New Catallaxy

LeakGate Round-up

Firstly, a reminder of what is at stake:

Here is the Politico article breaking the story. Here is the actual draft judgement by Justice Alito. Malcom Kyeyune discusses the aborting of norms involved in the leak of this SCOTUS judgement. Shaun Fleetwood suggests that this move to bully and harass the justices of the SCOTUS was invited by Chief Justice Roberts’s previous weakness re Obamacare. Jacob Nu argues that even if Roe is overturned, abortion will remain a federal issue, as does Robert George. On the more mundane matter of who may have leaked the document, speculation can be found here and here.

dover0beach

49 responses to “LeakGate Round-up”

  1. Mother Lode Avatar
    Mother Lode

    I gather that if it is in fact overturned there will be a push by Democrats to make it law – well all the things achieved under it and a laundry list of carnage not yet realised – turned into law.

    Then it will be up to the states to demonstrate to the SCOTUS that this is something that the Federal Government has no business overriding states on.

    But they will have to be quick because midterms are not far away and the complexion of congress may change sufficiently to scupper it all.

    Even if the Democrats are counting on cheating again I think, now alerted to how far they will go, the Republicans are primed and ready to stop them.

    2
  2. OldOzzie Avatar
    OldOzzie

    OldOzziesays:
    May 4, 2022 at 3:57 pm
    The Supreme Court Leak on Roe v. Wade

    Justice Alito’s careful draft opinion finally grasps the Constitutional nettle on abortion

    By WSJ The Editorial Board

    1
  3. OldOzzie Avatar
    OldOzzie

    OldOzziesays:
    May 4, 2022 at 4:03 pm
    Panicked Dems Lay Groundwork to Codify Roe, Impeachment of SCOTUS Conservative Justices

    “Several conservative Justices, who are in no way accountable to the people, have lied to the Senate, ripped up the Constitution, and defiled precedent and the Court’s reputation,” read a joint statement from Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

    1
  4. OldOzzie Avatar
    OldOzzie

    Oops correct link – The Supreme Court Leak on Roe v. Wade

  5. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    ““Several conservative Justices, who are in no way accountable to the people, have lied to the Senate, ripped up the Constitution, and defiled precedent and the Court’s reputation,” read a joint statement from Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”

    We are seeing already the threats and calls to violence, a repeat of 2020. Schumer, Pelosi and the rest of the Demonrat scum are, as I write, laying the foundations for violence on the streets.

    And why wouldn’t they? It worked a treat for them in 2020.

    12
  6. OldOzzie Avatar
    OldOzzie

    GOP Demands Justice Roberts Find Leaker: ‘This Is How He Will Be Remembered.’

    The left laughed at the only female Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee when she asked Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson about biology last month. “How interesting that two weeks ago they refused to define a woman,” Blackburn said of those defending Jackson’s now viral non-answer, “and now today the only thing they want to talk about is protecting a woman’s right to choose.” The senator reiterated that striking down Roe would not outlaw abortion. If the court determines that Roe was wrongly decided, she said, the issue would be returned to the individual states. She said this was “an appropriate step.”

    What about someone in black robes? Hawley couldn’t fathom. “It had better not be a justice,” he told RCP. “I mean,” he continued at a loss for words, “that is all I can say.”

    “Who else knew about this before it was given to Politico? I will say it’s certainly interesting to me that Democrat senators were quick to jump on this and seem to have a coordinated response,” he added, giving voice to lingering conservative suspicions. Here, the right can point to examples. For instance, they note that this isn’t the first time, even this year, that the Supreme Court has been rocked by leaks.

    News that Justice Stephen Breyer would retire may have been leaked early by the White House chief of staff, a development the justice reportedly did not appreciate. Another leak, reported by NPR and dismissed by the justices themselves, told of how Justice Neil Gorsuch allegedly wouldn’t wear a mask on the bench, to the chagrin of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. And now the leaked Roe opinion.

