SCOTUS

[jhu72]

This “victory” by theocratic fascist extremists is a catastrophic setback for women and human rights, but eventually abortion services will be legal again throughout the United States. Among younger Americans, support for reproductive rights is much stronger than among the elderly generation that will soon pass from this Earth. From the passing of that generation, abortion rights will be resurrected nationwide, providing salvation to the nation from this repugnant, satanic decision.

Key to this will be the inevitable decimation of the white evangelical community, the main pillar of the theocratic fascist extremist community that has been driving the anti-women, anti-choice movement. It is an aging community that will soon pass.

It’s just a matter of time.

DocBarrister

... there is certainly some truth to this. But don't underestimate the pain of getting to that end point or the evil of some of those involved. This is not totally about abortion. The anti-abortion movement has always been a means to an end to those driving what is going on, a power grab from the right. It started with the integration of public schools, the right lost their power. The evangelical community did not have a problem with abortion, in fact many supported abortion, until the race connection was made.

It is about the acquisition of power, control and wealth and the exclusion of certain types from society as anything other than serving the machine - a caste system. A lot of useful idiots in the movement are serving this machine, unknowingly.

In today's news, One of the earliest anti-abortion crusaders, Frank Schaeffer speaks out.

[Peter Brown]

Stephen Colbert:

“If these folks believe Roe was so egregiously decided, why didn’t they tell the senators during their confirmation hearings?

Because Americans support abortion at 80%.

They knew that if they were honest they wouldn’t get the job, so they lied, which is perjury.”

Because Americans support abortion *rights up to the 12th week*.

I often wonder if Democrats understand that even the most ‘liberal’ countries restrict abortion rights, such as a 12 week limit.

[jhu72]

Stephen Colbert:

“If these folks believe Roe was so egregiously decided, why didn’t they tell the senators during their confirmation hearings?

Because Americans support abortion at 80%.

They knew that if they were honest they wouldn’t get the job, so they lied, which is perjury.”

Because Americans support abortion *rights up to the 12th week*.

I often wonder if Democrats understand that even the most ‘liberal’ countries restrict abortion rights, such as a 12 week limit.

-- as you were, smoke if you got em.

[kramerica.inc]

Saw this the other day:

“We must preserve access to abortions for our marginalized people of color.”

Super sensitive or bigoted?

Discuss.

[ggait]

I often wonder if Democrats understand that even the most ‘liberal’ countries restrict abortion rights, such as a 12 week limit.

All regular people, Dem or Rep, would be fine if abortion was "actually available" in the ordinary course up to 12-16 weeks, with reasonable exceptions (rape, incest, life of mother) thereafter. The way they regulate abortion in France or Germany would be totally fine. Since 95% of abortions in the USA occur 15 weeks or less; 92% 13 weeks or less. But we all know that is not the relevant thing.

The Reps, of course, know this too. They would not have devoted decades to the holy cause if their endgame was that 90+% of abortions would still be legal.

Which is why the GOP is banning abortions at the 6 week mark. And why they have spent decades post-Casey concocting a bunch of other BS restrictions and obstacles that, as a practical matter, severely restrict abortion access to something much smaller than what Roe is supposed to allow.

Look at Miss. Even with Casey/Roe on the books, there's only one abortion provider in the entire state. That is obviously not what Roe envisioned. Then they passed their 15 week ban, which is about to be upheld by SCOTUS. But that law won't ever go into effect. Because Miss has subsequently passed a six week heartbeat bill.

TBD what female suburban voters in the Gilead states will say about that at the ballot box. GOP should be praying that Roberts will be able to flip Cav away from the Alito position.

[Farfromgeneva]

Saw this the other day:

“We must preserve access to abortions for our marginalized people of color.”

Super sensitive or bigoted?

Discuss.

Why would that be bigoted if the data on abortions in the US over time supports the notion that marginalized (or lower income is by definition marginalized in our society) people?

[jhu72]

Saw this the other day:

“We must preserve access to abortions for our marginalized people of color.”

Super sensitive or bigoted?

Discuss.

... debatable -- anti-abortion crowd will claim it is bigoted. The younger the listener the more likely to see it as bigoted. Its basically a "woke" perspective on the sentence.

