Am I the only one who feels that Dobbs was legally accurate but morally repugnant?

You might be the only "liberal" that believes Dobbs was legally accurate, but quite a lot of conservatives who aren't pretending to be liberals agree with you.

Legally speaking, it's not an abortion, at least in some jurisdictions. For example, in Texas (which has quite restrictive abortion laws), this is how abortion is defined:

(1) "Abortion" means the act of using or prescribing an instrument, a drug, a medicine, or any other substance, device, or means with the intent to cause the death of an unborn child of a woman known to be pregnant. The term does not include birth control devices or oral contraceptives. An act is not an abortion if the act is done with the intent to:
(A) save the life or preserve the health of an unborn child;
(B) remove a dead, unborn child whose death was caused by spontaneous abortion; or
(C) remove an ectopic pregnancy.

So that's explicitly not considered an abortion under Texas law. Legal definitions don't control nonlegal usage, and I haven't looked up the definition in Arizona, but even in a nonlegal setting there is a difference between terminating a pregnancy that can never complete and terminating a pregnancy that otherwise would.

I don't know of any state that would require this. Every state law I'm aware of allows termination of ectopic pregnancies. It would be a major problem if any of these abortion restrictions didn't allow for terminating ectopic pregnancies, but I think all of them do. That is not going to change. There is no real constituency even among abortion opponents in favor of prohibiting the termination of ectopic pregnancies.

Hardly. That's the usual conservative MO. That's the core of (pre)textualism. They get to be monsters while using their (completely self-serving) reading of the text as a moral shield.



I think it is morally repugnant to think that Hobbes was legally accurate, really.

I doubt many Conservatives believe Dobbs was immoral for the reasons I do.

I seriously doubt that, especially Liberals who look at this issue PURELY from the context of the US Constitution. There are lots of legal experts who were concerned years ago that Roe was on legally shaky ground, even though they like me believe people have a human right to make medical decisions for themselves without govt. interference.

As Suddenly pointed out, some claim to. It's the shield they use. Sort of like claiming to be liberal while spouting off conservative talking points.

No, there were not lots of legal experts who thought Roe was on legally shaky ground. Conservative media liked to tell its viewers that, but it only fooled those who wanted to be fooled.

By the logic of Roe and its 14th amendment "life & liberty" interpretation, States and the Feds have no authority to ban any drug use, ban suicide attempts, ban self-harm, ban prostitution, or regulate any activity that affects a person's body.

Fun Fact: Ruth Bader Ginsburg opposed the court's ruling in Roe v Wade:

Ginsburg had been the leader of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project in the 1970s, and later an appeals court judge in the 1980s. She gave several speeches criticizing the court’s handling of the abortion issue.

Roe vs. Wade “became and remains a storm center,” she said at the time, “because the court ventured too far in the change it ordered.”

Rather than resolve the issue, the court’s broad ruling “halted a political process that was moving” to liberalize abortion already, she said, and instead launched “the mobilization of the right-to-life movement” that changed American politics.

She said the court would have been wiser to issue a brief ruling that struck down the “extreme statute before it,” referring to the Texas law dating to 1854 that made all abortions a crime, except for “saving the life of the mother.”

There were no exceptions to protect the health of the pregnant woman or in cases of rape, incest or a severe fetal abnormality. Ginsburg suggested that if the states were given a hard nudge by the court, they would have revised and liberalized their abortion laws.

She also argued for a different legal rationale, one based on equal rights for women rather than privacy. Laws banning abortion had been written by men and were enforced by men, but their burden fell entirely on women.



https://www.latimes.com/politics/sto...gal-foundation

Oh, I'm sure there were some "legal experts" on Fox or the National Review that told you that, but it was far from a common view. Even among fellow conservatives.

I am not a Conservative. Do not call me a Conservative again. Last warning.