    There were two computer systems clerks would use, Lee recalled in an interview with RCP. One for research, another for communications between chambers. When a justice or a clerk wanted to print something, they followed strict rules governed by a single mandate: “The hard copy is not to go home with you. In fact, it shouldn’t even leave the building.” The court takes secrecy so seriously, they have rules for garbage: “You can’t just throw them in the trash,” Lee said of scratch materials and drafts that are never meant to see the light of day. “You’re supposed to put it in a burn bag.” The contents of said burn bags aren’t just thrown in a fire. First, they are shredded. Twice. Don’t think “long strands of ribbon,” Lee says. Think “finely shredded confetti.” Then, and only then, fire.

    “It is put into an incinerator, this confetti,” Lee recalls, “and it’s burned.” Afterward, the ashes are “injected with a small amount of water and turned into a slurry like paste before it ever leaves the custody of the Supreme Court.” And that is why the senator is confused.

    “The fact that this leaked was just baffling to me,” he said. “I never imagined something like this happening – I’m sure the court can figure it out.”

  7. dover0beach Avatar
    dover0beach

    ML, I think Congress cannot avoid the issue from either side of the fence. It will be like slavery was in the mid-19th Century, or gay ‘marriage’, more recently; the state rights argument will only go so far if the issue involves what one or both sides see as an egregious wrong.

    2
  8. OldOzzie Avatar
    OldOzzie

    There is no valid defense of Roe. That’s why that side resorts to threats

    Roe v. Wade “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” That was the conclusion in the Yale Law Journal of pro-choice legal scholar John Hart Ely.

    “One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.” That’s liberal legal scholar Laurence Tribe.

    It’s near-consensus among legal scholars, even those who believe abortion should be legal, that Roe was a shoddy decision, not grounded in the Constitution.

    “You will be hard-pressed to find a constitutional law professor, even among those who support the idea of constitutional protection for the right to choose, who will embrace the opinion itself rather than the result,” wrote pro-choice scholar Kermit Roosevelt in the Washington Post.

    “This is not surprising,” Roosevelt continued. “As constitutional argument, Roe is barely coherent.”

    The Constitution quite obviously does not protect abortion as a fundamental right. Roe relied on a “right of privacy” “emanating” from a “penumbra” cast by actually enumerated rights. It was clearly motivated reasoning.

    Abortion has thus been protected from democracy by a ruling that everyone knows is garbage, motivated reasoning . I’ve collected here many pro-choice legal scholars saying how bad Roe was.

    Subject to scrutiny, Roe falls, and abortion defenders need to convince politicians to vote in order to strip unborn babies of any legal protections.

    This is why the pro-Roe side is relying on threats to protect Roe. Democrats promise that they will declare the Supreme Court illegitimate if it doesn’t uphold their decision. That directly implies that they believe the federal government and state courts should disregard any subsequent rulings from the court.

    Some Democratic senators already declare the Supreme Court is illegitimate. That means they don’t believe in the Constitution and thus have violated their oath of office.

    Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts is threatening to pack the court — add four or more additional justices so that Democrats have a majority. (You can imagine the one-upping cycle this would set off.)

    All this to protect a Supreme Court decision that protects abortion up until the moment of birth, when everybody acknowledges that is the killing of a human being.

    5
  9. OldOzzie Avatar
    OldOzzie

    Fox News Poll: Just over half favor banning abortions after 15 weeks

    A leaked draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion Monday showed the Court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade

    WISCONSIN LAWMAKER CRITICIZED FOR CALLING WOMEN ‘BIRTHING BODIES’ IN TWEET ABOUT ABORTION

    The new national poll was completed shortly before Monday night’s leak of Associate Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion showing the high court may be poised to strike down the landmark Roe ruling.

    At issue for the Supreme Court is a Mississippi law that would ban abortions, except in certain cases, after 15 weeks of pregnancy and return the question of abortion and its legality back to the states.

    “If Roe v. Wade is overturned, it will be a hand grenade in the middle of an already chaotic political environment,” says Democratic pollster Chris Anderson, whose company Beacon Research conducts the Fox News survey along with Republican pollster Daron Shaw. “There are so many potential repercussions that predictions about how this will playout in the midterms are premature.”

