A prediction on John G. Roberts
With the announcement today of John G. Roberts' nomination to the vacant Supreme Court seat, I have a prediction -- note that this is predicated on his appointment, which I view as highly probable. I have no illusions that my expectation here is novel or unique. So here it is.
Within a year, one or more states will pass legislation outright banning abortion. An appeal against one shall go all the way to the Supreme Court, which last ruled on such a case in 2000 (Stenberg v. Carhart), deciding 5-4 against Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban (O'Connor was in the majority). The Supreme Court will uphold the law, 5-4 (with Roberts in the majority), and every red state in the union will pass laws against abortion, while most if not all blue states will narrowly defeat such legislation. Given that I doubt that Republicans'll maintain their Congressional majority in 2006, I don't think a federal law shall follow. Then again, I could be wrong about that, so if I turn out to be, I think it almost certain that a federal law shall pass, following revision of the Senate's cloture rules by the majority Republicans.
So then what? Those wealthy enough will fly to Europe, as they did before 1973, so there may suddenly be executive, if not legislative, action to bring about surveillance of women travelling abroad, or attempts to get medical records of facilities in European countries that perform the operation. Those not wealthy enough for that trip can go to Canada or Mexico, leading to border checks, maybe, or similar pressure on the Mexican and Canadian governments. Not that I think any of those countries'll cave, but this administration'll (and that of a 2008 Republican president elect) try to do it. Those who lack the money even for a road trip will probably find the sorts of services available in the 1960s, plus smuggled RU-486 or whatever.
The effects? I don't know: I just thought I'd put this out there. More births to single mothers? Unclear: the rates of out-of-wedlock births rose from 1950 to 1994 (remember that abortions have been legal since 1973), dropping slightly until 2002 (I haven't seen any data on more recent years --the percentage of unwed births in 2002 was 4.36% of all births, versus 1.41% in 1950 and 4.69% in 1994). More injury and/or fatality from "back-alley abortions"? Also unclear. More litigations? Undoubtedly: of folks from doctors and "doctors", pharmacists and "pharmacists", and chauffeurs to women themselves. And more snooping and other inappropriate expressions of government power from the feds. At least until the Democrats regain control of the legislature and, using the revised cloture rules, ram through a repeal of the federal law, maybe even overriding a veto if a Republican is in the White House.
At this point, I'll restate my own position on abortion. Given that:
1) individuals have the right to only such sovereignty over self and property that they can exercise and sustain without depriving another of such, and it is immoral to use force, the threat thereof, or deception to deprive an individual of life, liberty, or property;
2) a fetus, while still a human, cannot effectively sustain his or her sovereignty without depriving the mother of nutrients, health, and even life in some circumstances; using the violence that parasites use against their hosts to take these resources;
3) unlike other dependent individuals, like children, mentally-retarded/developmentally-disabled (MRDD) individuals, and demented seniors, a fetus can be sustained only by his or her mother, and no other individual can assume that role during the pregnancy; removal of the fetus from the womb of an unwilling mother, unlike the removal of a child from a neglectful or abusive home or the care of a senior in a long-term care facility, kills the fetus;
it is an illegitimate expression of government power to use force to compel a mother to sacrifice even one calorie or one minute to sustain the life of the infant in the womb. I recognize that the mother cannot exercise sovereignty over her body in this case without without depriving the fetus of life, but the fetus doesn't have the unqualified or absolute right to life anymore than an individual has the right to steal from another to sustain his life.
It's problematic at best to have the government dictate medical procedures or pharmaceuticals, or to presume on the basis of anything other than age that a person is not competent to make a decision regarding a medical procedure or pharmaceutical. That may be enough to prevent abortions for minors, given that abortions are medical procedures, and minors cannot give consent for medical procedures: they cannot be held culpable for a self-destructive decision. But that wouldn't apply outside the jurisdiction of the government body in question.
But try telling that to Bush, DeLay, or Roberts. . . .
Within a year, one or more states will pass legislation outright banning abortion. An appeal against one shall go all the way to the Supreme Court, which last ruled on such a case in 2000 (Stenberg v. Carhart), deciding 5-4 against Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban (O'Connor was in the majority). The Supreme Court will uphold the law, 5-4 (with Roberts in the majority), and every red state in the union will pass laws against abortion, while most if not all blue states will narrowly defeat such legislation. Given that I doubt that Republicans'll maintain their Congressional majority in 2006, I don't think a federal law shall follow. Then again, I could be wrong about that, so if I turn out to be, I think it almost certain that a federal law shall pass, following revision of the Senate's cloture rules by the majority Republicans.