As for my comment, I came up with it on my own. If states cannot regulate abortion due to the right of life and liberty, and the right to privacy to do what one wishes with their own body, I see no reason why govt. has any authority to regulate suicide attempts, drug use, prostitution, self-harm. Or require seatbelts.

No. This is the sort of thing people say when they've never actually read any of these cases.

There are weighing tests that involve the right to privacy and personal autonomy as opposed to various interests of the state. These are not absolutes. Roe itself does not deal in absolutes.

Roe also is not the case that identifies privacy rights. That is Griswold v. Connecticut. Roe just applied those concepts to a specific issue.

It is quite common for conservatives to come up with conservative talking points all on their own across the web, it seems.

What I always wondered was if they simply didn't understand that they were parroting the opinions they kept hearing in their media bubble, or thought the rest of us were unaware of how those talking points have been almost handed out amongst the faithful to go out and share.

Yes I understand drug use and prostitution do indeed harm society. But what about self-harm and euthenasia? Those strictly affect the individual and noone else.

Criticize is not the same thing as oppose. So, no. Had she been on the court she would have written a concurring opinion and been a vote for Roe. That is fairly clear from those comments.

None of this is particularly novel. Roe was far from optimal.

That Roe reflects a male centered paternalistic view of abortion rights is fairly obvious.

Good point. She clearly had a lot of misgivings about the ruling but its wrong for me to say she opposed it.

Point is, a VERY noteworthy Liberal who today is seen as a pure icon, had serious reservations with the ruling.

This is not responsive. You are applying an analytical framework that you built in your own head and that is not reflective of the cases and legal principles you cite.

Please explain why the Roe reasoning would not apply to euthenasia and self-harm?

Like I said, a lot of people who support abortion rights have problems with how Roe went about it. We all have opinions. Trying to at all hint that this amounts to opposing it goes past dishonest and is borderline defamatory.

A better question would be for you to ask me to explain the reasoning of Roe as you obviously have little idea of what that it.

Which I'm not going to do at this time. I will suggest you go and actually read Griswold v. Connecticut and maybe realize you aren't even being wrong about the right case.

Will do.

This is a tactic used by a state to change the medical definition and the commonly accepted legal definition of 'abortion' to suit its own anti-abortion agenda.

Medically, an abortion is the spontaneous or induced ending of a pregnancy before a fetus is viable. Saying that ending an ectopic pregnancy isn't an abortion is just word play to cover their arses legally. You can call a pile of manure a pile of roses but it's still going to stink like manure.


Legally, an abortion has been defined as

Leaving aside the thorny issue of the distinction between an induced abortion and a natural one, and the inevitable blurring of distinctions which will almost inevitably result in at least a few false accusations and prosecutions (as it already has in El Salvador), and the already occurring self-policing of medical practitioners fearing prosecution....

While it's technically true that most if not all abortion restrictions except ectopic pregnancies, there are plenty of state legislators who would if they could remove that exception, either explicitly or by defining a fetus as a fertilized ovum whether or not it has landed in the womb (e.g. Louisiana), making the issue at least cloudy. Missouri had a ban but removed it after public outcry. The possibility of a ban has been broached in Oklahoma. We are dealing here with legislators who do not do their own homework, at least a few even wrongly believing that an ectopic pregnancy can be practically replanted (and the new question, if it worked at all, of whether a woman would be required to undergo a government-mandated implantation in exchange for her life). And though Texas does technically allow the termination of ectopic pregnancies, they have conveniently outlawed the use of methotrexate, the usual drug for such terminations. And of course if they have their way, mefepristone will be gone forever everywhere.

They can't.

That is incorrect. They have not outlawed methotrexate. I doubt they even can, since that probably steps on the toes of federal drug law.