    When asked how they would feel if such a law were passed in their state, just over half of voters favor it (54 percent) while 41 percent are opposed.

  10. OldOzzie Avatar
    OldOzzie

    FLASHBACK: Biden backed amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade as a senator

    The news has swept the country into a frenzy ahead of the November elections

    President Biden on Tuesday weighed in on the leaked Supreme Court opinion draft that would strike down Roe v. Wade, saying he believes that “a woman’s right to choose is fundamental.”

    But back in the early 1980s, Biden – who was then a U.S. Senator from Delaware – sang a different tune. In 1982, he signed a proposed amendment by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that sought to reverse Roe v. Wade.

    “A right to abortion is not secured by this Constitution,” read the Human Life Federalism Amendment. “The Congress and several States shall have the concurrent power to restrict and prohibit abortions: Provided, That a law of a State which is more restrictive than a law of Congress shall govern.”

    The Senate Judiciary Committee, on which Biden was then a ranking minority member, voted 10-7 for this resolution.

    A New York Times article published at the time cited Biden as saying the choice was difficult and, as a Roman Catholic, wasn’t sure he had “a right to impose” his view on the country, but ultimately voted in favor of the proposed Amendment.

    The White House did not respond to Fox News’ request for comment on Biden’s vote.

  11. Roger Avatar
    Roger

    We are seeing already the threats and calls to violence, a repeat of 2020. Schumer, Pelosi and the rest of the Demonrat scum are, as I write, laying the foundations for violence on the streets.

    Probably so, but it will backfire on them come the mid-terms.

    2
  12. Boffin Avatar
    Boffin

    This isn’t about abortion. It’s the long running argument about Federation and the role of national government. The majority of the Supreme Court today chooses a Constitutional interpretation that favors the preferences of States. What it will do is separate the US so that abortions are legal in some states and not others. It does not at all eliminate legal abortion in the US. The cost of these decisions will be felt when we see what States do with this approach. They may, as they have in the past, impose religious and other discriminations into education, health care and criminal law. Typically, those sorts of prejudices when adopted by the State drive away some people to less interfering jurisdictions – it often makes those places poorer.
    In short, this is not at all a simple matter.

    1
  13. John Brumble Avatar
    John Brumble

    I’m in awe of how much you care about those poor states who will be poorer, Boffin. Such compassion; such tolerance.

    2
  14. dover0beach Avatar
    dover0beach

    Boffin sounds like Stephen Douglass.

    1
  15. Roger Avatar
    Roger

    Boffin sounds like Stephen Douglass.

    Even so, let us pray he doesn’t meet a untimely end.

    1
  16. Winston Smith Avatar
    Winston Smith

    Cassie O’Sydney:

    We are seeing already the threats and calls to violence, a repeat of 2020. Schumer, Pelosi and the rest of the Demonrat scum are, as I write, laying the foundations for violence on the streets.
    And why wouldn’t they? It worked a treat for them in 2020.

    I think the cheating and the post election disasters have woken the US up to what is now at stake.
    ANY sign of cheating by the Democrats will have far reaching ramifications.

    2
  17. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    “ANY sign of cheating by the Democrats will have far reaching ramifications.”

    In 2020 I thought the US was inching towards civil war, in 2022 I believe the US is galloping towards civil war. It’s inevitable.

    9
  18. Old Lefty Avatar
    Old Lefty

    Declaration of interest: I would be delighted to see For consigned to the garbage bin of history because abortion is tantamount to murder.

    But a key point of Alito’s argument is getting lost in the frenzy. His draft judgement would restore the issue to its rightful place, elected and accountable legislatures, rather than having unelected and unaccountable judges usurp the right to determine it.

    5
  19. dover0beach Avatar
    dover0beach

    Old Lefty, the thing is, I don’t know that a future SCOTUS decision banning abortion via 14th amendment argument would be a problem. The fact that the reasoning in Roe is dreadful doesn’t mean that any juridical argument for or against would be so.

  20. Boffin Avatar
    Boffin

    Brumble: Is it a truism that sarcasm is the lowest firm of wit?

