We are only at the End of the Beginning


The decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation is a necessary victory on the path to eradicating the wrong of abortion. Few would have believed it possible, let alone see it realized in their lifetimes, yet here we are. We have the tireless work of an anti-abortion movement to thank for this, which spent the last several decades since Roe make the argument against abortion and for life. The decisions of Roe and Casey were wrong and depended upon the most tenuous and tendentious arguments. In the end, the appeal was largely to inertia; that is, having made a terrible decision and enabled the practice to generate a unjust social order, stare decisis remained the only legal bulwark protecting it from being struck down. Finally, owing to the choices of Trump, three new justices, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett, when given the opportunity, joined Alito, Roberts and Thomas in a stunning 6-3 decision in the most extraordinary of circumstances reversing Roe and Casey.

However, as much as we may rejoice in this decision, it is palpably only the end of the beginning. In order to eradicate the wrong of abortion, we had to reverse the lie that there is any fundamental human right to kill the child in utero (let alone that this right could ever be reserved to the mother (and father)). And I dare say that none within the anti-abortion movement is satisfied with the decision about whether such a right or privilege exists being left to the states. Even before Dobbs, minds had already considered the grounds for a federal ban on abortion based on the 14th amendment. The impetus for this will only intensify as states that permit abortion promote interstate travel, often paid for by employers, so residents where abortion is prohibited or strictly regulated can travel out-of-state to one where an abortion can be procured.

To paraphrase Lincoln in his House Divided Speech:

“A house divided against itself, cannot stand.”

I believe this government cannot endure permanently half pro-abortion and half anti-abortion.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other.

Either the opponents of abortion will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South.


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John Sheldrick
June 25, 2022 4:52 pm

First.

NoFixedAddress
NoFixedAddress
June 25, 2022 4:59 pm

A great comment and thank you dover0beach for all you do.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
June 25, 2022 5:11 pm

Americans eventually came to understand that slavery is wrong. Different people have different reasons for this perception, frequently inchoate and ill expressed, but rooted in some sense of universal humanity.

That they should all come to understand that cutting short a human life, with all the wonderful amazingness that being alive entails, is by no means impossible. Let’s hope it comes about, and help it to happen by pointing out the sheer miracle of what it is to be a live human being.

JC
JC
June 25, 2022 5:19 pm

Nice thoughts Doc, but I also think that just as equally it’s also best to have never been born and only because one will never experience annihilation/ death

NoFixedAddress
NoFixedAddress
June 25, 2022 5:36 pm

Soylent Green is the go JC?

NoFixedAddress
NoFixedAddress
June 25, 2022 5:39 pm

Or is it crickets?

duncanm
duncanm
June 25, 2022 5:58 pm

an interesting take in the last episode of “The Orville”

New leader of the Arch human nemesis the krill hides her cross-species (krill/human) baby from public glare, despite being completely anti-human.

They’re a very religious people who follow some weird god call Avis.

When asked why she had the baby, she quite rightly points out that (despite their violent society), the Krill are not as barbaric as humans are.

NoFixedAddress
NoFixedAddress
June 25, 2022 6:04 pm

Women are forced back to giving birth to children in the cotton fields.

Megan
Megan
June 25, 2022 6:08 pm

A great comment and thank you dover0beach for all you do.

Seconded!

Trained Observer
Trained Observer
June 25, 2022 6:40 pm

Dobbs doesn’t prevent abortion. It shifts the jurisdiction to US States. Similarly it will move the location of abortion from States that make it illegal to those where it is.
Dobbs is simply an expression of the idea that States rights are “original” to the Constitution.
What it will do is amplify the division in US society.

NoFixedAddress
NoFixedAddress
June 25, 2022 6:54 pm

Kalafornians Killing Kids

NoFixedAddress
NoFixedAddress
June 25, 2022 8:34 pm

It would be like saying you would prefer to be deaf if only not to hear terrible noise thus depriving yourself also of a wonderful music/ sound.

dover0beach

best as comment.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 25, 2022 8:53 pm

What it will do is amplify the division in US society.

For a “Trained Observer”, you seem to be pretty unobservant.

Eddystone
Eddystone
June 25, 2022 10:08 pm

Meanwhile, in South Australia, this just came through my SA Health email;

From Wellbeing SA. “Supporting your state of wellbeing.”

The Termination of Pregnancy Act 2021 and associated Termination of Pregnancy Regulations 2022 will come into effect on 7 July 2022. Importantly, this legislation recognises that abortion is a health issue – and not part of the criminal law.

The previous email was, no joke, from SA Govt,

Nominations open for the 2022 South Australian Child Protection Awards

So while we can rejoice that the US has taken a step back towards life and goodness, we here in Australia are still living under the shadow of evil, and most of our cohabitors on this continent are quite happy that this is so.

Maniac
Maniac
June 25, 2022 10:54 pm

Hopefully the abomination of Sodomite marriage will be overturned as well.

Ed Case
Ed Case
June 26, 2022 6:13 am

Legal Abortion in the U.S. doesn’t matter much anymore, since it’s very unlikely that a Triple Vaxxed woman will be able to deliver a live baby.

m0nty
June 26, 2022 10:20 am

Even before Dobbs, minds had already considered the grounds for a federal ban on abortion based on the 14th amendment.

So after a reversal of Roe to explicitly take the issue back to the states, now you want to take it away from the states and impose a federal ban.

It’s as if there is no logical basis to your position, just whatever suits your religious beliefs.

Of course now there will also be a push to ban contraception, same-sex marriages and sodomy. Not to mention inter-racial marriage… but funnily enough that was the one thing Thomas didn’t mention.

Everyone involved in the push to repeal Roe hates women.

P
P
June 26, 2022 11:46 am
Roger
Roger
June 26, 2022 11:59 am

Everyone involved in the push to repeal Roe hates women.

That’s the best argument you have?

m0nty
June 26, 2022 12:06 pm

It’s the truth.

Lee
Lee
June 26, 2022 12:08 pm

Everyone involved in the push to repeal Roe hates women.

