.
This is so wrong, so outrageous it takes us backward which is what these right wing fanatics want, the USA of 1922 or even 1822. Many of the red states have already virtually abolished abortion. The terrifying part is that this conservative majority will be on the SCOTUS for decades which gives them the chance to destroy any other freedoms that we (liberals, progressives, moderates, sane people) so value in this country.
Visible receiving end of this insane GOP obsession and power is poor and working women who have very limited access to resources for abortion. SCOUTUS is ultraconservative majority not just in originalism, they are also hard-core corporatists.
the sad truth, Ken!
Great scam – the success of the corporations’ scheme to get Americans to vote GOP is evident. Big business airs ads and entertainment that is viewed by the conservative religious as liberal and offensive.
So, the party that corporations want elected gets elected when the duped public buys the ruse that corporations are liberal.
Disney got caught in the crosshairs of a side issue within the same theater.
“If Amy Coney Barrett were really an Originalist, she would resign at once since the original Constitution said nothing about women having the right to vote or participate in public life…”
Indeed. The cult of the Putin puppet agrees wholeheartedly with the “Cult of Domesticity”.
If Barrett was conservative religious, the prospect of theocracy replacing democracy would truly be frightening.
Callisto- “cult of domesticity”- clever attempt at divorcing. Which writer or speaker is protecting the Catholic Church with that rhetoric ?
From NJ Patch: Abortion access is protected by state law in New Jersey, and will continue to be so even if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. Governor Phil Murphy signed the Freedom of Reproductive Choice Act into New Jersey law earlier this year. This ensures access to abortions in New Jersey, whether or not the Supreme Court overturns the landmark cases.
This bill passed the New Jersey Senate 23-15 and cleared the Assembly 46-22, with abstentions from five Democrats and three Republicans. end quote
Could the anti-abortion fanatics challenge NJ’s abortion laws and threaten law suits if NJ providers gave abortions to out of state women? Hope not.
Sick to death here of the Supreme Court and of WordPress moderation. I guess that I am being particularly immoderate today.
Sorry, I took Mitzi for a walk and returned to find seven comments in moderation. Nothing in moderation now.
Hi, Mitzi!
I wish that Republicans would spare us their plaintive cries for “freedom” and “liberty,” when they don’t mean to include women’s right to make a decision about their lives that they insist on controlling.
One of the effects of this decision will be to radicalize even further politics in the red states. Primary battles will involve Republican candidates trying to out-troglodyte one another even more than they do today.
Don’t listen to that guy. I’m more anti-woman than he is!
Democrats are loathe to attempt to expand the Court. Repugnicans, once they control the House and the Senate, will have no such qualms.
Geezus, if the GOP expands the court, they and the right wing maniacs will control the SCOTUS for the next 1,000 years give or take a few decades.
As Diane’s essay observes, the majority of the SCOTUS are at least partly influenced by a Catholic religious perspective–one that currently tends to be echoed by conservative Protestant Evangelicals. Ironically, the anti-abortion position was not central to Evangelicals until the late ’70s-early ’80s. I agree that this latest ruling would clearly show preference to certain Christian beliefs over the beliefs of other religions and atheists. Why is there not more discussion of the fact that this can be construed as a violation of the First Amendment?!
and lately, every time someone joins the court we see that that majority of Catholic-
influenced judges seems to grow
Thank you for your comment Anne.
63% of white Catholics who attend church regularly voted for Trump in 2020. Because a minority of outlier Catholics are in the Democratic Party, for example, Biden and Pelosi, the public erroneously believes well-crafted PR that protects and hides Catholic politicking for the GOP from view. As an example of the campaign, Margaret Brennan of Face the Nation who attended Catholic schools invites liberal nuns who have no power to talk in favor of immigration which reinforces a liberal image. Adding insult to injury, Brennan invites right wing bishops on religious holidays, as if they are not engaged in politics. The clergy use the occasions to spin the liberal Pope Francis’ words to conform with or excuse GOP views on other issues.
Out of dozens of articles that expose Christian nationalism and that lead Americans to believe that the religious right wing’s politicking is the sole province of evangelical protestants, you won’t find one that labels Leonard Leo, William Barr, John Eastman, etc. as Catholic. Nor will you learn that Koch’s Paul Weyrich, who co-founded ALEC, the religious right and the Heritage Foundation was Catholic.
“The Anti-Catholic Playbook”, 9-5-2018, posted at TypeInvestigations explains how successful the campaign has been. Before the right wing Catholic clergy and the big money people that back their politicking take aim at eliminating birth control, they can bask in the glory of overturning Roe v. Wade, making Catholic organizations the nation’s 3rd largest employer and passing school choice legislation in central states.
Btw- one in 6 U.S. hospitals are Catholic and research showed they provide no more indigent care than other private hospitals. About 90% of Catholic schools are not unionized. And, a scheme to exempt teachers in religious schools from civil rights employment law protection succeeded at the SCOTUS level in 2020.
Everyone: Don’t let Linda fool you. Despite her notes, she really is not anti-Catholic.
CBK
Interesting point, Anne! Would love to see some cases brought against state laws on this basis!
Hmm…states deciding. Ok, then. Can Blue States have a say in federal tax revenue laws? I’m so sick and tired of Red States sucking from the teat of those of us who pay far more into the tax system than they do just because our salaries are commensurate with COL. Let’s let states decide how much they’d like to give to the country. Bleed ‘em dry.
Agree.
This has been Decades in the making. Deliberate, demonic, well funded. These are just a few of the collaborators. PLOTTING TO DESTROY ROE!
Justice John & Jane Roberts/Feminists For Life, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Federalist Society, Mother&Mike Pence, Judicial Ed Project, Thomas More Center, The Becket Fund, ACLJ, Americans United For Life, Amy C. Barrett/People Of Praise, GOPee, Students For Life Action, National Right To Life
Mother Pence and the GOPee. ROFLMAO!
