tecoyah

I just dont know....and would like opinion on the likelyhood of Roe vs. Wade falling after Roberts is confirmed (as I feel its a given). I was looking at a couple things for my wife and found this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...102500_pf.html

My question is, do you think it likely the scales will now be tipped to overturn the legislation.....or is the right to choose safe?

j8ear

I think the right to choose, or extinguish the life you've created by engaging in behavior which resulted in it's creation, is safe.

Two points:

1. It is not legislation. It is judicial fiat that created, out of thin air, a right ennumerated no where, by no one, in any document, that regulates how this country operates.

2. I believe while this invented right, (whether I like it or not, IT IS a right) is safe, HOWEVER, I do believe that limits can and SHOULD be placed on this right. For example, partial birth abortion, minor parental notification, possibily even father involvement, are some limitations that should exist. These are NOT restrictions, but instead limitations.

OK I've got a third too. This is for states to decide as far as I'm concerned, and so far, except for a tiny handful, most would maintain the status quo, while only implementing some of these minor limitations I outlined. Of course, father involvement is a long shot, and probably out of the main stream, but I still feel strongly about it. If you can be forced to pay child support, you should also have the option of being involved in any decisions involving a life you created. I am also, for the record, somewhat torn on the 'my body,' 'my nine months' side of the coin as well. Not much, mind you but somewhat. I think my definition of a choice starts ALOT earlier then when to extinguish the life growing inside of you....(this is why rape is a different stories, imho).

-bear

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Lebell

I personally don't think Roe vs Wade will be overturned. Too much precedence, IMO.

I could be wrong, however.

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Mojo_PeiPei

I like John Roberts, judging by his some of his remarks I am really hopeful he will be a strict interpreter. Biden was yapping today, trying to draw answers out of Roberts, bitching about how Senators couldn't get elected without telling people where they stand on particular issues, it was pathetic, like it somehow had any bearing on Roberts' nomination.

As far as the chance of Roe v. Wade falling, I couldn't say. It all depends on the second nomination, as it stands right now with Rehnquist gone, O' Day is staying on if I remember correctly. Roe v. Wade and it's successor cases were all usually decided with a 6-3 vote, so had Rehnquist not died and O' Connor left it would've been 5-4 with Roe v. Wade. With Rehnquist dead and a new nomination filling out the nine I don't see that changing (The 5-4 vote mainting the status quo).

Fundamentally I don't know if Roberts would overturn it. He has stated how he is by and large behind the principle of a right to privacy. The importance of that is, Conservatives maintain there is no such thing as a right to privacy, it is no where mentioned in the constitution (which is true), and it was improperly inferred with the case of Griswold V. COnnecticut. I don't know where that leaves us, maybe Roberts would be more partial to voting on the constitutionality of issues like Partial Birth abortion bans and the ilk, setting new precedents. By and large the man is wicked smart and deeply respected, his reputation isn't that of a staunch conservative more a solid interpretor of the constitution, which I hope is the case.

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politicophile

Prior to O'Connor and Rehnquist leaving, Roe would have been upheld by 6-3. Presumably, O'Connor will remain on the court for the coming term. Rehnquist was one of the three who would have voted to overturn, so the balance, for the time being, will remain safely at 6-3 in the worst case scenerio for pro-choicers.

Even when O'Connor is replaced, there is no way Roe could be overturned, so abortion is safe... at least until the next Justice steps down.

Additionally, I am not at all convinced that Roberts is interested reversing that particular precident. As a moderate Republican myself, I am hopefull that Bush overestimated Roberts' conservatism and we end up with someone slightly to the left of Rehnquist, as opposed to a friend for Scalia.

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spongy

Don't forget that Bush might have nominated him for his mind not his politics.

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FoolThemAll

Personally, I'm of the belief that there IS a right to privacy, whether or not the Constitution provides for it, and that it should be protected. I'm also of the belief that all non-life-threatening abortions should be criminalized. Every right has its limitations.

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StanT

I would guess that he was nominated for his mind, his politics, and his ability to get confirmed.