Does that include the many millions of women who are against abortion?

Roger
Roger
June 26, 2022 12:11 pm

It’s the truth.

No, it’s an assertion.

Roger
Roger
June 26, 2022 12:14 pm

And it’s meaningless because it can’t be verified.

Ed Case
Ed Case
June 26, 2022 1:26 pm

Everyone involved in the push to repeal Roe hates women.

That’s a big call.
Prohibition proved that Government can’t regulate Morality though, so i’ve gotta agree.

vlad redux
vlad redux
June 26, 2022 2:23 pm

Government can’t regulate Morality

That’s what it does in outlawing theft and wilful murder.

Ed Case
Ed Case
June 26, 2022 3:22 pm

Should be:
Government can’t Legislate Morality
Though it can try, with disastrous effect, as Prohibition proved.

Ed Case
Ed Case
June 26, 2022 3:24 pm

Government can’t regulate Morality

That’s what it does in outlawing theft and wilful murder.

Being a drunk isn’t a Crime, so your analogy doesn’t stack up.

Bar Beach Swimmer
June 26, 2022 3:41 pm

What it will do is amplify the division in US society.

Maybe that will be the first response but, over time, divisions heal (well, that’s what the left always says when it makes inroads and the right loses out).

btw, how many Unites States citizens agree with slavery today?; to the nearest percentage point, if you wouldn’t mind.

And on hating women – I watched Watters’ World yesterday – which reported that despite the Congress wanting to legislate a universal right to abortion, it didn’t happen because the Democrats couldn’t decide what a woman is. So much for the anti-abortionists hating women.

Ed Case
Ed Case
June 26, 2022 3:53 pm

… btw, how many Unites States citizens agree with slavery today?

A better question might be:
How many U.S. citizens agreed with Slavery in 1860?
Since Slavery took away jobs from White men, the answer would be:
Extremely few, but those few mattered and the other 99% didn’t.
Same as today.

Hubris
Hubris
June 26, 2022 5:02 pm

Bar Beach: seems to me that imposing beliefs on people over a matter as personal as this is not something that can be expected to settle over time.
Some States for example legislate to intrude oversight in any interrupted birth. If taken literally this will require authorities to investigate miscarriage or any other outcome of pregnancy that does not result in live birth.

Bar Beach Swimmer
June 26, 2022 5:31 pm

Hubris:
seems to me that imposing beliefs on people over a matter as personal as this is not something that can be expected to settle over time

One of the things that has changed in public opinion is because of the technological advances in medical imaging. To see a baby is to see a baby.

Cassie of Sydney
June 26, 2022 5:43 pm

“Everyone involved in the push to repeal Roe hates women.”

A sad comment from a sad sack.

Ed Case
Ed Case
June 26, 2022 5:47 pm

If taken literally this will require authorities to investigate miscarriage or any other outcome of pregnancy that does not result in live birth.
Correct.
It will be taken literally, bet on it.
The Government likes living in people’s bedrooms.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 26, 2022 5:59 pm

m0nty-fa

Everyone involved in the push to repeal Roe hates women.

Most of those involved in the beginning of the abortion industry in the US (Margaret Sanger) hated blacks. How many black women did Gosnells kill?

another ian
another ian
June 26, 2022 6:50 pm

Way back in BC (about late 1960’s IIRc and I no longer have the reference) there was an item in Ariadne’s column in the New Scientist on the possibility of a computer based religion.

Things I remember –

It would champion mores diametrically opposed to the common behaviour of the population

It would issue bulk proclamations of the fire and brimstone flavour

It would dispense random financial rewards on the Premium Bond principle\

And the wonder was how many disciples might be attracted even when it was known that the equipment was supplied by XYZ Computer Co and the software written by Joseph Q Blow

duncanm
duncanm
June 26, 2022 7:34 pm

Everyone involved in the push to repeal Roe hates women.

so you’ll be arguing for a federal ruling in Oz that overrules state laws, then?

Because all that’s happened in the US is that the federal court has said that abortion has nothing to do with the constitution and it is a state matter.

Alain
Alain
June 26, 2022 8:28 pm

Amazing how those that were screaming that the vax should be mandated are now screaming for bodily autonomy.

calli
calli
June 26, 2022 9:35 pm

Everyone involved in the push to repeal Roe hates women murder.

m0nty
June 26, 2022 11:15 pm

Dobbs returns it back to the states by rejecting Roe and Casey, it didn’t argue that abortion was the exclusive province of the states. So you’re just armwaving here.

If Biden somehow managed to enact a federal pro-choice bill, SCOTUS would strike it down in the name of states rights.

If Trump gets re-elected in 2024 and signs a federal abortion ban, SCOTUS would do nothing.

The Court is not bound by logic, morality or societal values. It is a tool of the Republican Party, bought and paid for.

Don’t try to pretend there is any high ground that the five can claim. This is pure religious dominionism. America is now a theocracy.

JC
JC
June 26, 2022 11:22 pm

If Biden somehow managed to enact a federal pro-choice bill, SCOTUS would strike it down in the name of states rights.

If it were impinging on the states then sure they would – in a heart beat as they should.

If Trump gets re-elected in 2024 and signs a federal abortion ban, SCOTUS would do nothing.

Delusional again.

The Court is not bound by logic, morality or societal values. It is a tool of the Republican Party, bought and paid for.

lol.

Don’t try to pretend there is any high ground that the five can claim. This is pure religious dominionism. America is now a theocracy.

Sure is with Hiden as president.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 27, 2022 7:58 am

The Court is not bound by logic, morality or societal values. It is a tool of the Republican Party, bought and paid for.

m0nty-fa is vewwwy, vewwwy, upset that a Court which the DemonRats had under their thumb for decades is no longer there. HOW DARE THEY!!!!

It would be interesting if m0nty-fa could set out his definitions of “logic, morality [and] societal values”. I wonder if he even has any, other than feeeeelzz?