Destroying Roe is just PART of the plot, as I have tried to communicate in various posts. This is all part of undermining a key liberal reading of the Constitution that posits liberties not explicitly stated in said Constitution. And doing away with federal protection for those liberties is the groundwork for enabling the coming fascist takeover in the United States.
How does a minority party seize and maintain power?by providing a veneer of legal justification and violently suppressing voting and dissent. And that starts with undermining the key nonfascist, democratic theory of implied rights. In fascist states, the only right is the might of the government, and people like Alito want it that way.
A 2022 candidate for U.S. Senate (Ohio) made the point in his campaign ads. Mike Gibbons who is Catholic tells the audience in his ads that the government doesn’t give us our rights. Instead, God gives us our rights.
Of course, Mike doesn’t tell the audience that men interpret the Bible
and claim to speak for God. Jim Jones knew a lot about the subject.
He sure did.
Why doesn’t God give those same rights to all?
Diane your posting is one of best ever. I continue to admire the way you express feelings about the issues you post here.
Roy,
I read the story at midnight last night and burst into tears. When I woke up, I was still in a hot fury and wrote it on my cellphone.
What I did not say is that I am opposed to abortion (I had an abortion against my will, to placate my husband). It eventually destroyed our marriage. But every woman should be able to make that choice. I regret–and will always regret–that as a very young woman many years ago, I did not have the strength to stand up against my husband. Every woman should have the power to make the decision that is best for her and it should not be controlled by state legislatures.
Diane: thanks so much for this reply. Bob Shepherd has so often spoken of the importance of narrative in our lives. Your sharing of this narrative, so personal and so freely given in this public place, is touching in a very emotional way. I feel like I have been allowed to go from this, your living room, to the kitchen, where real conversation occurs over coffee. Thank you for that.
Roy, I have never told this to anyone but my spouse and adult sons.
I know, Roy, right?
Work this morning to the following text from my friend:
So mad about this I can’t even feel anything.
Numb.
But, Bob, this is war.
Diane writes really well when she is furious. And when she isn’t.
A few brief comments:
(1) I think that if the Court were mostly Buddhist, Jewish, (fill in the blank), OR CATHOLIC (which it presently is) it would be an affront to a democratic secular culture, just by the look of it.
(2) Even though there is no principle that says a SC Judge will necessarily bend towards the doctrine of their own religion, in this case, it not only looks bad and seems obvious, I think IT IS the case–a killer for democracy. But among all the faiths I don’t think the Catholic Church has a lock on the idea of taking over everything.
(3) I also think we can thank Mitch McConnell and his “dark” puppet-masters for our present situation of having “too many Catholics on the Bench.” Right wing, fascist leaning, totalitarian-minded Catholics are hardly doing the work ascribed by their Biblical leader, though up to now they’ve been somewhat “in the closet” as they snookered the rest of the country in packing the Court. I would be wary of Amy B. if she lived on my street, much more so when she was accepted by that group of out-of-touch men presently on the “High” Court. And every time I see Bret, I think: a close equivalent of Marjorie.
(4) There is no such thing as an “originalist” view. That term is a laughable philosophical misnomer used by those who know little or nothing about how history, language, and interpretation actually work.
(5) Despite counter forces going on in high circles of the Catholic Church, also obvious (to me at least) is what the Jewish philosopher Eric Voegelin calls persons and groups whose main motivation is their own “libido dominandi” (Think of that big worm in Star Wars.)
(6) The Catholic Church is involved in a centuries-old movement of change. But of course, It’s a little late (understatement alert!) and spends too much time shooting itself in the foot and ruining people’s lives.
(7) I am Catholic (they would call me somewhat “lapsed”). However, and though I think a human life begins at conception (for many reasons that have nothing to do with religious beliefs), I also think neither the Court, nor the Priest, nor any government entity has a place in a woman’s decision to abort.
(8) I also think women, especially those who can become pregnant, should be extremely well-informed about such matters, including about their potential future, in either case of do or don’t. And THIS relates to the following:
(9) In all venues right now, even where the virus is concerned, there is lots of talk about freedom, but none about the responsibility that comes with it, especially in a democratic state where we all are supposed to on a track towards a modicum of maturity because WE are supposed to hold power and make choices.
As children are not born as already-developed wise people, it remains the responsibility of those people and institutions (the courts, the religious institutions, families, schools, individuals) to be informed, to INFORM, and to foster responsible adulthood in ourselves and others . . . before, out of our ignorance, arrogance, and adolescent attitudes, we visit our less than developed mentality on other human beings. CBK
CBK,
I have already been heavily criticized by my partner, who is Roman Catholic, for expressing my outrage about the religious composition of the Court.
I should have added that Justice Sonia Sotomayer is Catholic, as is President Biden, and they don’t agree with the Alito decision.
I should also should point out that a Supreme Court dominated by Orthodox Jews would have made the same decision; they are as opposed to abortion as the Barrett-Alito wing of the Court.
I don’t want this decision, if it is released as currently written, to turn anyone against Catholics, but to turn them in favor of supporting candidates–of whatever religion–who support progressive policies, including women’s right to choose, civil rights, opposition to gerrymandering, gay marriage, and other policies that strengthen our rights, our freedoms, and our democracy.
Diane You wrote: “I should have added that Justice Sonia Sotomayer is Catholic, as is President Biden, and they don’t agree with the Alito decision.”
Broad brushes and hate-mongers don’t pay attention to such things. Such facts, even if having some truth, are merely “cover stories” to hide the bigger truths (the twisted and overblown false equivalences kind in some minds).
