Is there a right to abortion, and if so, where does the right come from?

Well, it is not the way everyone talks bout it but if you are asking for the right to just access healthcare, I am in full agreement. The federal government has explicit constitutional authority for the post office. It has no constitutional authority for providing any health care (or for defining marriage). However, from a realistic standpoint the limited enumerated powers given the government has been long since not just swept under the rug but thrown down a deep abyss.

The other part of your post mischaracterizes how government does things. If we get single-payer universal healthcare.then every doctor and every hospital/clinic must accept and treat every individual who comes in every time they come in and for whatever reason they come. The only way the government can keep things manageable, like keeping people from coming to the doctor four times a week for a checkup (and which the doctor must do) is to enforce strong rationing -- which they always do.

You are correct that many (including you it seems) pro-choicers don't like abortions, but the preponderance of the proponent activists want abortions available abundantly without restriction or limitation.

From another web site:
The Maryland senate will soon review a proposal to allow mothers to abort their baby a whole 4 weeks after it has left the womb. This is due to the bill’s wording impeding investigations and criminal pursuits for women and medical professionals for a “failure to act” in association to a “perinatal death.”

Senate Bill 669, otherwise known as the Pregnant Person’s Freedom Act of 2022, is sponsored by Senator William Smith, and initial hearings will begin on March 15th.

The legislature is worded rather vaguely, so, Summers believes the law could be interpreted to “prevent investigations into the death of infants at least seven days AFTER their birth, and may extend to infants as old as four weeks!”

Moreover, the state of Maryland does not define “perinatal.” But a law passed in 2020 [by Maryland] defines “perinatal care” as the “provision of care during pregnancy, labor, delivery, and postpartum and neonatal periods.”

 

No, it was not settled. It was decided (probably extra-constitutionally) with force by nine unelected people wearing black robes.

 

That is the crux of the issue and is what the debate is mostly about. The end of life might or might not be a satisfactory criteria. Once it was when the heart stopped beating and Texas recently said life begins when a heart starts, which is over the top IMO. Currently (in most areas) it is wham brain waves do not exist which is in line with my attitude that a fetus becomes a human life with human-like brain waves somewhere around 4-1/2 months. But that is just me searching for that line in the sand.

 

[Manchin a "no" on new Dem abortion bill]:

This is a complete embarrassment for Schumer and the Democrat Party. Their cardinal issue is abortion, mainly because they have nothing else to run on, and they aren’t even going to get 50 votes on their big codification bill. Worse for them, what if Jon Tester or some other “moderate” senator also votes against it and this turns into a wipeout? The failure of the bill also makes a lot of Democrats look like idiots for once again stumping to blow up the filibuster when they don’t even have the votes to pass the bill regardless.


https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/05/11/joe-manchin-scuttles-democrats-plans-on-abortion-n562996

 

It's perfectly reasonable to limit unrestricted abortion to 15 weeks. That more permissive than most of the Western World and even more permissive than France!

But, instead of tackling inflation, falling real wages and dreadfully expensive gasoline, Schumer and the clowns want to play Abortion Absolutist diversions from the actual concerns and needs of Americans.


Merrick Garland decides to start doing his job and enforcing this law. That may be especially true after watching this intimidation campaign target justices in an attempt to corrupt the judicial deliberation process. The Left’s masks keep dropping and demonstrating the mob-rule fascism that our constitutional order is designed to prevent. Time to hold them accountable.

Manchin: I'm voting no on Schumer's pro-choice bill, which goes far beyond Roe

​

“Democrats’ abortion policy is so radical that even some Democrats couldn’t stomach it.”

"Manchin tells us he’s a NO on Dem bill on abortion rights. Says it’s too broad of an expansion. Says he would support a codification of Roe but says this bill goes too far."

Roe only guarantees unrestricted abortion to 13 weeks. Dobbs' more permissive standard is 15 weeks.

"Republican challengers will hang this legislation around the necks of every purple-state Democrat in America.