    It’s all very well to bang on with undergraduate complaints and anti-establishment rhetoric. Adults are supposed to have learned that one-dimensional “solutions” usually end in multi-dimensional consequences. In this case, intruding in people’s lives via parochial preferences in a single jurisdiction can only result in the sorts of outcomes we get with prohibitions of any kind.
    You don’t have to care about individual liberty to understand that laws that promote intrusion have plain, well proven outcomes.

    Dover: I would more likely go with Lincoln’s “A house divided against itself cannot stand…”

  21. 2dogs Avatar
    2dogs

    Republicans in the senate need to deal with this by stopping their filibuster on the Women’s Health Protection Act, and just vote against it when it come through.

    This will restore constitutional law for now, and leave the fight over the abortion issue itself for another day.

  22. Hugh Avatar
    Hugh

    Alito is to Roe as Weinberg is to the VSC majority opinion.

  23. Judge Dredd Avatar
    Judge Dredd

    It’s amazing seeing all these leftist liberals screeching about wanting to continue murdering babies via “my body, my choice” slogans, meanwhile they were more than happy for the state to coerce and bully people into taking an experimental gene therapy.

    It’s a win for the good (assuming it goes through). Every battle won, great and small, should be celebrated!

    1
  24. John Brumble Avatar
    John Brumble

    I’ll make it simpler. You’re a dishonest clown who wants to pretend that passing off their complete inability to even try to comprehend the other point of view as compassion is anything other than completely transparent.

    But that’s not telling anyone anything new.

    Leftists always think the contortions they perform to establish a pained Tu quoque situation are incredibly smart.

  25. John Brumble Avatar
    John Brumble

    Or even better:
    Take your confected compassion and shove it up your arse.

    1
  26. Judge Dredd Avatar
    Judge Dredd

    This isn’t about abortion.

    From the draft itself: “ It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives”

    The whole draft is about abortion. It is plainly obvious that your “Ackshully” comment is just a “I’m a smartboi” attempt.

    If you want to defend baby murder, just come out and say that rather than mincing words on some hypothetical tangential impact to peoples freedoms.

    1
  27. Kneel Avatar
    Kneel

    “This isn’t about abortion.”

    Indeed – it is a distraction squirrel from the left.

    Where was it leaked? Politico – a screaming leftist publication.

    Who had announcements ready within minutes? Pelosi and co.

    Why do this? Because it will make the 2022 mid terms about this issue and completely bury immigration and the border, inflation, national debt, Biden’s fitness for office etc etc as issues. It’ll be ALL about Roe v Wade and abortion “rights”, the left will make sure of that!

    Why now and not wait until the scheduled release in June/July? Because their polling numbers are tanking NOW, and they want most especially black voters (more black pregnancies are terminated per capita than other races) to come back to them, and this is what they think will do it – but it might take a bit longer and if they waited, it might not be “the” issue as widely as they want it to be.

  28. Rob MW Avatar
    Rob MW

    dover0beachsays:
    May 4, 2022 at 4:59 pm
    ML, I think Congress cannot avoid the issue from either side of the fence. It will be like slavery was in the mid-19th Century, or gay ‘marriage’, more recently; the state rights argument will only go so far if the issue involves what one or both sides see as an egregious wrong.

    Dover – the leaked opinion appears to outline that abortion cannot be implied in any way from the Constitution per-se or the Bill of Rights, unlike perhaps the Civil Rights Act etc. If that is the case, then the abortion laws must go back to the States legislatures subject to the Bill of Rights that protects life including those of the unborn child as defined by the question of exactly when an unborn child becomes a child, or living person, for the purposes of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

    The way for Congress to get around this conundrum would seem to be a Constitutional amendment, or, as usually happens when the socialists are in charge, make a law encompassing the design and language from a parallel universe and to determine which way the wind is blowing to make sure that they don’t piss on their own boots.

  29. dover0beach Avatar
    dover0beach

    In this case, intruding in people’s lives via parochial preferences in a single jurisdiction can only result in the sorts of outcomes we get with prohibitions of any kind.