[MDlaxfan76]

Saw this the other day:

“We must preserve access to abortions for our marginalized people of color.”

Super sensitive or bigoted?

Discuss.

Yeah, I'm bothered every time a politician or pundit squawks about this hurting people of color, rather than simply focusing on the disadvantaged by poverty. The issue is especially high for any woman without substantial means and support systems. Yes, there's a disproportionate factor around race here (and that's important for a whole raft of issues), but there's no benefit to focusing on that for the abortion issue.

It's not as if the anti-abortion folks are trying specifically for more black and brown babies to be born. They simply want to control these decisions and don't respect any woman's interest in controlling them for herself. There's also a large overlap with wanting to restrict contraception access for girls...and it's not because they want more babies born...they simply want less sex, unless they control when and who...

But it's not about race, really...that said, whites are significantly more likely to be anti-abortion than African-Americans and Asian-Americans, and somewhat more so than Hispanic-Americans. But even whites are 57% in the pro-choice camp. Driven particularly by better educated and women.

It's particularly less educated whites who are more likely to be anti-abortion, and especially those who are evangelical. Those with no religious affiliation are most likely to be pro-choice, though all other major US religious affiliations other than evangelical have majorities of pro-choice, including Catholic at 55%.

College grads overall are at 68% pro-choice whereas high school or less are 50% pro-choice.

And of course, what's happened over the past 40 years is that less educated, white evangelicals have concentrated in the GOP where they have disproportionate power as a result.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fa ... -abortion/

[dislaxxic]

Why the Supreme Court’s Leak Investigation Is a Sham

In his draft opinion Alito is very clear that in his view, “we cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concern about the public’s reaction to our work.” Ironically, no justice is more easily angered when the public comments on or critiques the work of the court. The public reaction this week isn’t just shock at the court’s work product overruling Roe. It’s that a court entrusted with protecting fundamental liberties operates under a set of non-rules that are vaporous at best and easily exploited at worst. The truth is that the court, as it has been doing for quite some time now, served to undermine itself. A handful of simple correctives—meaningful transparency, ethics and conduct reforms— could have been instituted decades ago. The consequences of failing to do so are starting to become too humiliating and dangerous for the court to ignore.

We take no comfort or joy in the knowledge that the Supreme Court has less public legitimacy today than it did last week, or that the justices’ trust in one another is eroded yet again by what Justice Sonia Sotomayor characterized as the “stench” of politics that emanates from the building. But the fact is that the court did nothing in the face of ample evidence that it needed to enshrine mandates of transparency and ethical conduct into its own rules. Did the leaker violate the most fundamental norms of secrecy and privacy? Yes. But wailing that the court should continue to be allowed to police itself as the court utterly fails to police itself is not the answer.

..

[MDlaxfan76]

Why the Supreme Court’s Leak Investigation Is a Sham

In his draft opinion Alito is very clear that in his view, “we cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concern about the public’s reaction to our work.” Ironically, no justice is more easily angered when the public comments on or critiques the work of the court. The public reaction this week isn’t just shock at the court’s work product overruling Roe. It’s that a court entrusted with protecting fundamental liberties operates under a set of non-rules that are vaporous at best and easily exploited at worst. The truth is that the court, as it has been doing for quite some time now, served to undermine itself. A handful of simple correctives—meaningful transparency, ethics and conduct reforms— could have been instituted decades ago. The consequences of failing to do so are starting to become too humiliating and dangerous for the court to ignore.

We take no comfort or joy in the knowledge that the Supreme Court has less public legitimacy today than it did last week, or that the justices’ trust in one another is eroded yet again by what Justice Sonia Sotomayor characterized as the “stench” of politics that emanates from the building. But the fact is that the court did nothing in the face of ample evidence that it needed to enshrine mandates of transparency and ethical conduct into its own rules. Did the leaker violate the most fundamental norms of secrecy and privacy? Yes. But wailing that the court should continue to be allowed to police itself as the court utterly fails to police itself is not the answer.

..

Fair critique.
When the Court fails any sort of ethical high ground, for instance by enabling Thomas to not recuse, that "stench of politics" noted by Sotomayor is in high relief.

But man, this really is a shame that the Court has allowed itself to come into such disrepute...but the leak of this work product is really the least of the ethical abuses happening.