There is a problem with methotrexate access in Texas, but it's not an outright prohibition. Instead, a lot of pharmacies don't want to provide it because they're worried about accidentally becoming abortion providers for people who use it for that purpose. It's not that pharmacies aren't allowed to provide methotrexate, it's that they're unwilling to because of fear of liability. And that is indeed an issue for people who need the drug for other conditions. So I'm not arguing that there's no problem here, it's just not the problem you are describing. Hospitals don't have that problem of not being able to control what purpose a drug gets used for, so they don't need to worry about liability. They can get their hands on methotrexate, and they can use it for ectopic pregnancies. Texas law does not prohibit that.

Democrats could probably get at least 60 votes in the Senate and enough Republicans to get a majority in the House, to get Nationwide abortion rights established up to at least the 20th week.

You have no idea how many Democrats there are in the Senate, do you? Nor in the House?

Or are you simply clueless as to the lockstep position Republicans have taken wrt abortion?

Texas may not have outlawed methotrexate itself, but lists it as an abortion-producing drug and limits its use, and allows pharmacists to refuse to dispense it. At this point it is disputed whether this has resulted in refusal to provide it to patients needing it for non-abortion purposes, and though it is supposedly available for non-abortion purposes, it remains disputed whether this has resulted in refusal to dispense it for other purposes, and whether a permitted other purpose would be to induce an abortion for an ectopic pregnancy.

Methotrexate is not commonly used for medically necessary abortions because mefepristone is preferred, but since Texas has done its best to ban that altogether, it becomes an issue. Arthritis and Lupus organizations have, it seems, reported access issues already. So yes, it appears you're right so far, if (and only if) things are done properly, and if (and only if) abortion for ectopic pregnancy can be carried out without obstruction and if (and only if) that includes access to the appropriate treatments without obstruction. I do not trust Texas as much as you do, I suspect.

I don't think so on either.

From https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/04/21/us/abortion-pill-supreme-court :

I really hope potential presidential candidates are asked about whether SCOTUS made the right call on this case, in addition to Dobbs.

Unfortunately, its not over yet. This delays things, but all this does is send the issue back to the 5th circuit which is predominantly Republican (2 x Obama, 1 x Biden, 6 x Trump).

All this. It doesn’t matter to anti-choice people if they can’t directly ban something so long as they can arrange things to prevent it from happening indirectly. For example, they didn’t need to ban Planned Parenthood. They only had to heap restrictions on the building, restrict proximity to schools and churches, require proximity to hospitals, etc, until there is no physical place in the state that could possibly work.

I read one analysis that suggested they just wanted to punt the decision down the road until after the 2024 election, so they can ban abortion then without creating an election-determining backlash against the Republican candidate.

Fixed that for ya.

Yes.

Under Texas law, using it to terminate an ectopic pregnancy is a non-abortion use (and thus automatically permitted), because terminating an ectopic pregnancy isn't an abortion. The definition in Texas law is quite clear on this point.

It's not about trusting Texas. And I agree, as currently written the law is causing problems for people who use methotrexate for autoimmune conditions. That's a bad thing. But I'm not seeing any reports that hospitals are having a problem getting and using it for ectopic pregnancies, and I have little doubt that if they were, they would be complaining (as they should) and it would get attention (as it should). In other words, I trust hospitals. They have a much easier time getting and handling restricted drugs than pharmacies do. You're never going to find a pharmacy stocking cocaine, but it's not unusual for hospitals to have and use it as a local anesthetic.

The scary thing is that only makes sense if you assume the Republicans are acting under the assumption that sooner or later we won't be having elections they need to worry about losing.

Well, the Supreme Court is permanently Republican now that they've established the precedent that only Republican presidents can appoint justices to it. Does anyone imagine they'll let a Democratic president appoint one now? Out of the goodness of their hearts and sense of justice and fair play?

Meanwhile, just for grins, here is the cartoon that appeared in today's Rutland Herald.

Legally, no. Medically, yes. An abortion is a procedure to end a pregnancy whether by medication or surgical procedure.

Texas can call it whatever they want, but it's still an abortion. A rose, is a rose, is a rose, is a rose....

The justice don't give the tiniest little crap. They are nominated for life.