On abortion

[SeattleUte]

This is an argument you make when you ignore the competing rights issue.

Only you thing that issue is being ignored.

[Bo Diddley]

This is an argument you make when you ignore the competing rights issue.

So do you think keeping men in the debate serves to moderate where the draw the line between the competing interests? It stands to reason that men and women have a 50/50 stake in the interest of the unborn, and women have a much higher stake wrt to carrying a pregnancy to term in their body.

No, I don't think we could ever get there in practice. It's more an academic question.

[smokymountainrain]

This is an argument you make when you ignore the competing rights issue.

i'm not really making an argument as much as i am sharing how i feel personally about the issue. i realize i could have chosen my words better in the first paragraph there, but at the time, i wasn't planning making a serious post. to be clear i have no problem in general with men having a say in the issue.

[Jeff Lebowski]

imo, this is an issue that only women should argue over. i'm not about to tell a woman what she should do if she's preggo, hence i'm pro-choice. pro-dowhateveryouwantjustdonthurtme

in all serious though, it's easy for me as a dude, who will never have a baby inside me, to tell women they can't terminate the life of a fetus that is inside them. kinda makes me want to stay out of it all together.

This is an argument you make when you ignore the competing rights issue.

[smokymountainrain]

I actually like this approach. Men certainly have an interest if they are the father of the unborn. They also have as much an interest as women with regards to the rights of all unborn in general. But women are really fundamentally much more invested in this. Let them hash it out.

agree 100%. i'm certainly not saying men shouldn't have any say (despite the "only women" wording in the facetious part of my post) - rather i'm speaking for myself.

[SeattleUte]

One of the most frustrating parts of the abortion debate is how rare it is for someone to honestly acknowledge that this is a case of competing rights.

And you do realize, don't you, that the balancing of interests that Roe undertook is by faaaaaar the thing it's most criticized for. The argument is that this should have been left to legislatures.

Your accusation that pro-choicers don't consider this a balancing of interests bespeaks on your part zealotry, self-righteousness, and a failure to study the dispute or perhaps even to have read Roe and its progeny. Do you think they don't realize that there's a difference between birth control and abortion?

A couple of ironies. First, women are mostly pro-choice, and it's usually them who bear the brunt of child-rearing, even in progressive families. The problem here is not that women blindly only care about their own interests. Women as a gender have repeatedly shown that this is not their problem. Women raise the boys who men send off to war to be killed.

Second, I have seen "pro life's" lack of regard for the sanctity of life in so many other contexts--including indifference for the fates of unwanted children born into poverty and abuse--that it's clear that the "sanctity of life" mantra is just BS. This is just about religion and sexual morality. It's no accident that our Supreme Court is comprised of a much greater proportion of church-going Christians than any other branch of government or certainly the populace.

[Bo Diddley]

imo, this is an issue that only women should argue over. i'm not about to tell a woman what she should do if she's preggo, hence i'm pro-choice. pro-dowhateveryouwantjustdonthurtme

in all serious though, it's easy for me as a dude, who will never have a baby inside me, to tell women they can't terminate the life of a fetus that is inside them. kinda makes me want to stay out of it all together.

I actually like this approach. Men certainly have an interest if they are the father of the unborn. They also have as much an interest as women with regards to the rights of all unborn in general. But women are really fundamentally much more invested in this. Let them hash it out.

[SeattleUte]

One of the most frustrating parts of the abortion debate is how rare it is for someone to honestly acknowledge that this is a case of competing rights.

Uh, obviously Roe's fans don't regard first trimester fetuses, and some second trimester ones, people in the same way the mother is. Roe is nothing if not a balancing of competing rights.

[Applejack]

Great column from Douthat. The leak could have come from anybody. Everyone had a political motive.

But what's clear is that the mystique is gone. Alito, Kagan, are just McConnell and Feinstein in black robes. There's no illusion any longer that the court is not just politics. But quasi-dictatorial because they're appointed for life.

And ironically this descent may have started with Roe.

What Was the Strategy Behind the Supreme Court Leak?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/o...e=articleShare

I disagree here. Not with the idea that the Supreme Court, is and always has been, a political institution; of course it is. But it is a different kind of politics. Unlike Congressman who are driven to get social media recognition for good or ill, supreme court justices don't have to get reelected. In this sense, the court is, and always has been, undemocratic. But that may be a feature of a functioning democracy, not a bug. If the third branch of government (and the least powerful, far and away) is not responsive to voters (or at least, less so), courts can provide a check against "the tyranny of the majority." Now, we can argue all day about when and to what degree they should employ this check, but I would argue that having someone in government that is thinking beyond 2-year, 4-year, or 6-year windows is a good thing.

And all of these proposals to "reform" the Supreme Court that our posters from the PNW love, would destroy the court as a moderating influence over winner takes all elections. For evidence of job-for-life being a good thing, look no further than the district courts in Texas that are doing the damnedest to attract huge amounts of patent cases and then (lo and behold) the judges retire and take cushy of counsel positions in patent firms. Judges that have to consider how their opinions and decisions will affect their employability after the court tend to not make the greatest decisions.

[smokymountainrain]

imo, this is an issue that only women should argue over. i'm not about to tell a woman what she should do if she's preggo, hence i'm pro-choice. pro-dowhateveryouwantjustdonthurtme

in all serious though, it's easy for me as a dude, who will never have a baby inside me, to tell women they can't terminate the life of a fetus that is inside them. kinda makes me want to stay out of it all together.

[SeattleUte]

The problem with the power that the Supreme Court has grabbed for itself, with respect to the Constitution, is that our Constitution, possibly because it was the first one, is so deficient, so tentative, full of holes, vague, ambiguous, not to mention the sexism and racism. Like the Bible you can make anything up about what it says. Does the Constitution have a right to privacy? No? What is protection against illegal searches? But no, it doesn't say privacy. It depends on your values, your politics.

This is the monstrously dishonest thing about Scalia's "original intent" and "dead Constitution". The Constitution doesn't give hardly any rights, explicitly, and its' 250 years old. Original intent is just a faux principled excuse to withhold rights.

[SeattleUte]

Great column from Douthat. The leak could have come from anybody. Everyone had a political motive.

But what's clear is that the mystique is gone. Alito, Kagan, are just McConnell and Feinstein in black robes. There's no illusion any longer that the court is not just politics. But quasi-dictatorial because they're appointed for life.

And ironically this descent may have started with Roe.

What Was the Strategy Behind the Supreme Court Leak?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/o...e=articleShare

[falafel]

Ummm...did you miss General Conference?

No one ever listens to us.

[Applejack]

He did, but a lot of these rights are based on the same underlying principles in the Constitution, as I understand it. So I can see how people might be worried about knocking out one pillar and hoping the roof stays up.

A couple of things that I think distinguishes abortion from gay and interracial marriage from abortion: (1) the institution of "marriage" is a traditional and foundational principle pre-dating the Constitution, even if that institution was less inclusive than it is today. Abortion was not and has never been. (2) As Molieddie notes, abortion is still hotly contested 50 years after Roe, while the vast majority of Americans support the gay and interracial marriage now. Who is going to be fighting to cut those rights off? No interracial marriage? GTFO.

Ummm...did you miss General Conference?

[Bo Diddley]

All this talk of rights has this going through my head:

right.jpg