Supreme Court justices are reluctant to over rule their predecesors. I don't see Roe v Wade being overturned.

spongy

SC justices also tend to realize after their first few years that their loyalty lies with the American Citizens and the Constitution, not the (usually gone by now) President that elected them.

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Ustwo

I'm sure even after Roberts gets on the court, the right for mothers to kill their unborn will be maintained.

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Elphaba

Ustwo, before Roe v. Wade became law, abortion existed for a very long time. I would prefer that it be legal and regulated than return to the desparate back alley coat hanger jobs.

dksuddeth

At what point in the history of our nation did we stop looking at the constitution as a document that restricted the government and start looking at it as a document that limited our rights and freedoms?

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Mojo_PeiPei

As a matter of perspective, but since when has killing an unborn child been a right or freedom in civilized society?

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dksuddeth

Since when did any state legislate when life begins? If there is no legally defined definition that specifically states that it is life at 'this' point in a pregnancy, we can only definitively define it as that instant the child is born, right? Otherwise, all we're doing is muddying the waters between what limits the government has placed upon them by our constitution or the limited rights the constitution affords us from the government.

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alansmithee

Wrong. It doesn't take the gov't to tell you when life begins. And there is much scientific opinion stating that life starts soon after conception (2 weeks, IIRC).

Also, I don't think at the current time Roe v Wade is in danger, but I think after Bush gets two more on it could fall (Roberts and the O'Connor replacement). It's always had shaky at best legal justification. It's more a matter of getting enough support on the bench to actually see the test case. I think if a case were to reach, it could easily be overturned.

Ustwo

Its sort of amusing how the choice of words can couch a debate.

Tecoyah went with the most bland and non-descriptive way of describing an abortion. He used "the right to choose", as if you were talking about a hair style or car insurance. Now I do not think, (and Politicophile pointed out very clearly why) Roberts will overturn it. Nor do I personally think he wants to get involved with it at all and I responded in kind but with almost as harsh a language as Tecoyah's was bland. The only way I could go harsher would be to say 'murder their children'.

What I think is so facinating though, is that those who support abortion are unable to use the language in a descriptive manner. Abortion is plain and simple the right of a woman to kill her unborn child, period. Using terms like choice is just trying to soften and obfuscate what is really happening. I almost have to wonder if such language will backfire. While I find many uses of abortion disgusting and selfish, I do see a place for it, and there would be circumstances where I would even advocate it. Using non-descriptive language only makes the supporters sound unsure, and trying to hide something. It makes attacking them easier and since I do believe that if abortion ever came to a straight vote it would loose, the right to 'choose' may well be lost in some future, not because of Roberts, but because it is the will of the American people. If that time comes I do hope that sanity will prevail and there will be a good outline of instances where abortions should be allowed to take place. There is no place for that debate here, but a blanket prohibition would be bad as well.

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dksuddeth

Who would it take then? shall we have the church dictate when life begins? Maybe we should ask the international community? Or we could even ask the UN itself? (note the sarcasm)If you're going to have any part of the government tell you that you do not have certain privacy rights then they damn well better spell it out exactly, wouldn't you think? otherwise, all you're doing is letting the government be your master.

If the people have a need to empower the governmental body to determine whether rights exist according to exact wording of the constitution, again you'd better have them rewrite it and spell out exactly what it is a person can and cannot do.

I'll ask the question again, when did we start looking at the constitution as a document that restricts the people instead of the government?

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Mojo_PeiPei

Perhaps it began when social issues or issues of morality (again a perspective) started getting taken to the court.

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dksuddeth

Then wouldn't that mean that a portion of this country is trying to legislate morality?

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Mojo_PeiPei

Not necessarily, it could be the opposite, read Michael Newdow.

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politicophile

This is a bit off topic, but the Constitution is, and has always been, a document for restricting the government. That said, the purpose of laws is (generally) to restrict the people. The Constitution simply sets limits on what sorts of limits the government is allowed to enact on us.