So then what? Those wealthy enough will fly to Europe, as they did before 1973, so there may suddenly be executive, if not legislative, action to bring about surveillance of women travelling abroad, or attempts to get medical records of facilities in European countries that perform the operation. Those not wealthy enough for that trip can go to Canada or Mexico, leading to border checks, maybe, or similar pressure on the Mexican and Canadian governments. Not that I think any of those countries'll cave, but this administration'll (and that of a 2008 Republican president elect) try to do it. Those who lack the money even for a road trip will probably find the sorts of services available in the 1960s, plus smuggled RU-486 or whatever.
The effects? I don't know: I just thought I'd put this out there. More births to single mothers? Unclear: the rates of out-of-wedlock births rose from 1950 to 1994 (remember that abortions have been legal since 1973), dropping slightly until 2002 (I haven't seen any data on more recent years --the percentage of unwed births in 2002 was 4.36% of all births, versus 1.41% in 1950 and 4.69% in 1994). More injury and/or fatality from "back-alley abortions"? Also unclear. More litigations? Undoubtedly: of folks from doctors and "doctors", pharmacists and "pharmacists", and chauffeurs to women themselves. And more snooping and other inappropriate expressions of government power from the feds. At least until the Democrats regain control of the legislature and, using the revised cloture rules, ram through a repeal of the federal law, maybe even overriding a veto if a Republican is in the White House.
At this point, I'll restate my own position on abortion. Given that:
1) individuals have the right to only such sovereignty over self and property that they can exercise and sustain without depriving another of such, and it is immoral to use force, the threat thereof, or deception to deprive an individual of life, liberty, or property;
2) a fetus, while still a human, cannot effectively sustain his or her sovereignty without depriving the mother of nutrients, health, and even life in some circumstances; using the violence that parasites use against their hosts to take these resources;
3) unlike other dependent individuals, like children, mentally-retarded/developmentally-disabled (MRDD) individuals, and demented seniors, a fetus can be sustained only by his or her mother, and no other individual can assume that role during the pregnancy; removal of the fetus from the womb of an unwilling mother, unlike the removal of a child from a neglectful or abusive home or the care of a senior in a long-term care facility, kills the fetus;
it is an illegitimate expression of government power to use force to compel a mother to sacrifice even one calorie or one minute to sustain the life of the infant in the womb. I recognize that the mother cannot exercise sovereignty over her body in this case without without depriving the fetus of life, but the fetus doesn't have the unqualified or absolute right to life anymore than an individual has the right to steal from another to sustain his life.
It's problematic at best to have the government dictate medical procedures or pharmaceuticals, or to presume on the basis of anything other than age that a person is not competent to make a decision regarding a medical procedure or pharmaceutical. That may be enough to prevent abortions for minors, given that abortions are medical procedures, and minors cannot give consent for medical procedures: they cannot be held culpable for a self-destructive decision. But that wouldn't apply outside the jurisdiction of the government body in question.
But try telling that to Bush, DeLay, or Roberts. . . .
posted by heavynettle at 21:18
5 Comments:
Hard to say on Roberts--on the one hand he backs precedent, on the other, well, he's a Bush nominee.
But let's face it: despite the issue's devisiveness and bile, abortion rights or the potential lack of them is WAAAAAAY down on the list of problems facing this country, unless of course you believe that stopping a beating heart (it does, face it) is equivalent to murder and promotes the Culture of Death ol' JPII was so good at highlighting (he had some points worth considering.)
Higher priority problems include the shameless gerrymandering of the past few years that will allow incumbant politicians and parties to maintain their current seats and power in perpetuity, or at least through the 2006 elections.
Libertarians and Leftists (odd bedfellows on the abortion issue) might do better to choose better battles than abortion, the legalization of which has let Republicans rule the country because of the huge number of single-issue voters Roe v. Wade has put into their camp.
It's not that hard to say, actually: one of the 39 briefs he filed with the Supreme Court was one declaring that the Roe ruling was flawed. And what he said to Congress during his 2003 confirmation hearings was that Roe was the "law of the land" -- which, aside from being inaccurate (it's a ruling, not legislation), applies only if he's on an appeals court and not on the highest court in the land, which can overturn Roe any time it wants (and has a case). He never said he was a supporter of the ruling.