As your note suggests, however, political overreach in the name of religious dogma is indeed present, but not derived from the Catholic Church, as with other religions in their different ways. It’s a human problem evident in any “religion” or secular organization, for that matter. Look at the oligarchs among us? I don’t support such overreach, on the contrary. I just don’t equate it with all-things-Catholic. Nor does everyone, Catholics included. Being Catholic is not a red flag to scream GOTCHA! at.
In either case, extreme talk is not helpful; and equating any religious affiliation with the likes of Jim Jones only adds fire to the extremes we are already involved in. I don’t “take the bait,” but it still makes me sick to my stomach.
A battering ram made of the idea of Absolutist Perfectionism OR banishment can be manifestly worse. CBK
CBK, please read revisions to my original post.
Orthodox Jews would be just as awful if not worse.
Diane I DID read it. I think it was Anne who reflected that others from other religions might be more secular. On the premise that such power mongering is a human thing, however, and not tied to any one particular religion, I agree that power mongers do what power mongers are, regardless of the religious venue.
The other thing is that, insofar as tribal consciousness is in power, it’ll remain a zero-sum-game. CBK
Is the caveat, “turning anyone against Catholics,” a deflection?
Do we witness Americans distinguishing between liberal protestants and evangelical Christians? Orthodox and reformed Jews? With many years under our belts, I trust the country to understand that individual members of religious sects aren’t monolithic. As that understanding came to pass so did some religious sect leaders become intensely political. One sect, in particular, created political organizations in every state that have exerted substantial power.
The U.S. theocracy isn’t powered by sects that are at numbers of less than 5% of the population. Is bringing them up a deflection?
I am not aware of any sect’s religious institutions commanding more space in the public square than the Catholic sect. Catholic schools in Ohio get the overwhelming amount of voucher money and I presume that’s true in other states. The teachers in those schools are unlikely to be unionized (about 10% of Catholic schools are unionized). As non-profits, Catholic hospitals (1 in 6 U.S. hospitals) keep all of the revenue less expenses from tax dollars spent at the facilities. Research showed they provide no more indigent care than private hospitals. It creates a greater burden for public hospitals who care for the poor because religious institutions are exempted from the taxes that for-profits hospitals pay. Catholic organizations have carved out a huge share of the employment market in the U.S. due to tax funded services they provide (as private entities). Catholic organizations are the U.S.’ 3rd largest employer. To my knowledge, the SCOTUS jurists have exempted only one group of employees from civil rights employment law protections- teachers in religious schools.
The case that was brought to SCOTUS involved a Catholic school. The major beneficiary of that SCOTUS decision and many that we can anticipate in the future will be disproportionately Catholic in terms of dollars.
When I referred to Jews as being pro-choice and pro-separation of church and state, I was referring to those in the Conservative and Reform movements (which together make up almost 70% of American Jewry). Orthodox are about 6%. Today the CCAR (Central Conference of American Rabbis–Reform Rabbinate) came out with a strongly pro-choice policy statement.https://www.ccarnet.org/statement-reproductive-justice-united-states/
Thank you, Anne, for telling us about the rabbis’ statement which indicates belief in equality for women (pro choice protections). The rabbis’ follow through with activism is essential. Their efforts would contrast with what the women-hating clergy who use Christ’s name to subjugate women have done, are doing, and plot to do in the future.
Boston Globe, picture showing protesters holding signs that read:
Catholics Support Access to Abortion CBK
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/05/03/nation/leaked-roe-decision-rips-through-washington-prompting-accusations-betrayal/?p1=SectionFront_Feed_ContentQuery
There are almost 50 state Catholic Conferences. They are the political arm of the Bishops. They are very well-connected in the statehouses. Btw- very few women are in leadership positions at the Conferences.
Citizens can inform themselves with an internet search of Catholic Conference and right to life (select a single state or review all of them).
LInda: I have never denied the power of the Catholic Church, for good OR for bad, or claimed that the conservative/right wing of the Church presently is not involved in overreach. They are.
Polemics are always everywhere and, depending on the discourse, can be easily driven further into their corners. Perhaps you only have a problem dealing with complexity, like so many on the “other side.” In any case, In this environment, throwing examples back and forth serves no purpose except what-about-ism. It doesn’t seem to make solutions for anyone. (You started here with me by GOTCHA! . . . I’m Catholic so I must be an unthinking follower of the authority of the Church.)
My complaint to you is your egregiously selective omissions, including of history, your over-the-top tone of hate of “Catholic”, and your broad brushing of all things and people-Catholic with the ultra-conservative movements that ARE present in the Church . . . but that we also can find in ANY religious organization . . . defensive, fearful, closed-minded people who serve themselves more than anything the founders, or other group members, endorse or would endorse.
And there seems to be little or no subject on this site that you DON’T attach to the evils of Catholicism.
I thought those signs in Boston . . . a notably Catholic-related town . . ., the way the signs were written spoke reams about the people who held them.
“Catholics Support Access to Abortion.” I read that as, they are “pro-life,” . . . they don’t say they “support abortion.” But they support ACCESS, and so they endorse Roe-v-Wade, leaving the anti-abortion laws out of it.
If you ever saw a picture of Catholics with those signs, would you ignore or try to hide them? Ask yourself that . . . I really don’t care. CBK
I firmly believe that if the majority of the SCOTUS were Jewish or Buddhist there would be an insistence on the separation between church and state and on the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion. Minority religions understand that there is no true religious freedom without a clear separation, and there is much writing by Jews on this topic. What we are witnessing is the triumph of Christian Nationalism, which holds that the US is a country founded by white Christians on white Christian principles. OK, so sometimes they throw in the word “Judeo” (Christian) to give themselves a veneer of inclusiveness, but they are ignorant of Jewish teachings and Jewish values. Furthermore, who do you think is having all the abortions? It’s certainly not Jews, who are 2.4% of the U.S. population
Perfectly said and argued, Anne.