Trained Observer
Trained Observer
June 27, 2022 8:38 am

Abortion is not “eradicated” in the US by a decision of the Supreme Court to enable States to ban it. Americans will have choices, including buying pills in the post or travelling interstate for abortion.
What the Court has done is to interfere in people’s lives by overturning an established interpretation of the Constitution in relation to the freedoms of US citizens. The Court has enabled States to legislate to interfere in the most private of personal decisions.
When States seek to enforce the laws that some have so speedily enacted we will see how wise the Court has been. (People might like to look up the reasons why Montana will not be enacting such laws and wonder whether this idea might catch on.)

m0nty
June 27, 2022 9:55 am

Delusional again.

JC, you thought SCOTUS would never repeal Roe and you were dead wrong, so you can have a seat on this one as far as predictions go.

m0nty
June 27, 2022 9:59 am

Also, SCOTUS has already shown that “states rights” is a fig leaf argument that they will discard in situations where it doesn’t favour them – as in the recent decision to overrule state laws on gun control in Bruen.

The five know-nothing judges are not constrained by anything except the Republican policy platform.

m0nty
June 27, 2022 11:22 am

Not clear at at that would occur. I’ve seen originalists arguments made for a federal right to abortion.

Thomas and Alito and the rest do not care about originalist arguments. They only care about instituting a theocracy. You can tell by how sloppy their reasoning is, fluff that would be failed in an undergraduate law exam. They don’t even care about making cogent arguments, their rulings are Fox News comment thread quality.

You can accuse the left of being hysterical, but the Court has signalled in no uncertain terms that it is going to do all the things that the left accuses it of. It’s right there in the rulings.

I remember years and years of arguments on the Cat about incremental changes here and there within the framework of a modern social democracy, but the roadmap that Dobbs lays out ends with Gilead. It is radical and undemocratic. Far from the 1950s that conservatives usually strive for, the target here is is the 1790s.

m0nty
June 27, 2022 11:26 am

Dobbs didn’t mount a state-rights argument… The effect of this denial is to return the matter to the states

Dobbs … emanations of the 14th amendment. … Bruen involved the 2nd and 14th amendments

LOL. To state your arguments is to refute them.

m0nty
June 27, 2022 12:18 pm

To return an issue to the states isn’t to say it is limited to the states exclusively

You’re dancing on the head of a pin, db. This argument is excruciating. It is also preparing the ground for Trump to enact a federal abortion ban.

You’re being deliberately obtuse, like the five judges are, to try to conceal the fact that these rulings are made by Catholic judges for Catholic reasons.

Dobbs is the culmination of decades of work by political operatives to rouse the religious right on behalf of the Republican Party. There is no logic here, just power. The judges can use that power in the face of the democratic will of the people, but they (and you) can’t expect any respect for doing so.

m0nty
June 27, 2022 12:37 pm

It’s also extremely disingenuous of the Court to say they are sending the issue back to the people… when the people strongly endorsed Roe. What they are doing is sending it back to the Republican elites who control red and purple states, who are supported by the Court with gerrymanders that the Court has waved through.

The bills put up by Republican elites in deep red states are supported only by extremist right-wingers, with no exceptions for rape or incest, plus a regime of criminalisation that will see doctors and women forever hounded by police, even across state lines.

Dobbs is anti-democratic to the extreme and will enable religion-based authoritarianism, but of course the judges try to pretend they are empowering the people. Disgusting, all round.

m0nty
June 27, 2022 12:54 pm

“We’re going to repeal a federal right to abortion but later we will wave through a federal ban on abortion” is an argument that SCOTUS has just made, but that doesn’t mean it makes any sense. Unless you’re a trad or a white supremacist. Then it fits your strong priors.

m0nty
June 27, 2022 12:57 pm

Also the argument of “the Court shouldn’t make this law so we’re going to repeal it and later we will wave through a law from Congress so the Court is barley cross fingers” makes zero sense, but it’s the outcome that matters here, isn’t it?

Kneel
Kneel
June 27, 2022 1:15 pm

“It’s also extremely disingenuous of the Court to say they are sending the issue back to the people… when the people strongly endorsed Roe.”

Watch where the riots take place – it will be in the places where this ruling will make NO change to abortion availability, such as CA, NY, Il etc etc. That is, the big cities, most especially in the blue states, will see the worst violence. These are the places where there will be a relaxation, if anything, of abortion laws.
You see, Monty – this not only sends this back to the states, it also means the “viability” test – a federal imposition – is gone, so CA can now allow abortion up to just prior to delivery. Defend that.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 27, 2022 1:24 pm

It is also preparing the ground for Trump to enact a federal abortion ban.

I’m actually shocked Benito M0ntylini has betrayed his lack of confidence in America’s ‘fortified’ Democratic Processes that have served it so well since November 2020…

Kneel
Kneel
June 27, 2022 1:40 pm

“…betrayed his lack of confidence in America’s ‘fortified’ Democratic Processes …”

When SCOTUS was dominated by “progressive” justices, it was “the rule of law” that mattered, and SCOTUS had ruled, so deal with it.
Now that the pendulum has swung, and it’s “conservative” justices in the majority, it’s “a travesty” and “we won’t allow it!”

Same with elections, innit? When DJT was elected, he was “illegitimate” and the result was because “Russia, Russia, Russia” done it, I tells ya. When progressives set fire to DC in January 2017, that was a legitimate protest, even when they were banging on the doors of congress.
Or when, on May 29th 2020, over 150 federal agents were injured, a Secret Service guard hut was set on fire, a centuries old church was also set on fire, and the fencing around the White House was breached, creating such a significant threat that the Secret Service sequestered the President in a bunker, that was just DJT being frightened by a protest, and no threat at all to democracy.

Trained Observer
Trained Observer
June 27, 2022 1:52 pm

Dover: So you are in favour of Government interfering in people’s personal life to any extent at all. And I say that believing there isn’t anything more personal than the decision to abort.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 27, 2022 1:58 pm

So you are in favour of Government interfering in people’s personal life to any extent at all.