[jhu72]

I often wonder if Democrats understand that even the most ‘liberal’ countries restrict abortion rights, such as a 12 week limit.

All regular people, Dem or Rep, would be fine if abortion was "actually available" in the ordinary course up to 12-16 weeks, with reasonable exceptions (rape, incest, life of mother) thereafter. The way they regulate abortion in France or Germany would be totally fine. Since 95% of abortions in the USA occur 15 weeks or less; 92% 13 weeks or less. But we all know that is not the relevant thing.

The Reps, of course, know this too. They would not have devoted decades to the holy cause if their endgame was that 90+% of abortions would still be legal.

Which is why the GOP is banning abortions at the 6 week mark. And why they have spent decades post-Casey concocting a bunch of other BS restrictions and obstacles that, as a practical matter, severely restrict abortion access to something much smaller than what Roe is supposed to allow.

Look at Miss. Even with Casey/Roe on the books, there's only one abortion provider in the entire state. That is obviously not what Roe envisioned. Then they passed their 15 week ban, which is about to be upheld by SCOTUS. But that law won't ever go into effect. Because Miss has subsequently passed a six week heartbeat bill.

TBD what female suburban voters in the Gilead states will say about that at the ballot box. GOP should be praying that Roberts will be able to flip Cav away from the Alito position.

... basically as it stands today, 99% of abortions are performed under the US viability limit. There are a lot of regular people including me that have a problem with 12-16 weeks, because of costs and real world impact -- it will significantly increase costs and the number of sick children.

What goes unsaid is that the viability limit is used for two purposes (1) the limit of abortion legality; and (2) the healthcare system's indicator for how much effort should be expended in trying to save a fetus who is having trouble. Most US healthcare providers set their rules such that they will intervene after the age of viability minus a week or two at most. So somewhere in the 21-23 week time frame today (maybe as little as twenty). These interventions are not always successful. Intervention in the time period earlier than that becomes very very expensive, very very quickly, and as fetus maturity declines increasingly unsuccessful. In short trying to save a 16 week old is very very expensive and very very likely to be unsuccessful or result in a child that has very very serious long term quality of life problems. If you move the upper limit for legality to a lower number, you will also have to lower the medical intervention threshold protocols. Cost will sky rocket!!!

The people who say just do it, it is murder, don't want to take care of the kids we have. You had the kid, its your problem is the attitude. As a society we don't do a very good job taking care of the unwanted children we have (I could argue we do a horrible job, because we don't even try - adoption is a pipe dream, the same people who don't want to pay for unwanted children now aren't going to want to pay for adoption support). Now added into that you will be producing a significantly greater volume of very sick kids with long term issues. This is not a simple problem and the way we are going about is a prescription for a societal disaster.

[Farfromgeneva]

I often wonder if Democrats understand that even the most ‘liberal’ countries restrict abortion rights, such as a 12 week limit.

All regular people, Dem or Rep, would be fine if abortion was "actually available" in the ordinary course up to 12-16 weeks, with reasonable exceptions (rape, incest, life of mother) thereafter. The way they regulate abortion in France or Germany would be totally fine. Since 95% of abortions in the USA occur 15 weeks or less; 92% 13 weeks or less. But we all know that is not the relevant thing.

The Reps, of course, know this too. They would not have devoted decades to the holy cause if their endgame was that 90+% of abortions would still be legal.

Which is why the GOP is banning abortions at the 6 week mark. And why they have spent decades post-Casey concocting a bunch of other BS restrictions and obstacles that, as a practical matter, severely restrict abortion access to something much smaller than what Roe is supposed to allow.

Look at Miss. Even with Casey/Roe on the books, there's only one abortion provider in the entire state. That is obviously not what Roe envisioned. Then they passed their 15 week ban, which is about to be upheld by SCOTUS. But that law won't ever go into effect. Because Miss has subsequently passed a six week heartbeat bill.

TBD what female suburban voters in the Gilead states will say about that at the ballot box. GOP should be praying that Roberts will be able to flip Cav away from the Alito position.

... basically as it stands today, 99% of abortions are performed under the US viability limit. There are a lot of regular people including me that have a problem with 12-16 weeks, because of costs and real world impact -- it will significantly increase costs and the number of sick children.