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

This is the justification for the "right to privacy". The question, then, is two-fold: is the right to privacy actually a right that the government is not permitted to enfringe upon, and is criminalizing abortion a violation of the mother's privacy?

Neither answer is obvious to me at this point in time.

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tecoyah

If you wish to debate this Ustwo....so be it, obviously my intent for this thread has been ignored.....even after attempted direction from another Mod, Oh well.
Language can certainly "Couch" a debate....or it can inflame it, we seem oppsing ends of this spectrum as is Par for the course. I have a challenge for you, should you be inclined to accept it. Carl Sagan and his Wife created what I consider to be a wonderful paper on the "Right to Life", far more articulate and informative than I could ever hope to be, Please read the exerpt at the very least before tearing this apart. Should you decide to actually read the entire paper.....I would be perfectly happy to debate this issue with you.

Every one of us began from a dot. A fertilized egg is roughly the size of the period at the end of this sentence. The momentous meeting of sperm and egg generally occurs in one of the two fallopian tubes. One cell becomes two, two become four, and so on—an exponentiation of base-2 arithmetic. By the tenth day the fertilized egg has become a kind of hollow sphere wandering off to another realm: the womb. It destroys tissue in its path. It sucks blood from capillaries. It bathes itself in maternal blood, from which it extracts oxygen and nutrients. It establishes itself as a kind of parasite on the walls of the uterus.

# By the third week, around the time of the first missed menstrual period, the forming embryo is about 2 millimeters long and is developing various body parts. Only at this stage does it begin to be dependent on a rudimentary placenta. It looks a little like a segmented worm.

# By the end of the fourth week, it's about 5 millimeters (about 1/5 inch) long. It's recognizable now as a vertebrate, its tube-shaped heart is beginning to beat, something like the gill arches of a fish or an amphibian become conspicuous, and there is a pronounced tail. It looks rather like a newt or a tadpole. This is the end of the first month after conception.

# By the fifth week, the gross divisions of the brain can be distinguished. What will later develop into eyes are apparent, and little buds appear—on their way to becoming arms and legs.

# By the sixth week, the embryo is 13 millimeteres (about ½ inch) long. The eyes are still on the side of the head, as in most animals, and the reptilian face has connected slits where the mouth and nose eventually will be.

# By the end of the seventh week, the tail is almost gone, and sexual characteristics can be discerned (although both sexes look female). The face is mammalian but somewhat piglike.

# By the end of the eighth week, the face resembles that of a primate but is still not quite human. Most of the human body parts are present in their essentials. Some lower brain anatomy is well-developed. The fetus shows some reflex response to delicate stimulation.

# By the tenth week, the face has an unmistakably human cast. It is beginning to be possible to distinguish males from females. Nails and major bone structures are not apparent until the third month.

# By the fourth month, you can tell the face of one fetus from that of another. Quickening is most commonly felt in the fifth month. The bronchioles of the lungs do not begin developing until approximately the sixth month, the alveoli still later.

So, if only a person can be murdered, when does the fetus attain personhood? When its face becomes distinctly human, near the end of the first trimester? When the fetus becomes responsive to stimuli--again, at the end of the first trimester? When it becomes active enough to be felt as quickening, typically in the middle of the second trimester? When the lungs have reached a stage of development sufficient that the fetus might, just conceivably, be able to breathe on its own in the outside air?

The trouble with these particular developmental milestones is not just that they're arbitrary. More troubling is the fact that none of them involves uniquely human characteristics--apart from the superficial matter of facial appearance. All animals respond to stimuli and move of their own volition. Large numbers are able to breathe. But that doesn't stop us from slaughtering them by the billions. Reflexes and motion are not what make us human.

Other animals have advantages over us--in speed, strength, endurance, climbing or burrowing skills, camouflage, sight or smell or hearing, mastery of the air or water. Our one great advantage, the secret of our success, is thought--characteristically human thought. We are able to think things through, imagine events yet to occur, figure things out. That's how we invented agriculture and civilization. Thought is our blessing and our curse, and it makes us who we are.