Wow.

A leftwit troll who’s even dimmer and consumed by ideology than the Fat Man…

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 27, 2022 3:20 pm

m0ntysays:
June 27, 2022 at 9:59 am
Also, SCOTUS has already shown that “states rights” is a fig leaf argument that they will discard in situations where it doesn’t favour them – as in the recent decision to overrule state laws on gun control in Bruen.

m0nty-fa

Even I did not think that you would be so stupid as to equate an “aura under a penumbra” that was supposedly found in the US Constitution in 1973 with an explicit right detailed in specific terms in that Constitution, but here we are, reading your incoherent babble.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 27, 2022 3:22 pm

Dover

This is pure cope and seethe.

In m0nty-fa’s case, more pure seethe and NOT cope.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 27, 2022 3:25 pm

Thomas and Alito and the rest do not care about originalist arguments. They only care about instituting a theocracy. You can tell by how sloppy their reasoning is, fluff that would be failed in an undergraduate law exam.

A bit rich coming from someone who failed Economics I, and then had a nervous breakdown.

Kneel
Kneel
June 27, 2022 3:26 pm

“Dover: So you are in favour of Government interfering in people’s personal life to any extent at all.”

Of course this is tricky – if I plan to kill you, but haven’t actually done it yet, I can be charged with a criminal offense.
If you and I agree to a fight to the death, the winner can still be charged with murder, or at least manslaughter.
So obviously, these examples are “interference” in personal choices, aren’t they?
Mayhap you think one or the other justified (or perhaps both), but that is the point, isn’t it?

And as Dover points out, since the child that has been conceived has unique DNA, as that only half its genetic heritage is from the mother (the other half is from the father, of course), then these individuals also have some “say” in what happens, don’t they?
At the moment, it is somewhat ridiculous that the mother can insist on an abortion and even if the father wants to keep the child he cannot, while the mother can also insist on keeping the child – even if the father does not want the child, he MUST pay his share of its upkeep. This would no doubt be an issue in the US – the lefties are already saying “ban abortion and the father must pay”, to which the right says “Sure – we’re good with that”. But the left won’t support the fathers right to have the child, nor his right to NOT pay for it – it is the woman’s right to choose they say, because it is “…her life…”. What of the fathers life? What of the child’s life? Do neither of them have a choice? Not even any influence? If not, why not?

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 27, 2022 3:29 pm

m0nty-fa

The judges can use that power in the face of the democratic will of the people, but they (and you) can’t expect any respect for doing so.

But enough about the “liberal” justices, who are so willing to use “power in the face of the democratic will of the people” that SC commentators have for many tears routinely predicted what their position would be even before any evidence was heard. You are simply screeching because someone has taken away the lolly jar to which you formerly had unrestricted access.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 27, 2022 3:32 pm

m0nty-fa (who is really going full-on fascist today)

It’s also extremely disingenuous of the Court to say they are sending the issue back to the people… when the people strongly endorsed Roe.

At what stage did the “people” strongly endorse full term abortion? What was granted under Roe was quite restrictive, and the incrementalism of the fascist left has been expanding the grant ever since.

m0nty
June 27, 2022 3:32 pm

Not even clear what you’re saying here. At the moment you’re saying ‘it makes no sense for a court to say they should not make law and later wave a law made by Congress’ thinking this is somehow contradictory is silly beyond words.

The Court reckons it should stay out of political issues and stick to the Constitution, yet they just waded into the most divisive political issue of the moment and came down heavily on one political side, abandoning stare decisis, ignoring decades of precedent, setting aside well-established societal norms, and creating new law to police areas of behaviour in which the Court had previously not ventured.

Those who agree with the clerics rejoice at their opponents’ pain, as you are doing on Twitter right now. First was voting rights, now this, next up it will be gay marriage, then it’s contraception, then miscegenation. And hey, if you manage to get that far, why not go all the way down the slippery slope.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 27, 2022 3:36 pm

m0nty-fa

Unless you’re a trad or a white supremacist.

Given the explicit racism and eugenicism behind the founder of the US abortion industry, Margaret Sanger, the reference to “white supremacist” is ludicrous. Note that RBG admitted in an interview the racism of the whole project.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 27, 2022 3:38 pm

[Un]Trained Observer

And I say that believing there isn’t anything more personal than the decision to abort.

It’s certainly very, very, personal for the baby.

m0nty
June 27, 2022 3:38 pm

Actually the next one off the rank is West Virginia vs EPA, which should be dropping very soon. That one will probably destroy the Clean Air Act and hamper efforts to curtail CO2 emissions. So hey, it’s Wingnut Christmas.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 27, 2022 3:41 pm

At 1529, “years”, not “tears”, but either can apply.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 27, 2022 3:44 pm

m0nty-fa

hamper efforts to curtail CO2 emissions.

Prove scientifically that there is any purpose (other than a political purpose) in curtailing CO2 emissions.

Kneel
Kneel
June 27, 2022 4:09 pm

“The Court reckons it should stay out of political issues and stick to the Constitution, yet they just waded into the most divisive political issue of the moment and came down heavily on one political side, abandoning stare decisis, ignoring decades of precedent, setting aside well-established societal norms, and creating new law to police areas of behaviour in which the Court had previously not ventured.”

So giving control of what is allowed to elected representatives, rather than making up “rights” as they did on the very dodgy Roe decision is “coming down on one side”? How exactly?

“creating new law” from the bench was EXACTLY what Roe did! Unlike freedom of speech, freedom from a “state” religion, freedom to own and bear a firearm, the right to face your accusers, the right to
a speedy trial, the right to not incriminate oneself and so on, abortion is not a right in the constitution.
They made it up out of whole cloth, and it was as dodgy as hell. This was progressive activist judges doing and even RGB thought so, as well as almost every serious legal scholar.

Funny how you leftists are always complaining about “decades of precedent”, but the reality is that prior to Roe, abortion was illegal in many states, and most had it illegal in the second and third trimester at least. What about that precedent? What about that history? What about that “democracy”?