In all of this, I think that the most dramatic change to law is contained in the employment of vigilantes to enforce the laws that are being made forbidding anything from CRT to abortion. Recent laws essentially deputize the public to benefit from reporting on people who transgress against the laws. This takes us back to an era when the lynch mob was a way of doing things. Legalizing rumor and implication of evil serves to suppress human activity in a way that is detrimental to any society. It was one of the reasons Gorbachev thought Glasnost and Perestroika were necessary for rescuing the imploding Soviet Union. It was the reason the Nazi revolution began to unravel itself even before it failed. And it will certainly stifle creative solutions to problems that arise in a free society.
Yeah, this is the America being born. Vigilantes and armed citizens militias. And Barr’s little green men in Portland.
the Repugnican’s new America, which will look a lot like East Germany before the fall of the evil empire
cx: Republicans’
Jeez. I am so furious about this stuff and worried for the future of my country that my writing is full of typos.
Breathe, Bob.
This will not end abortions, just safe and legal abortions. I am incensed by this likely Supreme Court decision.
Yeah, we will be back to stuff too horrible even to mention. But some of us are old enough to remember those pre-Roe days.
The moment that the GOP controls the House, Senate, and Presidency, the push will be on for a Federal ban on all abortions. This will be in the sure knowledge that the Supreme Court will uphold any such law.
Exactly, Mr. Gehardt! Coming to a once-democratic country you know and love!
Good afternoon Diane and everyone,
The next question will be under what circumstances can the government/state force a woman to have an abortion. If it can force a woman to have a child, it just follows that it may also be able to force her to undergo an abortion against her will.
Haaa!
Why is there no outrage that a SC “draft” was leaked to the public?…isn’t that called theft? Of course everyone knows/knew that the overturning of Roe was a possibility, but a draft doesn’t mean it’s set in stone. The whole thing doesn’t sit right with me.
I guess maybe I have a special interest in this kind of thing but it’s absolutely terrible in my view.
Interesting speculation on this thread.
Fascinating. I loved this one:
So, it seems the justices think that their opinions have a fundamental right of privacy. –Jon Stewart
That was my gut instinct….but I’m not a lawyer and I know little about law/government (except what I learned on School House Rock!). Something about all of this doesn’t feel right to me and I’m not about to take the bait. To me there is more “noise” with the silence than the screaming outrage.
I think the theory that this leak was done by a far right wing clerk is spot on. The leak codifies this when these kinds of opinions are sometimes softened during the process.
Is there a way for this opinion to be any more to the right?
Did one of the clerks on the far right give this to one of their right wing billionaire pals to assure them they would get everything they want?
Republicans are outraged by the leak, not the overturning of Roe.
They ignore Kavanaugh and Gorsuch publicly promising not to overturn Roe.
Liars.
They have brought disrespect on the Court.
It’s as political as Congress.
The only thing we know for sure is the leaker will be condemned by either the right or the left, and forgiven if not lauded by the other, depending on whether the leaker is conservative or liberal.
There is practically zero chance that this will change. A vote was taken. The majority opinion was drafted.
Why does it matter that the draft was “leaked”?
It’s not national security. It is customary to keep it secret, but not sure there is a law.
Bob Woodward wrote a fascinating book called “The Brethren” that I read many decades ago. I recall there being complaints that there were “leaks”.
A decision by the Supreme Court is NOT an issue of national security. I would not be surprised if one of the far right ideologue’s clerks leaked it but it’s good for the Supreme Court which is apparently now comprised of folks who all misled at their hearings to have to hear how their political decisions are playing out.
As Jon Stewart tweeted, “Women have no right to privacy, but the Supreme Court does.”
I don’t expect ordinary citizens to be upset about the leak. But it’s a horrible breach of the confidence of the Court. The Court functions by having Justices speak openly and freely with their colleagues. It’s a key, really the key, part of the process of deliberation. It relies on Justices having absolute trust among each other and their staff. Without that trust, Justices will work in silos, consensus will become more difficult, and Justices will be less willing to change their minds or modify opinions in response to the concerns of others. And in the context of the Dobbs case, there’s a nontrivial chance that the leaking of this draft has an impact on what the final opinions and votes look like. That’s a huge thing.
I don’t think leaking a draft like this breaks any criminal laws, but I hope the leaker is found out and suffers serious consequences.
Might be Alito’s clerk. Wanted to see a public celebration.
Flerp under normal circumstances, there is a place for such privacy–while things are worked out and where we can assume authenticity all-around for producing a qualified policy/law.
In this case, however, we are seeing that assumption tipped over in the mud. I have little doubt the die was cast even while those two clowns were being “vetted” in Congress. CBK
About Flerp’s point
In the context of Clarence Thomas’ wife getting $600,000 from the Koch’s Heritage Foundation …and Clarence not reporting it,
In the context of SCOTUS’ decisions about corporate personhood, tax funding for religious schools, exemptions from civil rights employment law…
prioritization of focus should probably be on what Americans have a right to expect from SCOTUS jurists… and then, way down the line, situational factors that SCOTUS jurists have a right to expect for themselves
I hope women and other choice supporters show up at the midterm polls and block the predicted right wing government takeover.
None of these things justify leaking, in my view. Undermining and destabilizing our most important institutions is not good for anyone. If it’s determined that a Justice is responsible for this leak, that Justice should be impeached and removed. If it’s a law clerk, the clerk should be fired and disbarred. Just one man’s opinion.
We just went through four years of watching as the President and his Cabinet broke norms. It’s contagious. Even Congress broke norms, many voting not to certify the election of 2020. Despite the 70 or so court cases declaring that there was no evidence of fraud in a scale that would change the outcome of the election, most Republicans believe it was rigged and the former president repeats the lie wherever he speaks. The last four years of norm-breaking has weakened all
Norms.