I agree there are more pressing issues than whether abortion is illegal or not. Gerrymandering really isn't one of them. It's not new, after all (the term dates back to 1812), and I retain a time-tested confidence in the ability of individuals to defy attempts at political categorization -- and I have a (completely unsupported) feeling that the Republicans shan't hold their majority past 2006. I am more concerned about touch-screen voting, which is the biggest invitation to the most egregious kinds of voter fraud ever created.
But the biggest problem, as you have implied, is the polarization of the national political spectrum, which I would argue results from the amount of power the federal government has acquired since 1913 and especially since WWII.
Ironically, the most divisive efforts of the federal government have been those which protect the individual from the abuses of local government or even family. This predates and supercedes the Roe ruling. The subhuman anti-Americans in this country view government's primary function as enforcing cultural norms, and that's how they vote. Abortion is part of the package, having much more to do with keeping persons from having sex outside of marriage than saving an unborn baby's life.
I have seen an increasingly shrill reaction by religious conservatives of every stripe (Christians in the U.S., Jews in Israel, Muslims . . . everywhere, Hindus in India) since at least the late 1980s. Technological progress and the erosion of the traditional means of controlling culture, as well as the erosion of the dominant religion's favored status in the various places, have created an apocalyptic situation for subhumans all over the world. It's this development that most convinces me that I need a gun, because historical attempts to preserve or reestablish cultural supremacy have led to extra-legal means on the part of the supremacists. I have no reason to suspect that the conservatives are going to become more reasonable, because the religious bases at the core are becoming more radical, even as other religious people leave that core for more reasonable church communities.
Okay, ranging far afield. I must summarize by saying that religio-cultural supremacists are the greatest threat to our nation. Legislating on abortion is really not important, because laws can be repealed, and rulings can be overturned. Voter fraud can be investigated. The question, I guess, is whether the subhumans shall gain political authority to assert their supremacy (through voter fraud), or engage in various levels of extra-legal violence if they fail to gain political authority.
On the "subhuman" front, it would be nice if those who agree with you on the danger posed by resurgence of Dark Ages types would, and I'm speaking of Iraq now, stop their back-handed support of religious extremism by acting as apologists for them and the late, but resurgement, fascist regime of Saddam Hussein.
I'm specifically referring to the British group yesterday that is blaming the U.S. & Iraqi governments for the lion's share of ongoing civilian deaths. Ditto those somehow blaming Blair for bombings in London. I mean, please. If these groups REALLY believe what they are saying, then, well...wati, No, I reject entirely that they can possibly believe what they are saying; it's too outright silly, and ignorant. The left that fought fascism so long now seems determined to promote it as long as doing so makes George II and Tony look bad. Reality check time, fellas: totalitarianism creeps in on all sides, the enemy of your enemy is not your friend in this case.
How far a field is THAT to the Roberts's nomination? But I digress from my digression on your own.
Pretty far afield, but while we're this far from the road, let me define subhuman.
A subhuman is an individual who views individuals in general as subordinate to an ideology not based in reason and which is not subjected to reasoned analysis. Religious conservatives fit this bill pretty well, but, as I implied in my discussion on fascism, so do those "Leftists" who accept Marxist or other ideas without question. Both religious and secular zealots, for example, hold an unquestioned view on the nature of persons: that they are evil and must be controlled. It is equally fallacious to say that persons are good and can be believed. The reasoned stance is that, from one individual to the next, we have no real way of knowing, so we act in a way that would not discourage goodness from that individual, while preparing to protect against evil from said individual.
(I'm reading Atlas Shrugged, so forgive me if I start sounding strident on this count.)
I wanted to add this about Roberts, though. I do like the fact that he appears to be minimalist on the Commerce Clause -- which was the basis for that asinine recent marijuana ruling. So he's a mixed bag. And I guess I must concede that the briefs he filed on behalf of the Bush administration may not reflect his own views. I just find it highly unlikely that this President would shy away from hiring on ideologica grounds: he said publicly that he would appoint to the Supreme Court only judges who "believe that our rights come from God" -- as clear a violation of Article VI of the Constitution as I have ever heard. On that basis alone, I view it highly probable that Roberts would uphold laws against abortion.
Sorry, incorrectly quoted the President. His quote was actually "our rights were derived from God". Same diff, right? They still cannot have existed without God.
Bush sucks.
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