Kneel
Kneel
June 27, 2022 4:18 pm

“Prove scientifically that there is any purpose (other than a political purpose) in curtailing CO2 emissions.”

Proof, smoof!
Everyone knows the world is flat “bad air” causes plague CO2 causes global warming. Experts say so, so it must be true. Just like the experts at IBM once said we would only need 5 computers globally.
We don’t need your stupid facts and proof – we have our feelings! We know it’s true in out guts. It’s our “lived experience”, and so it’s “real” – same as that pregnant man over there. Duh.
You’re just a phobo-phobic phobophobe, so shut up!
Yous dont know niffink!

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 27, 2022 5:06 pm

Actually the next one off the rank is West Virginia vs EPA, which should be dropping very soon. That one will probably destroy the Clean Air Act and hamper efforts to curtail CO2 emissions.

You mean an entire of Corps of unelected federal and State EPA bureaucrats might soon be forced to lift their boots off the necks of all American industry and the average citizen?!

And the entire basis of wholly political economic bottlenecks, like GavinNewsom’s California blocking all trucks made before 2008 (on a progressive sliding scale) from operating in their state and simultaneously denying all such vehicles and non-union drivers from accessing the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach Port, might crumble and fall?!!

Oh Noes, Fat Man! Those dirty plebes from Tamarui to Tamworth to Timbuktu can’t be allowed to have or trade stuff! Whatever will Mama Gaia and the polar bears think?!!!

(Seriously, take a packet of Bex and have a good, long lie down, m0nty. You’re off the deep end today…)

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 27, 2022 5:10 pm

(I also forgot, that the demands of the very latest US EPA / Euro Tier IV+ and Tier V regs for spark and compression-ignition IC engine particulate emissions, CO2 emanations and seconday/tertiary compounds are all but impossible to comply with. Despite the decades of R&D and improvements attained to date.

When the likes of even Toyota admit to deliberately and systematically falsifying details to get their cars sold, the problem probably isn’t with the maker, the marketers or the end users…

m0nty
June 27, 2022 6:57 pm

You mean an entire of Corps of unelected federal and State EPA bureaucrats might soon be forced to lift their boots off the necks of all American industry and the average citizen?!

“boots off the necks” LOL, give me a spell. We are talking here about the normal operation of a Western government, established generations ago to protect the interests of the people who want clean air and freedom from pollution.

Gorsuch is close to destroying core abilities of the US federal government to function with a decision that would defy centuries of precedent. He wants to achieve Grover Norquist’s life goal of drowning the government in a bathtub. You could hardly get anything more radical from a Supreme Court.

Lee
Lee
June 27, 2022 7:17 pm

Even one of the left’s “heroes”, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said that Roe v. Wade is bad law.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 27, 2022 7:41 pm

m0nty-fa

Gorsuch is close to destroying core abilities of the US federal government to function with a decision that would defy centuries of precedent.

He’s going to abolish the Department of Defense, and replace them with an Organised Militia?

Get real m0nty-fa, the EPA is not much older than Roe.

Lee
Lee
June 27, 2022 7:55 pm

M0nty is either paranoid or a conspiracy theorist.
Perhaps both.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 27, 2022 8:01 pm

We are talking here about the normal operation of a Western government, established generations ago to protect the interests of the people who want clean air and freedom from pollution.

The EPA was another leftwit agenda-conjuration of the 1970s, Fat Man. Much like your lamented Roe v. Wade.

GeNeRaTiOnS aGo fOr ThOsE WhO WaNt MuH FrE’eM fRoM PoLluShIn my Roots-blown, coal-rolling, museum-piece driving, noise-polluting smonk monster arse…

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 27, 2022 8:06 pm

(And for any sensitive souls brutally ravaged by that solid piece of ancient engineering I just linked, those 2 smokey old diesels revving their guts out up are still more fuel efficient, evironmentally friendly and less socially costly to the local, state and entire US population for the load they are shoving uphill, than the dozens or even tens of dozens of Tier IV-compliant truck movements that would be needed to shift even a portion of that tonnage.

And I defy you to show me otherwise. 🙂 )

Dot
Dot
June 27, 2022 10:53 pm

hamper efforts to curtail CO2 emissions.

Oh yes. China and India really care about this.

Dot
Dot
June 27, 2022 10:55 pm

“boots off the necks” LOL, give me a spell. We are talking here about the normal operation of a Western government, established generations ago to protect the interests of the people who want clean air and freedom from pollution.

Is this why nearly all of the Copenhagen attendees flew there?

PS

They didn’t flap their arms. They used a prodigious amount of carbins.

bespoke
bespoke
June 28, 2022 6:20 am

Everyone involved in the push to repeal Roe hates women.

You started OK monty and then went down hill from this.

Hubris
Hubris
June 28, 2022 9:57 am

Dover: is it not curious that the decision in Dobbs actually relies on Roe to argue that Dobbs isn’t precedent for overturning any case on issues not specifically mentioned in the Constitution?
One might wonder how (for example) Clarence Thomas might feel about the right to enter mixed race marriage?

Trained Observer
Trained Observer
June 28, 2022 1:25 pm
Trained Observer
Trained Observer
June 28, 2022 1:26 pm

Dover: you can apologise any time

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 28, 2022 1:30 pm

Well done, Dover.

Another leftwit triggered.

Though I think the snark about Clarence Thomas and the rights and legalities of mixed-race marriage probably says far more about the Untrained and Unobservant than it does about any SCOTUS decision…

#YouWillLiveInTheBoxesWEdecide,Peasants!

m0nty
June 28, 2022 1:41 pm

The “logic” used to justify Dobbs can also apply equally to Loving.

Lee
Lee
June 28, 2022 1:54 pm

Dover: https://www.thebulwark.com/roes-end-and-the-phony-doctrine-of-potential-life/

Resorting to hypotheticals now?
“But it’s okay when we [the left] do it!”