From your mouth to God’s ears, retired! I hope she’s listening!
A LEAK has nothing to do with “norms” and this leak especially is completely harmless — this is likely the final draft that will soon be public. It doesn’t undermine anything and it certainly doesn’t affect the trust among each other.
What undermines and destablilizes our most important institutions is breaking REAL norms. Doing something like committing perjury during your confirmation hearing and suffering no consequences. Breaking a norm is when you headline right wing events and your wife foments an insurrection and enriches your family fortune because she gets huge amounts of money from right wing groups. Breaking the norm is yelling and snarling at the top your lungs during a confirmation hearing and refusing to explain why all your debt was suddenly paid off.
It is clear there is a cabal on the right that only cares about pushing their own agenda and there is no “process” or “deliberation” or “trust” because that cabal breaks the norms. John Roberts likely agrees with their positions but the problem is that the cabal on the right does not respect norms.
There is a law against perjury. Impeach the perjurers! If not, put them on trial in DC and let a jury decide. If Bill Clinton was guilty of perjury because he defined sexual relations as intercourse only – because he intentionally offered a misleading answer that could be said to be technically true – then those justices committed the same perjury. Sure they can say that they were intentionally being deceptive under oath like Bill Clinton, and they can say that in their own mind they weren’t committing perjury because they were using definitions of words that were their own. But no one believed it when Clinton said it and no one should believe it when the Justices say it.
Why didn’t those justices just say “I don’t agree that Roe v Wade is decided law? Why commit perjury and mislead the Senators?”
I’ll tell you why. Because they wanted the Republican Senators who would not have confirmed them if they hadn’t committed perjury to confirm them.
The Heritage Foundation paid Justice Thomas’ wife $600,000
NYCPSP, I could not disagree more strongly with your first paragraph.
Conservative religious will lie (as Barrett did during the confirmation hearings), will overthrow democratically elected governments (Jan.6) and, will murder to advance the power of those within their sect.
There was a check on the power of the theocracy… before an axis formed between protestant evangelicals and conservative Catholics. Pat Buchanan has a post at his site about the alliance that started with Scalia’s appointment (Ryan Girdusky interview).
Media protect the Catholic ally, creating a guise that evangelical protestants are alone in support of the GOP. The ruse helps the right wing agenda succeed.
FLERP!,
Brilliant argument. Your ability to convince others using argument and evidence is unsurpassed. You have convinced me! This is atrocious! This leak is one of the most harmful, truly dangerous things to ever happen to American democracy in the last 250 years. Nothing in history and nothing that ever will happen in history will ever do the kind of damage that a leak of a majority opinion has done.
Our country is done. Not because of the horrible things that the Republicans have done and condoned to thwart democracy. Not because of the blatant lies that every leader of the Republican party is still spewing to convince as many Americans as possible that the election was “stolen” from Trump and Biden was not legally elected and using violence to “take back” the White house that was stolen from you is perfectly fine.
Nope, it’s this leak.
flerp!, are you one of those folks who says there is no way that anyone in the right wing cabal of justices and their clerks ever leaks to Leonard Leo’s folks about what is going on and perhaps even give them draft versions of their decisions? Maybe Alito and his clerks get a little writing help on their decisions from outside scholars the way that Ken Starr and the Independent Counsel’s Office staff were speaking with their “besties” – the little cabal of right wing elves working behind the scenes on the Paula Jones case and “suggesting” Linda Tripp break the law. (Taping a woman recounting a sexual affair without her consent is illegal. Now we can’t advise you or anything, but if you or your pals just happen to walk out of Victoria Toensing’s office after bringing her your tapes with titillating details of sex and if you happened to then start urging Monica to tell the president to get her job, and your tape recorder happened to be recording, that happy coincidence might just be helpful.).
You can come back and cite this post anytime. Because I am stating right here that the leak itself is absolutely no big deal, whether it is coming from the left or the right. What is a big deal is conspiring with very powerful outsiders and letting them influence majority decisions. Leaking a basically finished majority draft shortly before the publication – either because you want to force the justices who already signed on to stay signed on or because you find the majority decision appalling – is not the issue. I think we all know the cabal of 5 right wing justices weren’t going to change their mind.
But would there be an investigation into ALL the contacts that the Justices and clerks had? Would they be asked under oath if they had ever heard of anyone telling Leonard Leo or his minions or friends or anyone else about the deliberations? Not a chance.
NYCPSP, I had no expectation of convincing you. I never do. What I do expect is for you to write long comments responding to arguments nobody made. I’m never disappointed.
NYC-
Thank you for reminding us about the likelihood of leaks to Leonard Leo. Your insights in many threads would assist media writers who want to expand their coverage so that the truth is told.
I write the following because others won’t. MAGA would not be the threat it is without the backing of the alliance of the two major conservative religious sects- plural.
For people to talk about the overturn of Roe and to fail to mention the Catholic Church is sickening in its ludricrousness.
Linda writes: “For people to talk about the overturn of Roe and to fail to mention the Catholic Church is sickening in its ludricrousness.”
Now THAT’s an interesting question. I think two things are at work here:
(1) The First Amendment: “Freedom of Religion. I think everyone in the USA still has that emblazoned somewhere in our inner lives, and so hold it dear. Their and other religions’ views of life, for all their twists and turns, are THEIR doctrine, along with the other freedoms, including the right to assembly peaceably and to “petition their government for a redress of their grievances.”
(2) Also, what you don’t seem to “get” is: I suspect that most understand the difference between “The Catholic Church” AND the right wingers in it who HAVE overreached into politics in what is fundamentally a secular state. Indeed, they are dangerous to the health of the democracy they live in. And I think even Pope Francis understands that difference, as do MANY MANY in the Church.