    It’s instructive that extending the protection of the law to the unborn is characterized as a ‘parochial preference’.

    1
  30. dover0beach Avatar
    dover0beach

    Dover – the leaked opinion appears to outline that abortion cannot be implied in any way from the Constitution per-se or the Bill of Rights, unlike perhaps the Civil Rights Act etc.

    I don’t disagree with that if you mean there is very unlikely to be any implied right to abortion that can be read into the Constitution.

  31. a reader Avatar
    a reader

    I mean the whole issue could be avoided by either not having sex, or if you do do it, by using contraceptives.

  32. Boffin Avatar
    Boffin

    Brumble etc: so you think every State will legislate the same?

    Imposing your beliefs on people through law is – I suggest – your complaint in relation to vaccine but not apparently when it comes to abortion. Imagining that by making abortion illegal in some States that you prevent it is plainly a fantasy and a blatant example of the kind of moralising you abuse others over.

  33. Angus Black Avatar
    Angus Black

    Thinking in cold hard numbers, abortion is the most significant cause of death in the western world today between 20-25% of all deaths in the West each year are aborted foetuses…slightly more than “all cancers”, “all cardio-vascular, or “all respiratory”.

    If you were to calculate the number of healthy years of life lost through abortion, it would be greater than the number of years lost through all other causes of death combined.

    Uk and US (for the vast majority of States, anyway) figures are publicly available, Australia’s have been hidden for decades now, but we’re comparable to the others when last available.

    Now, I understand and am sympathetic to the arguments for some abortions…but am I the only one who feels that the scale of killing is out of all reasonable proportion for any society pretending to being “civilised”?

    3
  34. Luzu Avatar
    Luzu

    Boffin,

    I don’t have the way with words that John Brumble so obviously possesses but I shall try and explain what is wrong with what you just said.

    Being forced to be vaxxed affects one human body – mine. That is why I should have the final say and not be coerced.

    Abortion is not just about the body of the pregnant woman – there is the baby to consider. In most cases, women have willingly taken part in the behaviours that led to the creation of the baby. So for me, the argument of bodily autonomy ends when the life of another is involved.

    And you can tie yourself in knots trying to determine exactly on which day of gestation a baby can be called a baby. But I feel that is just semantics in order to hide a very ugly and unpalatable truth – abortion ends a human life.

    5
  35. dover0beach Avatar
    dover0beach

    Imposing your beliefs on people through law is – I suggest – your complaint in relation to vaccine but not apparently when it comes to abortion. Imagining that by making abortion illegal in some States that you prevent it is plainly a fantasy and a blatant example of the kind of moralising you abuse others over.

    This is idiocy on stilts. Firstly, he characterizes a law that prohibits a wrong as ‘imposing one’s beliefs’; every law does that. Secondly, he makes the bizarre claim that since a law cannot prevent every instance of that wrong it is worthless; the same could be said of every law that prohibits a wrong but the fact that every instance is not prevented doesn’t make the law useless. Thirdly, he returns to the ‘moralizing’. Never is the actual moral status of the child in utero a matter of concern.

    3
  36. Judge Dredd Avatar
    Judge Dredd

    I think Boffin prefers to keep the option of murdering babies so that he can continue to sleep around.
    This is what it amounts to.
    How’s the secular/atheist morality working for society?
    Not good when the blood of innocents by the hundreds of millions have been killed.

  37. Boffin Avatar
    Boffin

    On September 1, 2021, Texas enacted a law banning all abortions after the detection of a heart beat—typically 5 or 6 weeks after conception. This was the most restrictive state-level abortion law in the U.S. This health policy change provided a critical insight on a post-Roe world in the U.S.

    Almost immediately, the number of legal abortions dropped in Texas. In August 2021, Texas recorded 5,377 legal abortions. In September 2021, this fell to 2,164. Compared to September 2020, this was a 50% decrease in abortions.
    This number decreased for several reasons, but most dramatically because of a shift in where people got an abortion. Legal abortions in nearby states skyrocketed. From September to December 2019 (before the law), 514 Texans went to nearby states for legal abortions. From September to December 2021 (after the law), 5,574 Texans went to nearby states. Among those who traveled, the majority went to New Mexico or Oklahoma.