What goes unsaid is that the viability limit is used for two purposes (1) the limit of abortion legality; and (2) the healthcare system's indicator for how much effort should be expended in trying to save a fetus who is having trouble. Most US healthcare providers set their rules such that they will intervene after the age of viability minus a week or two at most. So somewhere in the 21-23 week time frame today (maybe as little as twenty). These interventions are not always successful. Intervention in the time period earlier than that becomes very very expensive, very very quickly, and as fetus maturity declines increasingly unsuccessful. In short trying to save a 16 week old is very very expensive and very very likely to be unsuccessful or result in a child that has very very serious long term quality of life problems. If you move the upper limit for legality to a lower number, you will also have to lower the medical intervention threshold protocols. Cost will sky rocket!!!

The people who say just do it, it is murder, don't want to take care of the kids we have. You had the kid, its your problem is the attitude. As a society we don't do a very good job taking care of the unwanted children we have (I could argue we do a horrible job, because we don't even try - adoption is a pipe dream, the same people who don't want to pay for unwanted children now aren't going to want to pay for adoption support). Now added into that you will be producing a significantly greater volume of very sick kids with long term issues. This is not a simple problem and the way we are going about is a prescription for a societal disaster.

A valid if secondary argument about the social costs (Ive been on record in other threads that I don’t like the secondary/tertiary impact/social cost argument for major legislation in general). I can’t profess to know much about the science of it, have read up a little from time to time, but it seems so easy to say half the term. Half of 40 weeks (which I only learned w my first kid as I presumed 9 x 4 = 36 not 40 so really full term is 10, not 9 mo) is 20. Call it a day. Squares up with the concept of OL up to 4-5mo which seems like a plausible common sense/common man test.

[wlaxphan20]

I can’t profess to know much about the science of it, have read up a little from time to time, but it seems so easy to say half the term. Half of 40 weeks (which I only learned w my first kid as I presumed 9 x 4 = 36 not 40 so really full term is 10, not 9 mo) is 20. Call it a day. Squares up with the concept of OL up to 4-5mo which seems like a plausible common sense/common man test.

That is probably because the calculation of gestational age begins on the first day of the woman's last menstrual period not at the moment of conception.

[Farfromgeneva]

I can’t profess to know much about the science of it, have read up a little from time to time, but it seems so easy to say half the term. Half of 40 weeks (which I only learned w my first kid as I presumed 9 x 4 = 36 not 40 so really full term is 10, not 9 mo) is 20. Call it a day. Squares up with the concept of OL up to 4-5mo which seems like a plausible common sense/common man test.

That is probably because the calculation of gestational age begins on the first day of the woman's last menstrual period not at the moment of conception.

That makes sense I guess. And my son is 9 now so it’s been a while but I still recall the revelation where I’m like “yo 9 x 4 = 36 where’d you get 40 from?” Which they never explained and I didn’t push for an answer to.

Either way, cutting it in half to that 18-20mo area seems like it would be seamless. Is the timeframe counted from that prior cycle or from conception (if that can even be established-I know with my son he was conceived either in India or Nepal because we took a 3 week trip over there knowing we were going to start having kids and I knocked it out fast, most likely in DoD housing complex in Dehli where we stayed with a close friend for a chunk of our time in the golden triangle, so that’s my sons story!)

Appreciate the answer though. Learn something new every day.

[jhu72]

I often wonder if Democrats understand that even the most ‘liberal’ countries restrict abortion rights, such as a 12 week limit.

All regular people, Dem or Rep, would be fine if abortion was "actually available" in the ordinary course up to 12-16 weeks, with reasonable exceptions (rape, incest, life of mother) thereafter. The way they regulate abortion in France or Germany would be totally fine. Since 95% of abortions in the USA occur 15 weeks or less; 92% 13 weeks or less. But we all know that is not the relevant thing.

The Reps, of course, know this too. They would not have devoted decades to the holy cause if their endgame was that 90+% of abortions would still be legal.

Which is why the GOP is banning abortions at the 6 week mark. And why they have spent decades post-Casey concocting a bunch of other BS restrictions and obstacles that, as a practical matter, severely restrict abortion access to something much smaller than what Roe is supposed to allow.

Look at Miss. Even with Casey/Roe on the books, there's only one abortion provider in the entire state. That is obviously not what Roe envisioned. Then they passed their 15 week ban, which is about to be upheld by SCOTUS. But that law won't ever go into effect. Because Miss has subsequently passed a six week heartbeat bill.

TBD what female suburban voters in the Gilead states will say about that at the ballot box. GOP should be praying that Roberts will be able to flip Cav away from the Alito position.

... basically as it stands today, 99% of abortions are performed under the US viability limit. There are a lot of regular people including me that have a problem with 12-16 weeks, because of costs and real world impact -- it will significantly increase costs and the number of sick children.

What goes unsaid is that the viability limit is used for two purposes (1) the limit of abortion legality; and (2) the healthcare system's indicator for how much effort should be expended in trying to save a fetus who is having trouble. Most US healthcare providers set their rules such that they will intervene after the age of viability minus a week or two at most. So somewhere in the 21-23 week time frame today (maybe as little as twenty). These interventions are not always successful. Intervention in the time period earlier than that becomes very very expensive, very very quickly, and as fetus maturity declines increasingly unsuccessful. In short trying to save a 16 week old is very very expensive and very very likely to be unsuccessful or result in a child that has very very serious long term quality of life problems. If you move the upper limit for legality to a lower number, you will also have to lower the medical intervention threshold protocols. Cost will sky rocket!!!

The people who say just do it, it is murder, don't want to take care of the kids we have. You had the kid, its your problem is the attitude. As a society we don't do a very good job taking care of the unwanted children we have (I could argue we do a horrible job, because we don't even try - adoption is a pipe dream, the same people who don't want to pay for unwanted children now aren't going to want to pay for adoption support). Now added into that you will be producing a significantly greater volume of very sick kids with long term issues. This is not a simple problem and the way we are going about is a prescription for a societal disaster.

A valid if secondary argument about the social costs (Ive been on record in other threads that I don’t like the secondary/tertiary impact/social cost argument for major legislation in general). I can’t profess to know much about the science of it, have read up a little from time to time, but it seems so easy to say half the term. Half of 40 weeks (which I only learned w my first kid as I presumed 9 x 4 = 36 not 40 so really full term is 10, not 9 mo) is 20. Call it a day. Squares up with the concept of OL up to 4-5mo which seems like a plausible common sense/common man test.

... at 20 its a sale! This would require minor changes to existing protocols in the medical system. 16 is a big change given the actual not imagined state of neonatal care / intervention. Another possibility is to decouple the legality limit from intervention threshold. That will still cause a bunch of problems, but different ones.

The more I think about it, jumping from the current viability threshold to something like 16 weeks will likely cause an exodus from the OBGYN business by older doctors. This will raise costs even more than I originally thought. These aren't abortion doctors, these are the folks caring for mothers and fetuses. I see an OBGYN shortage in the future of states that enact these draconian poorly thought out bills; or OBGYNs will raise their rates significantly.

[Farfromgeneva]

I often wonder if Democrats understand that even the most ‘liberal’ countries restrict abortion rights, such as a 12 week limit.

All regular people, Dem or Rep, would be fine if abortion was "actually available" in the ordinary course up to 12-16 weeks, with reasonable exceptions (rape, incest, life of mother) thereafter. The way they regulate abortion in France or Germany would be totally fine. Since 95% of abortions in the USA occur 15 weeks or less; 92% 13 weeks or less. But we all know that is not the relevant thing.

The Reps, of course, know this too. They would not have devoted decades to the holy cause if their endgame was that 90+% of abortions would still be legal.

Which is why the GOP is banning abortions at the 6 week mark. And why they have spent decades post-Casey concocting a bunch of other BS restrictions and obstacles that, as a practical matter, severely restrict abortion access to something much smaller than what Roe is supposed to allow.

Look at Miss. Even with Casey/Roe on the books, there's only one abortion provider in the entire state. That is obviously not what Roe envisioned. Then they passed their 15 week ban, which is about to be upheld by SCOTUS. But that law won't ever go into effect. Because Miss has subsequently passed a six week heartbeat bill.

TBD what female suburban voters in the Gilead states will say about that at the ballot box. GOP should be praying that Roberts will be able to flip Cav away from the Alito position.

... basically as it stands today, 99% of abortions are performed under the US viability limit. There are a lot of regular people including me that have a problem with 12-16 weeks, because of costs and real world impact -- it will significantly increase costs and the number of sick children.

What goes unsaid is that the viability limit is used for two purposes (1) the limit of abortion legality; and (2) the healthcare system's indicator for how much effort should be expended in trying to save a fetus who is having trouble. Most US healthcare providers set their rules such that they will intervene after the age of viability minus a week or two at most. So somewhere in the 21-23 week time frame today (maybe as little as twenty). These interventions are not always successful. Intervention in the time period earlier than that becomes very very expensive, very very quickly, and as fetus maturity declines increasingly unsuccessful. In short trying to save a 16 week old is very very expensive and very very likely to be unsuccessful or result in a child that has very very serious long term quality of life problems. If you move the upper limit for legality to a lower number, you will also have to lower the medical intervention threshold protocols. Cost will sky rocket!!!

The people who say just do it, it is murder, don't want to take care of the kids we have. You had the kid, its your problem is the attitude. As a society we don't do a very good job taking care of the unwanted children we have (I could argue we do a horrible job, because we don't even try - adoption is a pipe dream, the same people who don't want to pay for unwanted children now aren't going to want to pay for adoption support). Now added into that you will be producing a significantly greater volume of very sick kids with long term issues. This is not a simple problem and the way we are going about is a prescription for a societal disaster.

A valid if secondary argument about the social costs (Ive been on record in other threads that I don’t like the secondary/tertiary impact/social cost argument for major legislation in general). I can’t profess to know much about the science of it, have read up a little from time to time, but it seems so easy to say half the term. Half of 40 weeks (which I only learned w my first kid as I presumed 9 x 4 = 36 not 40 so really full term is 10, not 9 mo) is 20. Call it a day. Squares up with the concept of OL up to 4-5mo which seems like a plausible common sense/common man test.

... at 20 its a sale! This would require minor changes to existing protocols in the medical system. 16 is a big change given the actual not imagined state of neonatal care / intervention. Another possibility is to decouple the legality limit from intervention threshold. That will still cause a bunch of problems, but different ones.

The more I think about it, jumping from the current viability threshold to something like 16 weeks will likely cause an exodus from the OBGYN business by older doctors. This will raise costs even more than I originally thought. These aren't abortion doctors, these are the folks caring for mothers and fetuses. I see an OBGYN shortage in the future of states that enact these draconian poorly thought out bills; or OBGYNs will raise their rates significantly.

Maybe that’s the play. With the > $100Bn of VC money that’s been invested in psychedelic and telehealth the last 3-5yrs maybe they want a bunch of depressed chicks they can sell shroom and phone based psychological services to once their fubarred from having an abortion!

[ggait]

... basically as it stands today, 99% of abortions are performed under the US viability limit. There are a lot of regular people including me that have a problem with 12-16 weeks, because of costs and real world impact -- it will significantly increase costs and the number of sick children.

Fair point JHU. Problem is that most regular people just don't agree with you. And probably never will.

Regular people all agree on allowing abortion during the first trimester and a few weeks into the second trimester. Which is when 95+% of abortions occur anyway. Which is where most of our developed nation peers are.

When faced with the prospect of 6 week Gilead restrictions, it is just really dumb to hold out for the 99%. Take the 95-97% that almost everyone agrees on. Call it a win. And then make sure that access up to the 12-16 week is actual. Because access today, even with Roe's 23 weeks still on the books, is just not there for lots of women in lots of places.

Those women are hoping/praying that CJ Roberts can flip Kav and establish 15 weeks as the limit.

[youthathletics]

Regular people all agree on allowing abortion during the first trimester and a few weeks into the second trimester. Which is when 95+% of abortions occur anyway. Which is where most of our developed nation peers are.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CdGYdmDLGcN/

[Farfromgeneva]

Isn’t there like primary source information you could use instead of Instagram?

[jhu72]

... in the end this will turn out as the local OBGYNs and healthcare providers want it to. They aren't going to do anything that will cause themselves to lose money or assume a risk that they feel uncomfortable with. RIsk for either themselves or their patients. If they can't perform to the law, they just stop performing procedures at all. They then increase their prices for the things they do feel comfortable doing, or they go somewhere else.