1. Mark Kelly and
2. Maggie Hassan and
3. Catherine Cortez Masto and
4. Raphael Warnock

will all have to explain why they supported a bill that would legalize abortion demand throughout all nine months, one that made not only Democrat Joe Manchin but pro-choice Republicans like Susan Collins gag"

Could cost them 4 seats. Bring it to a vote!

 

Correct/agreed, or as I put it in the OP, the Constitution affirms rights, and some of those rights were affirmed prior to the writing and ratification of the COTUS. For example, the right to bear arms is affirmed in the British Bill of Rights of 1689, which the American Colonists, being British subjects at the time, would have been familiar with. The right to due process, as I'm sure you are aware, dates back to 1215 and Magna Carta.

"...Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness", and the rights to "life, liberty, or property" are also clearly stated in the 14th Amendment.

Of course, as is the case with just about everything involved here, things aren't as clearly stated as we might think or hope they are. The first problem we encounter, is that the word/term "Life" is not defined in the DOI and/or the COTUS, and as we all know, the term "Life" can mean more than merely possessing a pulse. For example, my "life" includes my past, present and future, my personal life, my job, my hobbies, my experiences and opinions, my property, etc. (not to mention all the additional rights that extend/emanate from my right to life). In this context, one cannot ignore the fact that a prospective mother also has a right to life, which would include her present and future and everything in it. Secondly, the right to life, in the narrowest sense, is not absolute, and has never been considered absolute in the U.S., the American Colonies or Great Britain and England before it. In addition to the death penalty, we permit people to kill in self-defense, we permit police officers to kill in certain circumstances, as well as members of the military (I'm thinking more in terms of the National Guard here, but our regular military has taken American lives in the past). Third, there is no indication that the any of the three rights expressed in the DOI and COTUS supersede the other.

In light of what I just pointed out, it's not an easy task logically, legally and constitutionally to establish that a woman does not have the right to terminate a pregnancy. I do appreciate that you've presented a logical, legal and constitutional argument against it, however.

There's also another matter here, and it touches on a variety of other things, and I am going to bring this up because Alito dragged history and tradition into his argument/draft ruling. It also has to do with several claims made by David J. Garrow in his article titled "Justice Alito's Originalist Triump" which was published exactly a week ago:

Justice Alito’s Originalist Triumph
https://www.wsj.com/articles/justic...tion-abortion-roe-v-wade-justices-11651695865

In it, Garrow breathlessly declares:

Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization represents the auspicious culmination of the conservative legal movement, which has fundamentally transformed U.S. constitutional interpretation over the past quarter-century.

My first reaction was "Are they?", in other words, is this really an Originalist triumph? Is it the culmination of the conservative legal movement? And what exactly does the word "conservative" mean?

Needless to say, there are a lot of people on the Right who take issue with those claims, and then there is the matter concerning the definition of "conservative" and what do conservatives believe in and stand for? Obviously, the term "conservative" means different things to different people, and the term has been broadly applied to refer to social conservatives, when there are fiscal conservatives and small government conservatives, which could include libertarians, who don't fall into the category of "social conservative" and disagree with "social conservatives" on some issues.

HOWEVER, I thought one of the things that bound all conservatives together is the belief that the Founders expressed in the Preamble of the DOI - that we possess unalienable natural rights and our government was instituted to secure those rights. This brings us back to our old friend Richard Overton who I quoted in the OP and is quoted in my signature. Once again, from An Arrow Against All Tyrants and Tyranny (October 1647):

To every individual in nature is given an individual property by nature, not to be invaded or usurped by any: for every one as he is himself, so he hath a self propriety, else could he not be himself, and on this no second may presume to deprive any of, without manifest violation and affront to the very principles of nature, and of the Rules of equity and justice between man and man; mine and thine cannot be, except this be; No man hath power over my rights and liberties, and I over no man's; I may be but an Individual, enjoy my self, and my self propriety, and may write myself no more than my self, or presume any further; if I do, I am an encroacher and an invader upon an other man's Right, to which I have no Right. For by natural birth, all men are equally alike and born to like propriety, liberty, and freedom, and as we are delivered of God by the hand of nature into this world, every one with a natural, innate freedom and propriety (as it were writ in the table of every man's heart, never to be obliterated) even so are we to live, every one equally and alike to enjoy his Birth-right and privilege; even all whereof God by nature hath made him free.