    Requests for mailed abortion pills also significantly increased. A study published in JAMA assessed the request rates for Aid Access—an international nonprofit medication abortion service that sends pills in the mail while sidestepping U.S. abortion restrictions, by connecting people with overseas doctors and pharmacies. The team found that abortion pill usage in Texas increased after the state’s law. In the first week, requests to Aid Access spiked by more than 1,180% —from about 11 requests per day to almost 138 requests per day. During the following three weeks, requests remained 245% higher than before the law. Overall, Aid Access received 1,831 requests from Texas for self-managed abortion in September 2021.

    If we add # out-of-state abortions + # abortion pills + # in-state abortions, a small decrease (10%) in overall abortions was observed in Texas after the law was enacted. Even then, though, the discrepancy may be accounted by other avenues of abortion that are not readily available in data sources, like traveling to Mexico for prescriptions or procedures, or illegal procedures within the state. Nonetheless, a close to zero change in abortions is consistent with international research: the abortion rate is 37 per 1000 in countries that prohibit abortion and 34 per 1000 in countries that allow abortion.

  38. Boffin Avatar
    Boffin

    My point, folks, is that you can impose legal sanctions to enforce your requirements for behaviour but it does not mean that you will change behaviour. I can imagine, from some of the language, that you might simply want to feel righteous. Is that the same as virtue signalling?

  39. John H. Avatar
    John H.

    Boffinsays:
    May 6, 2022 at 12:32 am
    On September 1, 2021, Texas enacted a law banning all abortions after the detection of a heart beat—typically 5 or 6 weeks after conception.

    There is no heart at 6 weeks. If “heart beat” is in the legislation it is nonsense and\or propaganda.

  40. 2dogs Avatar
    2dogs

    There is no heart at 6 weeks. If “heart beat” is in the legislation it is nonsense and\or propaganda.

    Uh, what? Try reading some science. The heart is one of the first organs to start developing.

    This video, which is actually of a chicken, shows how early the heart and circulatory system develops in animal embryos.

    1
  41. John H. Avatar
    John H.

    2dogssays:
    May 6, 2022 at 2:27 am
    There is no heart at 6 weeks. If “heart beat” is in the legislation it is nonsense and\or propaganda.

    Uh, what? Try reading some science. The heart is one of the first organs to start developing.

    This video, which is actually of a chicken, shows how early the heart and circulatory system develops in animal embryos.

    https://www.texastribune.org/2021/09/02/texas-abortion-heartbeat-bill/

    “When I use the stethoscope to listen to a patient’s heart, that sound that I hear is that typical bum-bum-bum-bum that you hear as the heartbeat is created by the opening and closing of the cardiac valves. And at six weeks of gestation, those valves don’t exist,” Verma said.

    “Flickering that we see on the ultrasound, that’s super early in the development of a pregnancy, is actually electric activity. And the sound that we hear at that point is actually manufactured by the ultrasound machine,” Verma added.

    —
    https://www.thecut.com/2019/05/embryos-dont-have-hearts.html

    But the heart is far from fully formed at this stage, and the “beat” isn’t audible; if doctors put a stethoscope up to a woman’s belly this early on in her pregnancy, they would not hear a heartbeat, Aftab told Live Science. (What’s more, it isn’t until the eighth week of pregnancy that the baby is called a fetus; prior to that, it’s still considered an embryo, according to the Cleveland Clinic.)

    It’s been only in the last few decades that doctors have even been able to detect this flutter at six weeks, thanks to the use of more-sophisticated ultrasound technologies, Aftab said. Previously, the technology wasn’t advanced enough to detect the flutter that early on in pregnancy.

    Although a lot of weight seems to be put on the detection of this flutter, “by no means does it translate to viability of the heart” or viability of the pregnancy, Aftab said.