The irony is that their totalitarian power antics are equivalent to shooting their own religious freedom in the foot . . .as they abuse their rights to live here as they practice their freedoms, they threaten those rights’ existence . . . the one’s that enable THEM to ignorantly commit that overreach.
Those who sit on the Court took an oath to the Constitution. We didn’t appoint them as representatives of ANY Church. If deep-down they think otherwise, they should either step down or be impeached. They are what we used to call in the Cold War: MOLES. I think that’s the core of the abortion situation. But they have indeed stepped into VERY HOT WATER. My own respect for the Court is, if not gone, on the way out the door.
And speaking of shooting yourself in the foot, I think you are so contemptuous of “The Catholic Church” that you have blinded yourself to anything that either calls for nuance or that doesn’t support your own hate and the mongering of it. CBK
FLERP!,
you don’t make arguments. You either link to misleading right wing twitter feeds that use scare tactics to push their right wing agenda, or you do what you did here and offer your opinion as an argument.
And your opinion isn’t even logical! If you really believed “The Court functions by having Justices speak openly and freely with their colleagues.” then you would be far more outraged about the years of leaks of the deliberations and discussions, not this one leak with an early release of a majority opinion.
If you really believed Justices must have absolute trust in one another, you would be outraged and condemning the cabal of 5 right wing justices and their behavior in which they insult and ignore their colleagues (including the conservative John Roberts) because they believe might makes right and 5 of them can do what they want. That didn’t happen because someone leaked this majority opinion. It happened because the people who wrote this majority opinion broke those norms already.
You describe some supposed “reality” that doesn’t exist now as if it does exist now, but it won’t anymore because of the leak.
I absolutely agree with you that there is a value in having the Justices speak freely with their colleagues and there is a value in having Justices willing to change their minds or modify opinions in response to the concerns of others.
It’s a shame that because of what you correctly cited elsewhere — the folks who wanted to prevent a Democrat from nominating Justices regardless of whether they were on the far right or if they claim to be leftists who think we are stupid enough to believe they wanted to keep a right wing Supreme Court to help further their progressive agenda — this Supreme Court has a cabal of 5 right wing justices who are just interested in power and have already made it clear they don’t want to speak freely with colleagues or modify opinions because they don’t care about anything but imposing their will on the country.
This leak is not why the Supreme Court isn’t working.
This leak is the RESULT of the 5 right wing justice cabal already having destroyed those very norms you say you value. Those norms of speaking freely and discussing and modifying were already broken by that right wing cabal in control of the court that rejects the idea that justices would speak freely and there is a value in discussion and modifying opinion.
Why would you scapegoat a leak for what that right wing cabal did long before that leak?? I hope you don’t offer your “opinion” that the cabal of 5 right wing justices time traveled to the future, knew a leak would come in May, and then returned to last December and decided they would break all the norms you value?
NYCPSP, what are you talking about? I explained why I think the leak is a very bad thing. You disagree. Fine. Why do you keep ranting at me?
The leak is a bad thing.
The decision is a heinous crime that strips women of their right to control their own bodies.
Why is the leak a bad thing?
Are you angry about something I wrote here? Or are you angry because I didn’t write things that you want me to write? It’s hard to tell because as usual you seem to be attributing statements to me that I didn’t make.
Flerp!,
I started this thread.
A leak can’t undermine norms that don’t exist anymore. If you want to argue that this particular leak would undermine norms that don’t exist anymore, you should offer something other than your “opinion” that it does. Even if I accepted the very questionable premise that these norms currently exist, you should at least provide some convincing argument for why leaking an already written majority opinion signed by the cabal of 5 justices that is due to be released shortly would have any affect on discussions and would affect justices speaking openly and freely with colleagues. This isn’t a tape recording of justices speaking openly and freely with colleagues. This leak is simply an early view of what happens AFTER all of the speaking open and freely occurs.
You have provided no argument whatsoever that an early leak of an already written majority decision 5 justices signed onto would in any way make justices trust each other less and therefore stop working together and be unwilling to change their mind. It is just your “opinion”. It is your “opinion” that these norms exist. It is your “opinion” that a leak of an already written majority opinion that 5 justices signed onto a few weeks early will gravely endanger these norms even though there isn’t any reason to believe it will except your “opinion”.
More absurdly, there isn’t any reason to believe those norms you describe exist anymore except your “opinion”, which is contrary to what most of us see right in front of us. We see the cabal of right wing justices who have already thrown out the “norms”, including one member of that cabal who is only there because the Republicans said that 7 months before a presidential election is “too late” to hold a vote on a nominee, and a second member of that cabal who is only there because the Republicans said a few weeks before election day, after early voting has already started, is a perfect time to rush through a nominee and hold a vote.
“Norms” would be a Republican controlled Senate holding an up or down vote on a nominee many months before an election and not holding a vote on a nominee 6 weeks before the election. It isn’t doing the exact opposite. “Norms” is a Republican Senate voting down a Supreme Court nominee. It isn’t refusing to allow a vote because 7 months is “too early”. Exactly what “norms” still existed when two members of the right wing cabal that rejects the “norms” flerp! is worried about are only there because they already showed they would break “norms” when they accepted their nomination?
It is absolutely true that flerp! has an “opinion” that these norms exist and has an “opinion” that this leak endangers those norms. It is absolutely true that many Trump voters have an “opinion” that the election was stolen from Trump.
People who offer their “opinions” should not act victimized if they are asked to defend their “opinions”. As we know from Trump voters, they don’t like to have to defend their “opinions”. They believe it and that means anyone who challenges their opinion must shut up.
Some people believe the fact that they hold an “opinion” speaks for itself and it’s wrong for anyone to ask that they provide some argument or rationale for that opinion. They attack those who explain why their opinion is wrong instead of simply defending their opinion with a believable argument. (And shouting “Voter fraud” isn’t a believable argument)
I don’t mind being challenged to defend what I believe. Why would I?