It's no accident I turned to Overton - an English Leveller - to counter Alito's argument, and I chose this passage from An Arrow because Overton got to the bottom of the matter and it is this: If you don't believe individuals possess the right to self-propriety, you don't believe individuals possess ANY rights at all. In my estimation, Alito and the four other justices can't see the forest from the trees, and their opinion is the furthest thing from a triumph of and for Originalism and conservatism in my mind.

 

Let's stick with the issue here.....Life. it is AFFIRMATIVELY protected in our founding document and established at CREATION.

With Life leading the list and our most paramount and from CREATION.

The human being, the human life begins at conception, at it's creation. Not at some other ambiguous self serving declared time.

It is not about your hobbies......do you really think that your hobbies are what the truth we find self evidence and inherent is about playing golf?

As Justice Ginsberg said there is no logic either intellectual or constitutionally in RvW.

The life in the womb is an individual human being. It is the nature of that living individual.

 

While I believe in “my body, my right” I do also believe that harsher abortion laws would lead to less unplanned pregnancies and might encourage liberals to take that extra 5 min to by a pack of condoms from CVS instead of thinking “ I’ll just pull out and if it don’t work we can abort”.
That being said, I am still pro choice but I am also pro prevention
We gotta bring some common sense back folks!

 

Dude, what do you think runs through the umbilical cord? Not only blood, but other resources taken from the woman's body. If you don't even have that much of biology 101 down....

 

better by what standard? That's my point. Better and worse are subjective values. No matter what the topic, that is the case. At best, by laying out some standards that one will classify as "better" or "worse" you can objectively state whether something meets those criteria, but that criteria is then the subjective value. There is no objective basis for either better or worse.

Tell you what, let's roll with your example. Tell me some objective standards by which Sweden is better than Somalia. Please don't be vague such as better standard of living, because then you are circular reasoning by claiming A is better because sub-A is better, which you then need to show how that is objectively true.

 

Simply because something is not in the constitution, that doesn't mean the federal government can't do it, in the same manner that just because a right isn't specifically in the constitution, that it doesn't exist. It all comes down to a matter of whether what the feds want to do impinges or violates individuals' rights.

Don't get me wrong. I am not necessarily advocating for a full out health care system payed by the government. I am merely addressing the fact that is is allowable, and is not in violation of any rights or theft as it was previously asserted.

This sounds more like that CA bill in the infanticide thread. I'll try to do some looking into it. It would not surprise me if this was another example of someone not reading other laws to realize that there would be a conflict as with the CA bill. But another take on this might be to ensure that if a baby comes out with complications that may or may not be addressed by putting the baby in the NICU, and the parents decide to have it put into palliative care instead, that no one can take legal action against them. That seems to me to be more in line with the wording of "failure to act" instead of any "abortion" which would require deliberate action instead.

 

Everyone who disagrees with a SCOTUS decision claims for them to have acted unconstitutionally.

 

Brain waves certainly do sound like a better line than autonomic functions, but with that we should be looking at higher wave functions, not the ones that deal with the autonomic functions.

 

Point of order: Roe places the possible restriction point at viability which, under the current medical technology, is at about 22-24 weeks. This is still before the 3rd trimester.

 

There is nothing in the constitution that states that life begins at creation, nor that a given life has rights. It does specifically say those born have rights

 

Given that abortions have been on a steady decline since the 80's I'm pretty sure the prevention thing is happening more and more. Not to mention the number of conservatives who get abortions. Are you accounting for failed BC in your concept here? How about wanted pregnancies that would in turn kill or seriously damage the health of the woman?