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 28, 2022 2:12 pm

“logic”

Never your lot’s strong suit, m0nty…

m0nty
June 28, 2022 4:27 pm

You could try but it wouldn’t be as convincing. And I say that as someone that isn’t an originalist.

The five in the majority don’t care about being convincing. They have the power, they don’t need to care about the quality of their argument. There is no “try” with a possibility of failure. Their word is law.

There is a long list of personal rights that the five are going to strike down. Clarence Thomas set out some of them in his ruling. Short of stacking the court, how can they be stopped? They are a law unto themselves. As the Federalist Society planned all along.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 28, 2022 4:57 pm

The five in the majority don’t care about being convincing. They have the power, they don’t need to care about the quality of their argument.

m0nty-fa

Did they learn that attitude from watching the “liberal” justices when they had the majority? When USSC observers would routinely (and accurately) predict the reactions of the “liberal” justices even before evidence was taken? Or is it different when your side does it?

Don’t forget that even a “liberal” icon like RBG thought that the reasoning in Roe was inadequate.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 28, 2022 5:00 pm

m0nty-fa

Short of stacking the court, how can they be stopped? They are a law unto themselves. As the Federalist Society planned all along.

Let me correct that.

Short of stacking the court, how could they be stopped? They were a law unto themselves. As the DemonRat Party planned all along.

The DemonRats and the rest of the so-called “progressive” left in the US set up a system that would produce results that they wanted, dreaming that no-one else would copy their actions. They made the bed, now they must lie in it.

Trained Observer
Trained Observer
June 28, 2022 5:03 pm

Dover: no problem, you can apologise later when the analysis becomes reality.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 28, 2022 5:40 pm

you can apologise later when the analysis becomes reality

Wot? A leftist frothing in rage at one of their sacred cows being tipped, is now passively-aggressively threatening societal catastrophe?

A very Trained response from a genuinely un-Observant person…

Hubris
Hubris
June 28, 2022 6:52 pm

Rex: used to be that conservatives promoted individual rights. Now they are leftists in your book. Yet it’s your approach that imposes the State on people’s liberties.
Seems to me a lot you here are more like the rancid communists of the 1950s in your approach to dogma.
TE makes a valid point and one that already resonates. Decision on Utahs abortion ban will be the start of the process in testing exactly who is oppressing who.

Trained Observer
Trained Observer
June 28, 2022 9:06 pm

Rex: you clearly aren’t up on the reading. My point is that this decision is going to unravel in the States and then roll back up to the Supremes in a quite different barrel. I think the biblical meme is: as ye sow, so shall ye reap.
Happily, people in Australia seem to have completely gotten over the religious influence in politics.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 28, 2022 10:10 pm

Hello, leftwits.

I know who you are, and the bankruptcy of the muh rightses! arguments you’re trying to spruik.

I also know that most actual conservative (and even non-activist liberal) folk tend to not need the State’s permission or threat of coercive action like you do in order to treat folks with decency and compassion. Or at least civility.

So while you two may be frothing furiously about mixed race marriages and homosexual relationships and how removing bad case law that invented a federalised constitutional right to infanticide is somehow going to be The End Of All Life As We Know It, the rest of the world will be getting on with more important things. Like life. And living.

See the pair of you and your derivative, scripted bullshit next week, when West Virginia v. EPA drops. 🙂

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 1:12 pm

Dover

From the Open Thread.

Kneel

It’s not the case that “conservative” judges “removed” a right, it’s that “progressive” judges created one that they shouldn’t have – they had faulty reasoning, SCOTUS has now decided (which aligns with the view of many legal scholars both before and after this ruling – even “progressive” ones).

I wonder what the reaction would be of so-called “progressives”, if they were to be asked whether “stare decisis” should apply to Dred Scott?

Oh, hang on, they were mad keen on the decision at the time. Forget my question.

Trained Observer
Trained Observer
June 29, 2022 3:11 pm

Rex etc: Much as you do go on about murder etc, you ignore the real world questions about the decision to abort. Women have to face great difficulty with pregnancy (that much should not be a controversy) and they face huge risks with both giving birth and choosing abortion (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2709326/).
The idea that a bunch of public servants, police or whatever may intrude on that situation in any way is obscene. This is not a party political question. It’s not a partisan question. Though it may be a case where religion of sorts is imposed by law (even though no prominent religious text refers at all to abortion).

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 3:28 pm

Much as you do go on about murder etc.

You have reached a point of agreement about what abortion practically is in 90+ per cent of all cases worldwide. There is hope for you yet… 🙂

The idea that a bunch of public servants, police or whatever may intrude on that situation in any way is obscene

But it was all perfectly OK for them to do so when Roe was decided back in 1973, eh?

Women have to face great difficulty with pregnancy (that much should not be a controversy) and they face huge risks with both giving birth and choosing abortion.

Sorry Comrade, but we’ve already had m0nty run through this entire dishonest and dissembling script from its feigned concern about risks to women at the top, to its collapse at but muh rightses! 3-4 days ago. It’s all upthread here and throughout last Weekend’s Open Thread.

That you feel the need to start it all again from Square One, suggests that:
A) You are not a Trained Observer at all, and

B) You lot really don’t have anything to argue with on Roe’s behalf at all, and never had in the first place.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 3:32 pm

Though it may be a case where religion of sorts is imposed by law

Ermagerd. Overturning Roe and Dobbs = The imposition of debbil-debbil Christianist theocracy (though we can’t tell you exactly what that looks like cos we have no idea what our script actually means.l). A brand new Dark Age is upon us, I tells ya!

You people lack imagination and creativity. No wonder the world you lot have conjured is so awfully beige…

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 3:37 pm

[Un]Trained Observer

and they face huge risks with both giving birth and choosing abortion

Define “huge”, with respect to the maternal death rate in advanced western nations. Ditto re the death rate during abortions in the same nations.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 3:38 pm

[Un]Trained Observer

(even though no prominent religious text refers at all to abortion).

“Thou shalt do no murder” is not prominent enough for you?