The bigger question is why some folks do mind being challenged to defend what they believe and are so angry act victimized if they ever have to do it.
No, Lisa started this thread. She asked why people weren’t outraged about the leak. I told her that I was and I explained why I was. For some reason, this seems to have really got you angry. If you don’t think my explanation of why the leak matters is persuasive, that’s fine, I can live with that. I just don’t see why you need to go on and on and on about me. I don’t feel victimized; I feel bewildered. This is weird.
@ May 5, 2022 at 4:40 pm
Máté Wierdl says “Why is the leak a bad thing?”
Good question.
If Alito and the other extremist right-wing “justices” are so offended with rights they consider not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution, why don’t they start with corporations as persons with free speech rights and with money as speech?
Helping The Right Wing Bounty Hunters
It costs just over $160 to get a week’s worth of data on where people who visited Planned Parenthood came from and where they went afterwards. SafeGraph gets location data from phone apps and then sells the info. Sam Alito Alliance!
vice.com/en/article/m7v…
!!!!!
People visit Planned Parenthood all the time. The data doesn’t give what type of service these people are seeking. PP is NOT just for abortion. Women can get mammograms, physicals, birth control, mental health care etc. and I believe some PPs have child care services. If a PP gets a lot of foot traffic, it just means that those people are likely poor or don’t have adequate health insurance. As for SafeGraph…..that’s just pretty creepy and the public deserves to know about that.
Is this a new thing? Can a liberal group see where people who visit neo-Nazi meetings and Ku Klux Klan meetings and strip clubs that white businessmen go to and meth labs and methodone clinics in white Republican neighborhoods come from and where they go right after?
Here’s the point of my various posts on this topic: The exact same arguments that Alito makes in this decision can be made to sweep away a whole body of law conveying rights that extremist Repugnicans like Alito want to do away with. With this decision in place, they can simply copy and paste. A whole body of law tending toward liberty and justice, gone.
So, as bad as this decision is–and it is really, really bad–it’s just the beginning of The Reversal.
How bad? Well, this bad:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/abortion-11-year-old-pregnant_n_6266e555e4b07c34e9e4cb27
Alito does say in the decision that it is JUST about abortion. But he’s not an idiot. He knows full well that he has made a full-throated, GENERAL attack on implicit rights. That’s the point. That and delivering for the Trumpanzee base of his political party. This is as baldly political a decision as one can imagine.
The other implicit message is that precedent doesn’t matter to this radical court
Yes
When Alito attacks “the right to privacy,” and says it does not appear in the Constitution, he opens the door to future abandonment of precedent. Nothing in the Constitution protects the privacy of your bedroom, and nothing protects your right to marry whom you wish. Blacks and whites did not marry when the Constitution was written, nor did gays.
I still that Barrett should resign, along with the two Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch who outright lied to members of the U.S. Senate, insisting that they would never overturn Roe, which was settled.
Liars appointed by the Liar in Chief.
The resident contrarian, D-77, is scolding the Democrats because they didn’t do this, that or the other thing. News flash, Biden is not a dictator, the Democrats have DINOs and right wingers like Manchin and Sinema to deal with. And of course, the GOP blocks everything the Democrats do at every and all opportunities. Even if Jill Stein became president (which will never happen because she polled at 3%) she would be thwarted by the 2 major parties. Don’t blame me, we live in a duopoly, we have the crazy nuts far right wing party that wants to destroy democracy or the Democrats. Third parties, right or left, don’t stand a chance, live with it. I will unapologetically vote Democratic, whether it’s Hillary, Biden or Harris mainly because of the SCOTUS situation. It’s too bad that Ralph Nader didn’t run as a Democrat, he could have changed the party from within but no, he was too “good” and too “moral” to ever run as a D. The Democrats have been infiltrated by some very good progressives like Bernie, AOC, Ilan Omar, etc. Some ultra lefties even bash Bernie and AOC because they have had to make some compromises to get anything done. That’s our democracy, Bernie and AOC have to live with and work with moderate Dems and crazy nuts like MTG, Boebert, Hawley, Gohmert, etc. ad nauseam.
Dienne repeatedly scolded us all, saying that Biden was as bad as Trump. Well, here we are. A decision made by three Trump appointees joining the two extremist right-wingers already on the court. That The Idiot was in that office, even after losing the popular vote, mattered. It mattered a lot. And that’s precisely what Diane and others of us said back then.
I am hoping and waiting for the day when Dienne admits she was wrong to attack the Democratic candidate in 2016, and when she was wrong to make excuses for Putin. When she went into moderation after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I deleted her comments that echoed Putin propaganda, like the Ukrainians really are Nazis, Putin was justified in invading, etc.
I’m not holding my breath. She’s so far left that she’s in the same space with the Putin-loving far-right.
She isn’t far left. She is so far right that it seems as if she is far left.
Her talking points include attacking Dems with every right wing trope from “identity politics” (anything that isn’t white supremacy) to lies about Ukraine being full of “Nazis” so that the white supremacists’ favorite leader Putin must massacre people there.
She calls Dems “warmongers” for supporting no fly zones in Syria to protect families from a ruthless far right leader who bombs them, and she calls Dems “warmongers” for supporting Ukraine and not letting Putin bomb the country to shreds.
Do you know who she doesn’t call “warmonger”? Putin. The guy bombing the heck out of Ukraine. He’s just doing what he is provoked into doing by real warmongers like the ones who want no fly zones.
And most recently she blames RBG because she wanted the far right to have a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court and not a 6-4 majority!
Anyone who intentionally voted to preserve a 5-4 right wing majority on the Supreme Court is right wing. Especially when they were guaranteed to have a 5-4 liberal majority but they wanted the right wing majority.