Thinking occurs, of course, in the brain--principally in the top layers of the convoluted "gray matter" called the cerebral cortex. The roughly 100 billion neurons in the brain constitute the material basis of thought. The neurons are connected to each other, and their linkups play a major role in what we experience as thinking. But large-scale linking up of neurons doesn't begin until the 24th to 27th week of pregnancy--the sixth month.

By placing harmless electrodes on a subject's head, scientists can measure the electrical activity produced by the network of neurons inside the skull. Different kinds of mental activity show different kinds of brain waves. But brain waves with regular patterns typical of adult human brains do not appear in the fetus until about the 30th week of pregnancy--near the beginning of the third trimester. Fetuses younger than this--however alive and active they may be--lack the necessary brain architecture. They cannot yet think.

Acquiescing in the killing of any living creature, especially one that might later become a baby, is troublesome and painful. But we've rejected the extremes of "always" and "never," and this puts us--like it or not--on the slippery slope. If we are forced to choose a developmental criterion, then this is where we draw the line: when the beginning of characteristically human thinking becomes barely possible.

and the entire paper is here:
http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml

My use of light wording reflects my belief that most abortion is not murder....as the material in the uterus is not a human bieng, the paper above explains my thinking quite clearly.

dksuddeth

michael newdow? are we talking about the pledge ruling?

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dksuddeth

As I see it, this 'right to privacy' could be handled in the same manner as people are trying to deal with 'gay marriage'. Amend the constitution....but remember, if we amend the constitution to remove privacy, we're all doomed.

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flstf

From what little I know about this subject, it seems to me that maybe the constitution should be amended to add a clear right to privacy since currently it is not too difficult to interpret it as having none by many jurists.

In answer to the original question, I don't believe that Roe vs. Wade will be overturned anytime soon, regardless of the Roberts nomination. But since there seem to be so many jurists who do not interpret a right to privacy in the constitution, it wouldn't surprise me if it is eventually overturned.

What these guys say now and what they have done in the past seems to change frequently once they have the lifetime job.

Ustwo

This happens to be when a child is viable outside of the womb. If thats where you think human life begins thats fine, but no amount of sophistry is going to change that regardless of its 'human' status a 23 week old fetus is that womans child and abortion is the right to kill that child. I find it hard to take the mind set that it is to be thought of no more than a tumor in the mother, and having it removed no different than removing one..

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tecoyah

I dont think the term Tumor is in play here....nor the implications it places in the mind. The article is based on a scientific approach to what constitutes a human being, and though the author used the term "Parasite" in reference to attaching to the mothers internal organs, the use of tumor seems rather negative. The article further states that abortion after this stage, (human thought) is extremely rare and those few cases are mostly due to miscarriage.
If indeed we take the science for what it is, and assume the fetus is not yet a Human being, the ending of this pregnancy is akin to Killing an animal. The ONLY reason to dismiss this (assuming the science is valid) is emotional/religious, and has no place in logical thought.
As far as the "Sophistry" ( A plausible but misleading or fallacious argument) of the Data.....I have no intent of attempting to explain, or sway you in this. The data however, are but a part of the picture painted by the authors words. The descision to use instead,an argument that has NO data to back it up, and has its basis on individual emotional response is impossible to counter, thus making debate .....pointless.

tecoyah

I think I should also point out something here.I do not support abortion, in that I would not even consider it in my personal life. What I do support however, is the freedom of others to make these descisions for themselves.

j8ear

With my daugher born at 25 weeks of gestation, and now 17 months old, I can assure you she was a human being at the time, even though she was unable to think, or even breathe on her own.

According to Carl Sagan, this is false and beyond the bounds of reasonable science. You seem to agree.

It's interesting that approximately ONE HUNDRED BILLION nuerons linking up...ON A LARGE SCALE (what ever that means) is the criteria for becoming human, assuming that you accept the emotional reasoning used to arrive at that criteria.