    Related: Having a baby: Stages of pregnancy by trimester

    The heart still has a lot of development to undergo before it is fully formed. Indeed, the entire first trimester of pregnancy is a time of “organogenesis,” or the formation of organs, Aftab said.

    After the detection of the flutter at six weeks, the heart muscle continues to develop over the next four to six weeks, undergoing the folding and bending that needs to happen for the heart to take its final shape, Aftab said

  42. 2dogs Avatar
    2dogs

    Firstly, he characterizes a law that prohibits a wrong as ‘imposing one’s beliefs’; every law does that.

    Every law? Uhh, no. It is clear that driving either on the left or right hand side of the road is not morally superior to the alternative; a decision simply has to made. It would by silly to assert any law maker making that decision would be imposing their moral beliefs.

    There are an awfully large number of laws enforcing merely procedural matters which no-one imagines would constitute moral failings in the absence of those laws.

    1
  43. 2dogs Avatar
    2dogs

    Too very dodgy opinion articles, John, H.?

    Where did anyone say “fully formed”, or that the heartbeat needed to audible? Certainly not in legislation.

    The heart has certainly started formation by week 6, and does have a heartbeat at that time (which is not yet audible).

    Adding these requirements out of thin air doesn’t make the assertion in the legislation wrong.

    1
  44. Kneel Avatar
    Kneel

    “My point, folks, is that you can impose legal sanctions to enforce your requirements for behaviour but it does not mean that you will change behaviour.”

    Well, murder is illegal and murders still happen, theft is illegal and that still happens.
    So presumably, since they don’t prevent 100% of those things, they are just “virtue signalling” laws too.
    So what’s your point again?

    1
  45. Kneel Avatar
    Kneel

    “The heart has certainly started formation by week 6, and does have a heartbeat at that time (which is not yet audible). “

    Yet it can be detected by doppler ultrasound (“motion detection” of blood cells, kind of like police speed radar), can clearly be shown to NOT be the mothers, and you can listen to it (many people have – and will – listen to pre-natal heartbeats, and this is what they are listening to – the “surge” of speed in blood flow as the heart beats, not the actual sound of a beating heart).
    Does it need to be audible without some sort of tool – and isn’t a stethoscope a “tool”?
    It’s detectable at around that age and later, but generally not before then.
    This may be – other than “conception” or “birth” – one of the most objective tests for being “alive” on this issue. Not saying it is correct, just quite objective. So therefore, pretty good as far as legal evidence goes. Everything else would seem to be somewhat subjective and subject to change as medical tech improves, attitudes change etc etc, but those 3 things are certainly objective, and therefore make for “good” law (please note the distinction between “good or bad” law and “right or wrong” law – a “good” law can still be “wrong” in these terms)

  46. Boffin Avatar
    Boffin

    Kneel: murder is the ultimate intrusion on liberty. Legislating religious beliefs to impose moral preferences is a similar, lesser intrusion.
    In this case, my point is that States that make abortion illegal, don’t achieve anything but to shift location of abortion to States that do not. It’s a feel good exercise. Not an effective law.

  47. Winston Smith Avatar
    Winston Smith

    Angus Black:

    Now, I understand and am sympathetic to the arguments for some abortions…but am I the only one who feels that the scale of killing is out of all reasonable proportion for any society pretending to being “civilised”?

    The slippery slope argument and in this case well made.
    First it was “Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.”
    Now it’s “How much for that partially born kidneys, liver, heart, and eyes?”
    If the eyes are blue, then it’s double.
    One day there will be a reckoning.

  48. Boffin Avatar
    Boffin

    Winston: your absolutist position is really only possible if you are in denial. Abortion is going to happen no matter how many laws you impose – that much we know. In fact the available evidence (noted above) indicates that laws don’t stop abortion at all. So you create a crime solely to feel good about your morality.
    How is that different to any other virtue signal?

  49. Brian Avatar
    Brian

    I had not thought of that. Laws have clearly not stopped theft, so what’s the point of criminalising theft.
    Come to think of it, murder, rape, etc, etc
    Clearly laws serve no purpose since they don’t stop things…???

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *