Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

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  1. A state law can’t trump federal constitutional decisions.  States can declare “personhood” all they want; doesn’t change the Court’s “undue burden” test, which remains (for now, at least) the measuring stick by which the Court measures abortion restrictions.

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    p>The people drafting and pushing these laws almost certainly know that.  The strategy, I assume, is to get one of these laws passed, have someone sue, and hope that when it hits the Supreme Court the Court uses it to overturn Roe v. Wade.  But that seems very unlikely to succeed at this point, since Justice Kennedy hasn’t shown much inclination to go there, and there won’t be any more Scalia-Thomas-Alito types joining the Court in the next few years.

    • that the scalia types might be expected to ignore the “undue burden” test?  if that is the case, i can see why they would go ahead with this to have potential cases in waiting since, you really never do know who will make the next ussc appointments, and these people will be patient for the possibility of a court stacked in their favor because they have no alternative.

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      p>also, i suppose it is a good recruiting tool for the gop like the marriage amendments are.  and of course, as mr lynne says, another way to pry open the door of ignorant peoples’ doubts about the wisdom of allowing woman sexual freedom and self control.

      • want nothing more than to overturn the “undue burden” test by overruling both Casey and Roe.  (I don’t think they’d “ignore” it — they’d rather kill it openly.)  But there are only 4 of them on the Court (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, and it’s not even clear how far Roberts is willing to go).  And the strategy is very high-risk, since if the case gets to the Court with the “wrong” membership in place, what they’ll probably get is yet another precedent reaffirming Casey/Roe, and making it that much more difficult to overturn those cases later.

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        p>As for the next USSC appointments, it’s true that we don’t and can’t know how the membership will change over the next few years.  The most likely to depart soon are Ginsburg because of health and Stevens because of age, and of course Obama’s replacements for those two will not dramatically shift the Court’s center of gravity.  But Scalia is over 70, and I think tired of and frustrated with the job.  I doubt he’d quit in Obama’s first term, but he might not stick it out for the second.

      • has done yeoman’s work on this issue for years.  The fanatical idiocy of the uterus-obsessed has provided the General a never-ending source of material.  

  3. David and Laurel are both right: I think these laws are mostly about (1) generating a “test case” and (2) continuing to push the envelope on anti-choice initiatives as a way to maintain right-wing recruiting.  “Personhood” is the new “partial-birth abortion.”

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    p>As for the anti-choice folks’ “legal” rationale, abortion is one of those issues in which the justices will rule the way they think is right — and then they’ll concoct (even if just subconsciously) a legal argument that supports their judgment.  Plus, in all appellate law, the original rationale for a ruling — such as Blackmun’s epic-length majority opinion in Roe — means less and less as the years go by.  The holding takes on a life of its own, especially as it is applied in practice.  From that measure, Casey‘s “undue burden” test is the real standard, not Roe.  Casey is far easier to apply in practice.

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    p>Also, as for Roberts, it’s worth noting that, at his confirmation hearing, he declared that Griswold v. Connecticut is settled law.  (In Griswold, the Court struck down a ban on contraception, holding that several constitutional provisions, read together, yield a constitutionally protected “right to privacy.”)  Griswold is the intellectual foundation for Roe; it might be the single case that right-wing lawyers hate the most.  So I don’t know if the right can really trust Roberts to go their way on this issue.  In a way, that might be the reason for a new “test case” — to test Roberts and see how he’ll rule.  

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    p>And as for the future membership of the Court, I would expect Stevens and Ginsburg to retire this July at the end of the spring term.  Those replacements won’t change the Court much.  But the one to watch, besides Scalia, is Kennedy.  He’s been an occasional fifth vote for progressive rulings (and would likely uphold Casey and Roe) but is still a moderate conservative, to the right of Sandra Day O’Connor.  Replacing him with a progressive would make a significant difference on a lot of issues — and would allow us to breathe a lot easier if one of these zygote cases gets to the Court.

  4. That there have been and still are a good number of people who don’t consider YOU to be a person either.  Good for you and good for America, people have fought hard to change that.  

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    p>A mother aborting her child at age 7 weeks for being conceived under bad circumstances is just as evil and as a father aborting his 17 year old child for coming out of the closet.  

    • A mother aborting her child at age 7 weeks for being conceived under bad circumstances is just as evil and as a father aborting his 17 year old child for coming out of the closet.

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      p>You know, it’s okay if you think abortion is a bad thing.  It’s not all right to make shit up out of thin air and offer it up as legitimate argument.

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      p>If you are seriously drawing an equivalency between the existence of a 17-year-old teenager and the existence of a 7-week-old fetus then the tampons, sanitary pads, and other blood and tissue of millions of sexually active menstruating females have the same rights as teenagers.  Nearly half of all fertilized eggs are shed in menses.  

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      p>  

      • A person is a person.  Cells making up a separate life form with it’s own individual DNA code and a future if it hadn’t been ended prematurely in a premeditated fashion.  A fertilized egg being shed in menses is natural whereas a woman having a medical abortion is not.  

        • minutist understanding of the law and biology.  Simplistic drivel like “a person is a person” is utter gibberish, a glittering generality employed by those who steadfastly grasp a worldview that is childish, self-serving, and ignorant.  In other words, you may disregard science, law, ethics, and any other agreed-upon measure in arriving at a decision that comports with the way you want the world to be, but be prepared to defend your beliefs in the real world where facts matter.

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          p>As has been pointed out to you, you cannot have it both ways.  This is not about women, it’s about the “person” you claim exists.  It cannot matter, given the constructs of your own argument, what the intention is.  If a person is a person, then murder is murder and manslaughter, to take your argument to the extreme, is manslaughter.  The inadvertent killing of a person, or, in your case, the inadvertent shedding of the fertilized egg in menses, should still count as a form of punishable crime.  We punish people for inadvertently killing people all the time–it’s called involuntary manslaughter.

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          p>Your distinctions border on the silly, and I’m torn regarding whether  your bizarre fanatical views are worthy of further discussion.  Why you would subscribe to such a feeble view is profoundly perplexing as you do seem to be, in other capacities, thoughtful and intelligent.  

    • … equivalence of person-hood between you and say, Laurel, is just a clear as the equivalence of person-hood between you and a 100 cell blastocyst.  

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      p>Yeah.  That make sense.  (/snark)

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      p>Extending your point for a minute… given that you find the two examples you give as being ‘just as evil’ as each-other, what punishment do you think the 1st trimester mother should get?

      • A someone who murders for sport or out of some sort of sexual high as many do go to jail forever because they are lost causes.  A program should be around to similarly correct or educate aborters to prevent it from happening again.

        • How about sex education?  Pre-natal and post-natal care?  Aid for unwed mothers?  Gay adoption?

          • Sex ed must be completely comprehensive, from abstinence to dental dams, we MUST be educated.  Prenatal and postnatal care are obviously very important.  Birth control is excellent.  Aid for unwed mothers?  Well, I think that our society as a whole needs to change it’s attitudes and behaviors to cut this phenomenon at the bud and change this dangerous trend.  In massachusetts, we have the WIC program, and I am in support of that and possibly expansion if I knew more about it.  And finally, I am for gay adoption.  Gay issues aren’t really something I’m in line with in regards to my religion.

            • For too many with your position, life begins at conception and ends at birth.

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              p>For me though, the issue is not abortion, but what happens if you outlaw it.  Do you think it will really just go away?  Conversely, do you think the decision is an easy one?

          • People who get abortions aren’t vicious people, mostly*, but that doesn’t make it okay.  I think we need to make abortion illegal and then begin punishing, as opposed to making it illegal and punishing people retroactively.  I think this is on par with our justice system, which doles out punishments for similar crimes differently due to circumstances.

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            p>*I think Sherri Shepherd is extremely vicious.  

            • understanding, respect, or use for women.  Do you see that?  

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              p>”Aren’t vicious people, mostly?”  

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              p>Your misogyny runs rather deep.  Your comments reveal a pathologic failure of empathy bordering on the anti-social.  

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              p>  

                • If we’re to take your persona on this blog as an accurate representation of your feelings about women, then I’d say one doesn’t need a degree to see you’ve got some issues.  

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                  p>Half the population is female.  That’s a lot of people for you to patronize over a lifetime, given your youth.  

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                  p>Good luck to you.  Until you undergo some epiphanic experience that causes you to realize that women are not monsters and murderers, I, personally, hope you never have a daughter.  

            • … of a 17 year old should just include a fine and or mandatory classes as long as the people who do it are not vicious.  

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              p>Got it.

    • this is a truly shocking statement that reveals you to be on the extreme fringe of even your own extremist party.  Your 17-year-old example is first- or second-degree murder, punishable by death or life in prison in every state.  Do you honestly think that a woman who aborts a 7-week fetus — and the doctor who assists her — should suffer the same punishment?  Honestly?

      • equivalency exists in the action but shouldn’t in the punishment.  It’s not practical.  

