On the first day of its new term, the U.S. Supreme Court in an unsigned opinion upheld a lower court ruling that enforces Texas’ ban on certain emergency abortions. The Biden administration had sought to overturn the ban and enforce its policy requiring hospitals to perform the emergency, potentiall...
Democrats did this by refusing to codify decades ago.
Decades ago, the parties were much different than today. There were pro-choice Republicans and pro-life Democrats. Only one time in recent (2000+) memory did the Dems ever have the 60 votes necessary for codifying Roe. They used that two-ish week window to pass the ACA.
And that’s not even touching on the differing public approval of abortion.
The ACA which should be noted was desperately needed at the time unlike Roe which was known to be at risk but not nearly as immediate.
I’m not happy Roe is dead. The fact is though that without a constitutional amendment Roe was always on borrowed time with the constant attacks on it, and I don’t believe that there is any time after the issuance of the bill of rights that an amendment protecting abortion would work, and in the form of the bill of rights it would’ve had to be a robust privacy amendment that just happened to protect abortion.
“The guy who did the arson isn’t to blame, it’s the firefighters for getting there too late”
You really do make a habit of being on the bottom with your terrible takes don’t you
As if these zealots wouldn’t have ruled it unconstitutional or slowly weakend it with a series of cases anyway. See recent decisions gutting Voting Rights Act, weakening the Clean Water Act, Campaign Reform Act of 2002, Dodd-Frank and other federal laws.
So what I’m hearing is if Democrats had codified it, Republicans would have come along and got it struck down. But to fix the problem we need to elect more Democrats to get it codified?
No one else sees the circular reasoning behind this?
As a Canadian, I’d like to ask you a couple of things.
What exactly does it mean to codify something? Two, why can’t the Federal Gov put out a set of standards and say, “If you want Federal money for your healthcare systems, you have to meet these standards. If you don’t want to, that’s fine, but in that case you get get nothing from us.”
That’s essentially how it works in Canada between our Federal gov and the Provinces, granted Canadian Provinces are less powerful than American states, but the power of the purse should still be the same, yes?
And if we have another 2016, Trump can appoint Thomas and Alito’s successors, and maybe some more, with more Federalist Society hacks.
Look, republicans suck ass, it’s true. But if Dems had codified Roe into law either time they had the supermajority (two chances in the last 20 years), then the corrupt SC wouldn’t have been able to do jack shit. If dems had any integrity, they would shoulder a significant amount of the blame for this issue, because they had their chance and deemed it “not a priority.”
Sure, Dems absolutely should have codified it. However, a federal law protecting abortion rights as health care against the religious freedom of a regional Catholic hospital’s beliefs not to save a mother’s life with an abortion would be the test case and I’m pretty sure I know how 5 of the Justices would vote. This SCOTUS know they have unchecked power and are no longer afraid to wield it.
Would be interesting to see that play out fully. Here’s hoping we get the chance to do so in the next few years. Its so heartbreaking that so many women are suffering/dying because of these regressive policy positions.
I’ll never, ever forget the very first thing Democrats did when Republicans successfully overturned Roe.
They sent out a mass text asking for $15 donations because of what had just happened.
They had that shit ready to go immediately. Maybe if they had put a fraction of that preparation into having legislation ready to go, they wouldn’t have wasted their opportunities to protect Americans’ rights.
But at least they did for the only thing that matters. Fundraising.
Well yeah, the decision was leaked early.
Republicans were trying to overturn Roe for half a century. Best Democrats were willing to do in response was to cynically regard it as a fundraising opportunity.
They had that text waiting to be sent for years. The story was hot off the press when I got mine begging for money
Turns out the party that does nothing and calls it incrementalism can move pretty quickly when they’re panhandling.
I agree both major parties had a hand in this directly or indirectly. But only one has any chance of changing this for the better.
Which one, the one that directly revoked women’s rights or the one that did nothing to prevent it from happening?
You don’t seem to have a grasp on reality.
We have 3 Justices on the court because of *the party that did nothing." Nothing short of a Constitutional amendment at this point will “codify” abortion rights in the eyes of the right. We need to get SCOTUS back.