Lee
Lee
June 29, 2022 3:55 pm

The idea that a bunch of public servants, police or whatever may intrude on that situation in any way is obscene.

What I find truly “obscene” is dismembering and killing babies.

m0nty
June 29, 2022 3:55 pm

And yet the argument they provide is very convincing on the history and traditions re abortion

The new legal doctrine that Alito has plucked out of thin air for Dobbs is based on a patently wrong summation of history. No, there was not an “unbroken tradition” in America of criminalising abortion. Actual historians – you know, ones who studied history, not law – disagree with the lawyers on this one.

Alito’s doctrine that you can’t declare a right unless it has an “unbroken tradition” since the founding of the USA centuries ago is insultingly ridiculous. It is the bare assertion of a partisan reactionary, manufactured to prevent progress.

BTW, I’m curious about this shift to talking about personal rights as opposed to individual rights all of a sudden.

I was using them interchangeably, didn’t mean anything by it.

m0nty
June 29, 2022 3:59 pm

Question for Cats: do you agree that a right to privacy exists in America, even though one was not laid out in the Constitution explicitly? How do you think a right to privacy should be cast in the law, given the situation we have now where SCOTUS seems determined to remove it?

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 4:09 pm

Question for Cats: do you agree that a right to privacy exists in America, even though one was not laid out in the Constitution explicitly? How do you think a right to privacy should be cast in the law, given the situation we have now where SCOTUS seems determined to remove it?

Are Roe and Dobbs matters of individual privacy now, eh?

Give it up, Fat Man. The Left as you knew it is dead. You lot are just too caught up in its corpse’s intertia to see it.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 4:10 pm

I was using them interchangeably, didn’t mean anything by it

You flap that arm anyharder Benito M0ntylini, and you’ll tear your flipper off with it…

m0nty
June 29, 2022 4:14 pm

Are Roe and Dobbs matters of individual privacy now, eh?

The decisions were based on a right to privacy, yes.

Rex, you really need to get more knowledgeable about these things if you don’t want to look like a goose while talking about them.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 4:30 pm

m0nty-fa

No, there was not an “unbroken tradition” in America of criminalising abortion.

Neither was there ‘an “unbroken tradition” in America of legalising abortion’, so Roe must have been wrong from the beginning.

You are getting desperate now.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 4:33 pm

Rex, you really need to get more knowledgeable about these things if you don’t want to look like a goose while talking about them

Poor Benito M0ntylini.

Let’s just say that your scripts are so predictable and your lack of understanding of the talking points you spout are so blatant, that I need only say ‘No’ to whatever your ambit is, and I already understand far more on the topic than you.

It’s a bit like you lot and the Florida ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill. It forbids the teaching of radical gender theory to Kindergarten and Primary School-grade children. But you lot can’t argue with that, so instead throw tantrums about how it allegedly means you can’t say ‘Gay’ in public. And the response has been to run around screaming the word GAAAAAAAAAAAY! in public as a distraction…

Trained Observer
Trained Observer
June 29, 2022 4:57 pm

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2709326/

People seem to have not noted the link.

Nothing above leads me to think any of you have considered the reality you are promoting. Women will always be the ones who decide abortion. You can lawyer it any way you like. It will not change that fact. It is as it should be and always has been.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 5:09 pm

It is as it should be and always has been

Yes yes. It’s a woman’s right to commit infanticide because pregnancy is risky. A terribly dishonest ambit, since the vast majority of abortions are lifestyle choices.

Yet our proud defenders of those poor, oppressed wymminses like the [Un]trained [Non-]Oberver won’t ever talk at all about the health dangers to the woman who undergoes an abortion procedure. Such things just held up as gruesome, passive-aggressive threats towards all who might get between them and having their own way. A bit like John Malkovitch’s violent fruit-loop character in Con Air threatening to murder Bunny…

I hope the Trained Observer is actually a female in the meatspace. This whole “We are your champions and we know best cos we are your champions and we know best”act by almost exclusively male leftists is so patronising it’s puerile. And more than a little misogynistic…

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 5:54 pm

[Un]Trained Observer

It will not change that fact. It is as it should be and always has been.

If you are going to plagiarise, try not to alter the original, which is “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end”.

m0nty
June 29, 2022 8:24 pm

Let’s just say that your scripts are so predictable and your lack of understanding of the talking points you spout are so blatant, that I need only say ‘No’ to whatever your ambit is, and I already understand far more on the topic than you.

You didn’t know that Roe and Dobbs revolve around an implied right to privacy, and yet you jumped in bum-first with your 100% wrong hot take.

Ignorance is no excuse when you’re talking about the law.

the vast majority of abortions are lifestyle choices

The choice is mostly about not being poor. This is particularly an issue in America where health care is so expensive. You lot talk about “lifestyle choices” as if it’s a frippery, but the choice is a very serious one made for serious reasons.

The reasons most frequently cited were that having a child would interfere with a woman’s education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%); that she could not afford a baby now (73%); and that she did not want to be a single mother or was having relationship problems (48%). Nearly four in 10 women said they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third were not ready to have a child. Fewer than 1% said their parents’ or partners’ desire for them to have an abortion was the most important reason. Younger women often reported that they were unprepared for the transition to motherhood, while older women regularly cited their responsibility to dependents.

If the Republican Party offered a much better lifestyle to mothers, maybe many more of them would have these babies. As it is, mothers tend to have children up to the point where they can reasonably afford them, and not as much after. This is a perfectly reasonable system.

Forcing women to become poor is very much in the old Republican Establishment mould, where the rich capitalists are happy to create a permanent underclass to work at their factories for low wages in perpetuity. Where is db’s new Trump-era economic support for the herrenvolk to propagate? Nowhere to be found.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 8:56 pm

m0nty-fa

Ignorance is no excuse when you’re talking about the law.

So what is your excuse for the gross ignorance you displayed (multiple times) in your commentary on the parallel 2nd Amendment case, and your silly comparison of it with Roe case?

If the Republican Party offered a much better lifestyle to mothers, maybe many more of them would have these babies.