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        p>I also don’t see how it’s a “truly shocking statement”.  From the moment of conception, it’s a person.  I don’t think it’s any less of a person than a 17 year old simply because of where it is in physical development.  I think it’s more shocking that the party of civil rights, as you’d like to be thought of, would allow people in our society to be killed en masse because you don’t recognize them as people because of where they are in development.  Well, I guess it’s more ironic than shocking.  

        • Really?  What’s not practical.  I mean, if we can provide punnishment X for the murder of a 17 year old, why couldn’t we provide punnishment X (or Y) for an abortion?

          • but intent is important.  You don’t go have an abortion because you think it’s a rockin’ good time to go kill babies, I hope.  

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            p>Take for instance a gay guy gets beat up.  If he got beat up because the attacker wanted his wallet, its a different level of criminality than if the attacker wanted to cause terror in the local gay community.  

            • You don’t go have an abortion because you think it’s a rockin’ good time to go kill babies, I hope.

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              p>Your disrespect for women is clearly evident here.  Women, I’m sure, are grateful that you “hope” that’s not why they get abortions.    

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              p>Perhaps you might start examining your attitudes towards women?  I suspect you’ve acquired some nasty misogynist stereotypes on your way to deciding that females who voluntarily end pregnancies are murderers.  

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              p>

              Take for instance a gay guy gets beat up.  If he got beat up because the attacker wanted his wallet, its a different level of criminality than if the attacker wanted to cause terror in the local gay community.  

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              p>So females who get abortions are muggers?  Or terrorists who want to frighten the zygote community?  

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              p>The more your write, the deeper your hole.

              • I don’t disrespect women.  If I did, though, nobody would die as a result.  Your respect for “womens rights” leads to hundreds of thousands of deaths per year.  Whatever hole I dig in your mind is benign to your murderous inclinations.  

            • … the practicality argument in favor of an ‘intent’ argument.  First of all, if you have two crimes the for which the only difference is factor X, then factor X is the salient criterion for any justification of differing punishment is the same factor X.  So you want to make the case that the difference of intent is the criterion here (and not the difference in person-hood which you allege doesn’t exist).  Let’s look at the ‘intent’ behind the abortion.  It’s premeditated.  Its deliberately indifferent toward (any alleged) rights of the blastocyst (I think in legal terms this would constitute depraved indifference).  Allegedly, in many cases it’s done merely for convenience.  Now, lets take those exact same characteristics and apply them to a hypothetical murder of a 17 year old.  It can certainly be premeditated.  It’s certainly indifferent toward the victim’s rights.  It can certainly be done for convenience sake.  So, if the the hypothetical intent of an abortion and the murder of a 17 year old can be similar, by logical extension their punishment should be similar.  What would you propose as punishment for the murder of the 17 year old?  If you wouldn’t subscribe the same punishment for the abortion, then some other criteria are at play.

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              p> of a blastocyst-person doesn’t rise to the level of punishment deserving of the intentional killing of a 17 year old person?  I’m sorry, but the logical implication of this is that you must believe that a 17 year old must not be ‘equivalent’ in person-hood to a blastocyst.  

        • Whether it’s “practical” is completely irrelevant to this discussion.  Let’s assume that you are King of the U.S.A., and what you say goes.  What then?  Death or life in prison for intentionally, and with premeditation, aborting a 7-week-old fetus?  If the answer is yes, congratulations: you have the courage of your convictions — but you are also, as I said before, on the extreme fringe of an extreme political party.  If the answer is no, sorry, but you are unwilling to accept the obvious logical implications of your beliefs.

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          p>And this:

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          p>

          I also don’t see how it’s a “truly shocking statement”.  From the moment of conception, it’s a person.

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          p>is a classic example of assuming the answer to the question under discussion.  Don’t you understand that some people who do not share your religious beliefs do not necessarily, and in all respects, equate embryos with 17-year-olds?  Or 1-day-olds?

    • I’m just wondering how successful you’ll be, once you start having procreative sex, to take multi-week breaks after each fuck to wait long enough to be sure your sex partner isn’t pregnant before having another go.  Because your sexual activity with her might cause the loss of a fetal American.  You may be a  murderer.

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      p>Which brings me to another, more important question: Are you prepared to arrest, prosecute and punish any man who has sex with a woman who had previously had potentially procreative sex from between 1 minute to 2 weeks prior?  If this law goes into practice, I’m going to go back to school to learn how to be a prosecuting attorney so I can nail randy man hides like yours to the prison wall (metaphorically, of course).  Be careful what laws you wish for.

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