And nothing says right wing more than to lie and scapegoat a Jew and a woman to cover up the bad decision that you won’t apologize for.
https://www.vox.com/2019/5/24/18630825/abortion-roe-v-wade-vs-jane-collective
” Justice Samuel Alito claims that the 50-year-old decision was wrongly decided,”…. This does read like the sort of thing you would read in a crime novel where the gang boss gets off because of his shrewd amoral loophole expert lawyer.
‘Claims’ does he?…. Do I also detect the faint aroma of ‘snake oil’ coming from the Supreme Court offices?
Did Alito conveniently ignore the ninth amendment?
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.“
I’ve never liked the term “unenumerated rights” because the point is not whether they are numbered but whether they are expressed, so I avoided it in my comments on this decision. But that’s what the decision is about. Extreme conservatives have always HATED the legal theory of there being unenumerated rights implicit in the general concepts of the Constitution because they believe that they should have the power to impose their constraints on the possibilities of human action on others. No, you cannot marry across racial lines. No, you cannot use contraception. No, you cannot smoke marijuana. No, you cannot sell sexual services. No, you cannot marry someone of the same sex. No, you cannot adopt a gender identity different from your biological sex. No, you cannot vote unless [long list of prohibitions here that make it more difficult for poor people to vote].
And that’s the larger point of the Alito decision. It is not just a decision about abortion rights. It is a template for decisions about this AND other unenumerated rights. Even as it overturns Supreme Court precedent on abortion, it serves as a precedent for overturning an entire body of law based on unenumerated rights, and if you actually read the decision (how many have?), you will find that it was carefully written to lay out IN GENERAL the theory for overturning that body of law and its associated rights. The decision is, and is meant to be, revolutionary.
One of the frequent commenters here, Greg Brozeit, who is fluent in German and a profound scholar of modern German history, made the point that the now extremist Republican Party in America–the party led by the man who wanted police and the military to SHOOT BLM protestors and unarmed asylum seekers–intends to seize control in this country and impose fascism and that in order to do this, it will have to establish a legal framework that enables that. It will use the law to clothe fascism in traditional American garb. And you accomplish that end by getting the right judges in place and passing the right laws and getting the imprimatur of the courts on those laws–ones that eliminate in one fell swoop whole bodies of rights under the law and give the state the power to use its monopoly on violence to ensure that those rights are not exercised. So, in Germany, you couldn’t have the Nazi government without the Enabling Act and its imprimatur by German courts. We are Germany in 1932.
So, beyond simply women’s reproductive rights, as important, as essential as those are–there is this more general problem with the Alito decision. It is a plug-and-play boilerplate for eliminating the whole body of law related to unenumerated rights and thereby eliminating those rights. You might think of it as a kind of Bill of anti-Rights. It is a revolutionary document, akin to a revised, fascist Constitution for a new, Trumpier American government with a far more powerful coercive state.
I completely agree with what you’re saying. For the past year or so Ive been trying to convince my family that we need to leave the U.S. but I can’t convince them of the danger we are in.
You’re going to miss all the excitement living there in New Zealand, lol!
My apologies, Mr. Gerhardt. Bad attempt at a joke. This is not a laughing matter.
Not at all. Anyway, Im interested in Portugal. 😊
NICE!
cx: It is a revolutionary document, akin to a revised, fascist Constitution for a new, Trumpier American government, a far more powerful coercive state.
Thank you Bob for this chillingly accurate analysis. I agree that Alito is asserting the legal framework to dismantle a whole host of rights… while of course maintaining that his reasoning is applicable to only this one issue. He’s constructed a legal slippery slope that he now claims we are not barreling down.
Thank you, Callisto. Means a lot to me!
He’s laughing to his buddies at the club about this right now, I suspect. He knows precisely what he has done and what he intends this to accomplish in the long run. The ultra conservatives on the court, having finally attained a majority, have published their manifesto here. This is what the future looks like, they are saying.
RiseUp4AbortionRights.org
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Thanks, Ms. Avakian!
One more thing to post here: this excellent piece by Caitlin Flanagan.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/12/the-things-we-cant-face/600769/
So, is being, male, a characteristic of about 90+% of the people who actually make the decision to outlaw abortion and, are 100% of those who write articles that make the arguments that support anti-abortion laws (even subtle ones), female? Seems like a statistical anomaly.
Robert P. George and one state politician were honest in their aside comments. George said some people believe abortion access increases promiscuity. The state politician identified himself as one who believed that. They are both Catholic.
The pedophile priests (all male) can be promiscuous without consequences.
I don’t understand your comment, Linda.
These Trump-loving poor people — the ones who voted for Trump — really screwed themselves. They need the right to abortion more than any other group, and now it’s gone, or soon will be. Also, Susan Collins should hang her head in shame.
Jack Only two alternatives for Collins: Naivete OR Complicity.
I saw the writing on the wall during the confirmations. Didn’t you?
Susan Collins is giving herself a very firm talking to and shaking her her head vigorously and wagging her finger at herself once. Or perhaps twice.
She is writing a strongly worded e-mail to herself and sending it straight to her draft folder.
She is quietly mumbling a strong rebuke (to herself)…into her lean cuisine.
And if the Republicans offer up a law that life begins at conception, well then Susan Collins would say “that would be the most outrageous, ridiculous thing that I ever end up definitely voting for.”
If you think Susan Collins is a pushover then… you know….(murmurs indistinctly…) And yes, hangs her head in shame.
Really worth watching again: the SNL cold open from May 11, 2019 with Meet the Press. Cecily Strong is brilliant.
Max Fisher observed that new limits on abortion rights correlate with backsliding democracies.
Is it possible that they leaked the memo just to test waters? If so, what reaction would stop the judges from going ahead with their plan?
The good side? Maybe THIS will wake up, not only “the democrats,” but the sleepwalking democratic spirit that’s gone missing for so long. CBK