 

Fixing my response in Post #309:

"Life", whatever that undefined term is supposed to mean, is but one of the issues here. There are also the affirmatively protected rights to liberty and property, amongst others.

Again, nowhere is "Life" defined/specified as paramount to any other right.

Your definition of "life", of course.

As I stated, it's about everything in my life, including the life ahead of me...

RBG is the last person I would base an appeal to authority fallacy on.

As I pointed out earlier, the right to life is not absolute, and my core argument transcends Roe. Furthermore, I've acknowledged the shortcomings in that ruling and since I haven't read Ginsberg's remarks I can't comment on them specifically.

The mother is an individual human being, too, and her right to self-proprietorship doesn't end at conception.

 

So where does it get nutrients to sustain and grow?

 

It was a terrible bill. Schumer couldn't even get the two "pro-choice" Republicans - both women - to support it, either:

Senator Collins’ Statement on Partisan Bill Designed to Fail
May 11, 2022
https://www.collins.senate.gov/newsroom/senator-collins-statement-on-partisan-bill-designed-to-fail

 

Then you agree that taxpayer funded birth control is a good thing.

 

I really wished people would research before posting!!!!!

If no one supports late-term abortions (also known as partial birth abortions) then there would be no need for a ban on them. There would have been no SCOTUS to issue a ruling supporting bans on later term abortions in 2003. The Guardian states that New Yorkers are trying to reduce restrictions on later-term abortions. In Boulder Colorado, a late term abortion doctor said he isn't going anywhere. So, tell me again how no one supports late term abortions.

BTW, you are right on one point. Late term abortions are rare compared to abortions in the first and second trimesters, but do not confuse rare with not happening. The problem is that most states do not report on late term abortions. Those that do, the numbers very based on the compilation method. In other words, we really do not know how many of the 630,000 abortions reported last year was late term. So, they might be rare.

 

It seems to me, that is what the SCOTUS is trying to correct. They said that the states could constitutionally set limits on late term abortions. All this SCOTUS is doing is extending those rights to the state legislatures.

As I predicted, the DNC is trying to circumvent the SCOTUS ruling by codifying Roe v Wade. Also, as I predicted, they can't do it. Not only can they not get enough GOP to go along with them, there are also DNC member that do not accept the standards as the party leadership is pushing.

Even if they could come up with enough votes to write a law, it would not be legal. The US Constitution states specific areas that falls within the Federal Governments responsibility. All other areas not defined as a Federal Responsibility belongs to the people and the states. Health Care does not fall within the Federal responsibility.

 

It seems to me, that is what the SCOTUS is trying to correct. They said that the states could constitutionally set limits on late term abortions. All this SCOTUS is doing is extending those rights to the state legislatures.

As I predicted, the DNC is trying to circumvent the SCOTUS ruling by codifying Roe v Wade. Also, as I predicted, they can't do it. Not only can they not get enough GOP to go along with them, there are also DNC member that do not accept the standards as the party leadership is pushing.

Even if they could come up with enough votes to write a law, it would not be legal. The US Constitution states specific areas that falls within the Federal Governments responsibility. All other areas not defined as a Federal Responsibility belongs to the people and the states. Health Care does not fall within the Federal responsibility.

 

I'm not going to expend energy explaining how the superiority of Sweden, by any metric, is "better" than Somalia. If that seems merely an opinion, we'll just have to go live in our separate realities.

But we all acknowledge, at least privately, that peace, security, equality of opportunity (not result) and harmony conduce to human happiness more than "stuff" and the mirage of equality of condition. The left degrades our condition by agitating for equality with such measures as cash free bail, non prosecution of misdemeanors, free money, stoking of racial resentment, mockery of traditional values, and demonization of those of us who oppose it as "racist."

That, to all fair minded people, is bad.