I suppose that unless you stare death in the face, and see life for what it is, in all of it wonderful potential, those who favor abortion will find two things:

1. A more pleasant way to decribe the killing of your unborn child.
2. Some semblance of scientific data, including quantities like "large scale," which allows one to justify the fact that you are killing your unborn baby.

Still, to the topic at hand, I believe that ROE v Wade will not be overturned, but instead, restrictions will be inacted, which the court, eventually, will deem not in conflict with the principles outlined in this decision.

-bear

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martinguerre

Or it may signal a real difference in thought. Pregnancy as process vs. event.

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FoolThemAll

This is the pivotal passage, and it is false. From the moment of conception, the z/e/f is a growing organism with human DNA that programs it to develop and grow precisely as a human being grows. THAT is unique of human beings and human beings alone.

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alansmithee

This has always been my feeling about the "pro-choice" issue. I couldn't have said it much better myself. Any issue could be framed as "pro-choice". I'm sure that in the 17-1800's many southerners (and northerners) also were "pro-choice" and felt they deserved the "right to choose" (only their choice would have been owning slaves instead of killing unborn children). I also believe that the issue would do better being presented as abortion rights instead of pro-choice, mainly for the reasons outlined above. If there is nothing inherently wrong with abortion, there should be no reason to obscure the issue.

tecoyah

Please note the word...."characteristics"

reread....and rethink

alansmithee

Why not let the people decide the issue? And essentially, the government is everyone's "master". They have the power, they dictate what happens.


Why must it be one or the other? The Constitution restricts people's rights, and restricts what the government can do.

alansmithee

Actually, there is much more to the "right to privacy" than the 9th. It's a mishmash of 1st, 3rd, 4th, 9th, and legal sophistry. And even assuming there's a phantom right to privacy, I'll never understand what that has to do with abortion.

Ustwo

Oh but it is treated like a tumor, it is unwanted and harmful to the mother in some respect and therefore must be removed. A tumor that must be removed quickly or it will reach ‘viability’ and the mother will be forced to wait until her body expels it on its own. Why else would you have a fetus suctioned from the womb unless it was causing 'harm' in some way? It is also no less negative than the concept of a fetus as a parasite. I've never heard parasite used in a positive way.

What you presented was not a science piece. It was an opinion piece attempting to use science to justify the opinion. To the author, only higher brain function makes someone human, I dispute that. I can use the same science to show the potential for all he claims makes one human is what is important.

This still does nothing to change the fact that an abortion is the killing of an unborn child. It does not change the fact that the pro-abortion crowd hides behind a wall of language to soften this cold hard fact.

You support a womans right to 'choose'.
You support a womans right to kill her unborn child.

A=A

If you think that child is unimportant until 26 weeks of gestation, nothing more than an animal, or parasite, so be it. Don't hide behind soft words for a harsh subject.

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dksuddeth

Not technically true. The original intent of the founders writing the constitution was to restrict government's authority over the people, at the peoples direction. Over the years, we've given them that authority, usually of our own free will.


This is where I believe you are wrong. The constitution does not restrict the people, the legislature does at the direction of the people. We call them laws.

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raveneye

I think while Roe will probably not be "technically" overturned, future cases will progressively erode the right to abortion, especially for poor women. The prolife forces will never give up, and they will continue to whittle away at Roe, as they did in the Casey decision.

Since it's now firmly established (Casey) that "viability" is the criterion where the heavy hand of the state comes into play, the continual advancement of life-support technology will inevitably shrink the window of choice, and push it back earlier and earlier in the pregnancy, at least for the vast majority of women who can't afford to "adopt" their fetuses out to spectacularly expensive life support. It might not be long before the U.S. reaches a point where any embryo, regardless of size, becomes technologically viable.

So we might soon reach a point where, even in the first trimester, "choice" becomes:

1. adopt to life support, pay big bucks
2. carry to term
3. get arrested

sapiens

Abortion is only "plain and simple the right of a woman to kill her unborn child" to those that agree that the organism growing within the woman is a "child".
Those that support "the right to choose" and those that support "the right to life" both use language to describe abortion in ways that support their arguments.