Perhaps you can point us to the statistical data showing a significant drop in abortions when the DemonRats are in power? Or are you just making stuff up?

Forcing women to become poor is very much in the old Republican Establishment mould, where the rich capitalists are happy to create a permanent underclass to work at their factories for low wages in perpetuity.

Maybe the DemonRat administrations that presided over the export of many jobs to other nations should have thought their actions through?

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 30, 2022 1:56 pm

Ignorance is no excuse when you’re talking about the law.

I thought I heard another rhetorical rake cracking over the Fat Man’s forehead.

It’s got a beautiful, almost transcdenent quality to it. Not unlike the sound of a willow bat striking a leather cricket ball. Or the rattle of coal lumps and the metallic crunch and clang of a shovel biting into a coal pile, and how it rings when the coal is flung off it into a firebox…

#ASMR

#RightProper

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 30, 2022 2:05 pm

The choice is mostly about not being poor.

The Fat Man argues abortion is something poor people do.

Okay, can the Fat Man explain why most of the Third World, which has long lived well below what the average Democrat activist (on several hundred thousand USD per year, before the trust fund kicks in) might deem a decent living wage, have such massive birth rates?

Could it be that the least well-off in America are still so rich, relative to the rest of the world, that this latest infanticide argument fails just as hard as the ones about muh privacy!, muh rights!, muh wymminses and muh racism! that came before? And when do we start the cycle, like some rotten sexual-Marxist lunar progression, again?

#Goalpost-ShiftingGangs,Assemble!

#YourMasterRequiresOfYou…

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 30, 2022 2:08 pm

The Fat Man argues abortion is something poor people do.

This should read as: The Fat Man argues abortion is something poor people want to do, but can’t because evil Republicans make them poor.

What a swell and upstanding fellow the Fat Man is.

M0nty for Politburo Chairman. Forever…

m0nty
June 30, 2022 5:39 pm

The Fat Man argues abortion is something poor people do.

No, you idiot. I was saying it is something women do to avoid becoming poor.

You lack basic reading comprehension, Rex.

LOL, that must be why all the big corporates were falling over themselves to pay for out-of-states so their female wage-slaves could continue working without have to worry about maternity leave, etc.

Yes db, you prove my point. The corporates do this because Republican state governments do not. Because the Republican Party is still the party of rich capitalists, oppressing the poor. Trump economics is just Reagan economics: if you are poor, you get no help at all.

Next time you claim that Republicans are going to support family formation after birth, give yourself an uppercut.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 30, 2022 5:46 pm

No, you idiot. I was saying it is something women do to avoid becoming poor.

Wow. Certainly shows where you lot place your value, Fat Man.

You anti-human arse.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 30, 2022 5:48 pm

Because the Republican Party is still the party of rich capitalists, oppressing the poor

Ah. The The other side is evil! And if you point out our hypocrisy, yooz a bigot! fallacy.

After a week of utter failure, why not reinforce it with the oldest and laziest Leftist trope of them all…

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 30, 2022 5:51 pm

The corporates do this because Republican state governments do not

Hmmm…. Who are the true parties of wage slavery, then?

The Republican State governments and corporations that allow and mandate parental leave?

Or the large, woke corporates who don’t?

Sometimes m0nty, it pays to keep your fat mouth shut.

Because when you unmask, you are a truly awful human being. Bird-level appalling, even.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 30, 2022 6:32 pm

Dover

LOL, that must be why all the big corporates were falling over themselves to pay for out-of-states so their female wage-slaves could continue working without have to worry about maternity leave, etc.

And are being cheered on by the oh-so-sensitive DemonRats for doing so. The DemonRats need plantations to lord over.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 30, 2022 6:34 pm

Because the Republican Party is still the party of rich capitalists, oppressing the poor.

m0nty-fa really hasn’t looked at the two demographics that now form the core of the DemonRats – the ultra rich, and the poor who must be kept that way so that the DemonRats have serfs to lord over.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 30, 2022 7:37 pm

m0nty-fa needs to look at some of the “grass roots” DemonRats.

Bill Gates? Unpopular in some parts of the world, because of his experiments with various vaccines, with less-than-successful results. He and his vaccines are Persona Non Grata in some places. Bezos? Fights tooth and nail against unionism, gives his delivery drivers such tight schedules that they have to carry a piss bottle in the truck. Zuck? A champion of free speech (not) at FarceChook. Soros? An actual tool of the Nazis, now funds every so-called “progressive” cause around. There is a link there.

All men of the people, m0nty-fa would have you believe.

m0nty
June 30, 2022 10:59 pm

It’s clear that your excessive focus on Republicans is a cope for the tremendous overlap between establishment Republicans and Democrats on this issue, which you can’t admit, but which will become all the more stark as the American First movement changes the economic and social preferences of the Republicans, while the Dems become more and more the political wing of the corporate sector.

So far the America First movement has been as successful as the Tea Party at changing the economic policy of the Republican Party. Which is to say, it has been a massive failure.

It’s been what, six years or so? And nothing. You talk a big game, but so far you have nothing to show for it.

Boambee John
Boambee John
July 1, 2022 8:28 am

Dover

m0nty-fa doesn’t see the multiple failures of the “Squad” as failures, merely as delayed successes.

BTW, whatever happened to the Green Nude Eel?

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
July 1, 2022 12:19 pm

BTW, whatever happened to the Green Nude Eel?

SCOTUS just murdered it.

The attempts to do it via political process died publicly back in 2019. So the Democrats and all their Executive and corporate cronies and fellow travellers sought to impose it by stealth through authorities like the EPA.

Now, it’s only big corporations able to push it unaccountably. And I suspect that it’s now going to mean the risks that a big company working to decarbonise and force decarbonisation on everything and everyone below it is eventually going to make it unworkable.

They will take so many big hits to their bottom lines, that even the most woke corporates will give up before long. There’s no longer the political and bureaucratic impetus or cover (and taxpayer-gouged ‘compensation’) to protect them from the consequences of their economic choices.

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