It might just disturb the red state equilibrium.
Seems like they are keeping it an issue for future elections as It gets angry snake worshiping wimen hating people out to vote.
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Only issue with this cartoon is that, at six weeks, I don’t think many women would be showing.
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Technically true, though this law is of course part of a process aimed at stopping ALL abortions, however far along.
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To maintain the thin veneer that they care about the Constitution. Ruling in Texas’s favor based on merits would have required twisting laws in ways that even an undead Scalia wouldn’t be able to stomach.
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No. Not really. The constitution is not some god-ordained document that never changes. The “originalist” bullshit reading of the document is what is “bad faith”… the whole point was the flexibility to accommodate changing mores in our society. We’re not in the 18th century anymore, so how about we fucking act like it.
And, FYI, since the core support for Roe is the right to privacy, this is not just about us. YOUR right to privacy is now at risk.
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But medical privacy rights are. So a law that encourages Texans to rat out neighbors because they’re suspicious about a miscarriage ought to be unconstitutional anyway.
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They’re not kicking it far down the road. There’s a merits case coming up this Term that will force the Court to decide whether to uphold or overrule Roe. This ruling, insane as it is, is based on a procedural question about whether the Court has the authority to stay the enforcement of the law.
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Right, but it never did. Even the really nasty stuff about slaves is still in there, nobody dares to change. The legal procedures are there, in theory, but no one has the spine to do it. Only little amendments stuck to the back.
the whole point was the flexibility to accommodate changing mores in our society.
Thanks for agreeing with me?? What you are saying is that original text and intended meaning are moot, just as real as white noise and any new court can slap on any interpretation they want?
That is not how it should work. If society changes or wants to change their representatives should change, actually really change, alter, the text to what you want now. Not wait till a majority of the supreme court invents some new language to make the text mean what they want it to mean.
since the core support for Roe is the right to privacy
But that isn’t in the constitution either and it does not make sense either, no other activity that is illegal is defended by claiming the state has no right to know about it so it can’t be illegal…
Pure apologetics, and a smoke screen of course. While you debate this there is still nothing done to defend actual abortion rights.
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What I wonder is what advantage does this ‘conditional’ victory produce over an official court decision? Is this avoidance to facing the topic some sort of election gamesmanship? Something the court isn’t supposed to be involved in?
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This, this this, mother-effing this.
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To the extent this is a complaint that the Constitution could have but hasn’t been rewritten to exclude stuff that has been amended out, that’s not really true. The legal procedures for changing the Constitution are proposing and ratifying amendments, which take effect and supersede other portions of the Constitution as necessary.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress…
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This is a horrific and obviously unconstitutional event of epic proportion. A giant step toward some dystopian pro-rapist patriarchy. I’m enraged enough to see Roe v Wade apparently go down without a whole lot of argument that i’d make all sorts of unlikely assertions like: All women who can should depart Texas; All businesses who want national commerce should depart Texas; All of us should sue (since we now have standing) every @$!! male republican Texas law-maker “because” they were sitting there “just last year” allowing legal abortions to happen in their state. @#$!
So here’s one utter confusion about the ‘logic’ of these moron’s convictions: they’re all racist-lly panicked over the “white race” becoming the minority, yes? This ghastly effort will allow all the unwanted richer white pregnancies to be terminated with a quick flight to L.A. but will cause the net increase in poorer non-white folks’ population. So why isn’t this egregious effort against reproductive rights an exact realization of their pea-brained worst fears!? sigh
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And of course, some of these people who have supported this law and will use it refuse to get vaccinated and then cite HIPPA as some sort of defense…
These laws are authoritarian. the fact that so many people who claim to be against such bans seem to believe it’s only a political football aimed at distracting the public and that we can’t do anything, so might as well let women suffer are clearly no allies in this fight.
Bullshit. they are using it as a smoke screen. When it benefits their right-wing, authoritarian agenda, they are more than happy to review things, with little to no transparency…
Don’t give me that “they are just bound by the law” bullshit. They have been acting like they are not to get a right wing agenda enacted.
They are coming from women and trans people right now. They will come for your rights next.
Except it DID change. There are literally 27 amendments to the US constitution. And YES, we fucking know that the 13th has a loophole you can drive a truck through. Duh. Doesn’t mean that it did not abolish enslavement in other contexts…
maybe support the people DOING the work instead of wringing your hands while our rights are being eroded.
This is something that too few people understand. You start eroding the rights of people who had to fight for basic rights, it erodes that foundation for literally everyone else. It becomes a house of cards once you start fucking with foundation… to see how well your democracy is goind, you don’t look at the people historically in power and see how their rights are holding up - you look at the people historically disenfranchised in one way or another, and see how they are doing. Given that the rights of trans people, BIPOC, women, etc, have been under sustained attack, white men should be concerned… but they think it’s all a god damn intellectual exercise.
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er… amendment can mean alteration. Congress could just write a total new constitution and amend(…) the old to that.
That is how it works everywhere else.
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That’s an interesting idea. Do we even have to go backwards though? Can’t we just sue them for having abortions themselves? They’ll still have to drive however many hours to appear in court to point out that it is ridiculous, and we are protected from having to pay court costs.
And then run campaign ads: “So-and-so appeared in abortion court FIVE HUNDRED times last year. Are these the Texas values we want in state government?”
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What you’re describing would essentially be a whole new constitutional convention. That is not only a tremendous hurdle, but it’s completely unnecessary. There is no advantage to taking the historically bad stuff out of the constitution instead of passing amendments to supersede those parts. If anything the original wording helps remind us of where we started and how far we have left to go.
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I think this is more broadly true as well. When I teach the Renaissance in my World/Western Civ classes I use Italian rape laws, and how they were or weren’t enforced based on class, as a way to understand how the law works for people with the least power in that society. To go full circle, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
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So your solution to the dissolution of rights for women, is we should write a whole new constitution?
Said some old bearded first century radical…
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Look, I’m as angry about this as you are, but the point I was making is that the question presented was about whether the Court could stay the enforcement of the Texas law. The answer they reached on that question is plainly wrong, but that doesn’t change the fact that that was what they were asked to decide. As I said at the very beginning of this comment section, the order is utter lawlessness.
They are going to be hearing and deciding Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health this Term, which will actually involve deciding whether they want to uphold, radically curtail, or overrule Roe v. Wade. This was not that, though it’s a depressing signal about which way they’re leaning on that question.
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