The Supreme Court system is broken
I’ve thought for a long time that the Supreme Court is far too supreme. The “living constitution” doctrine of the left has been used not just to update and apply constitutional principles to modern times but to lay down law that should instead have been addressed by either legislation or an amendment. The Court has become a shortcut to get the result the left desires but which the nation’s citizens do not support in sufficient numbers to enact such laws in any other manner at the time.
I don’t know when this began, but I know that Roe is an example of it. Prior to that famous SCOTUS decision, many states had already allowed and regulated legal abortion:
Prior to Roe v. Wade, 30 states prohibited abortion without exception, 16 states banned abortion except in certain special circumstances (e.g., rape, incest, health threat to mother), 3 states allowed residents to obtain abortions, and New York allowed abortions generally.
My sense is that over time this trend would have continued. Another way to legalize abortion in the entire United States would have been a constitutional amendment, but I’m less sure that would have gotten enough support to pass in enough states. At any rate, what actually happened was that SCOTUS used a supposed right of “privacy” to prohibit the banning of abortion, under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. You can agree or disagree with the result (and that’s the understatement of the year), but the method and reasoning SCOTUS used to arrive at it has been widely criticized on the right and even by some on the left:
Liberal and feminist legal scholars have had various reactions to Roe, not always giving the decision unqualified support. One argument is that Justice Blackmun reached the correct result but went about it the wrong way. Another is that the end achieved by Roe does not justify its means of judicial fiat.
Justice John Paul Stevens, while agreeing with the decision, has suggested that it should have been more narrowly focused on the issue of privacy. According to Stevens, if the decision had avoided the trimester framework and simply stated that the right to privacy included a right to choose abortion, “it might have been much more acceptable” from a legal standpoint. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had, before joining the Court, criticized the decision for ending a nascent movement to liberalize abortion law through legislation. Ginsburg has also faulted the Court’s approach for being “about a doctor’s freedom to practice his profession as he thinks best…. It wasn’t woman-centered. It was physician-centered.” Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox wrote: “[Roe’s] failure to confront the issue in principled terms leaves the opinion to read like a set of hospital rules and regulations…. Neither historian, nor layman, nor lawyer will be persuaded that all the prescriptions of Justice Blackmun are part of the Constitution.”
In a highly cited Yale Law Journal article published in the months after the decision, the American legal scholar John Hart Ely strongly criticized Roe as a decision that was disconnected from American constitutional law.
“What is frightening about Roe is that this super-protected right is not inferable from the language of the Constitution, the framers’ thinking respecting the specific problem in issue, any general value derivable from the provisions they included, or the nation’s governmental structure. … The problem with Roe is not so much that it bungles the question it sets itself, but rather that it sets itself a question the Constitution has not made the Court’s business. … [Roe] is bad because it is bad constitutional law, or rather because it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.”
Roe was a bad legal decision with a result that has caused fierce battles ever since, and some of those battles have involved SCOTUS candidates. The incredibly bitter battle over the nomination of Judge Bork involved many accusations by the left, but one of the main points of contention was the fear that he would somehow manage to overrule Roe, a case that is shaky in the legal sense but was already firmly ensconced in modern society. The abortion question is still behind some of the bitterness in present-day battles over SCOTUS, including the one we’re engaged in now – although of course it is hardly the only such issue.
The fear on the right – a very reasonable one, I believe – is that if the left ever gets a majority again the Court will impose a leftist agenda on the entire country. The fear on the left is that the right will be able to halt that agenda, at least temporarily.
What is there to be done? The left has an answer if the right starts to predominate: pack the Court. Of course. The right’s answer is not at all clear, except that so far it has involved trying to get a Republican president and a Senate where there is a majority of Republicans and not enough RINOs to throw a monkey wrench into the proceedings, and wait for the opportunity to make an appointment.
Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has an idea:
When Congress decides an issue by passing a law, democratic politics can change that decision by electing a new Congress. When the Court decides an issue by making a constitutional ruling, there’s no real democratic remedy…
…All the hysteria about a Ginsburg replacement stems from the fact that our political system is dominated by an allegedly nonpolitical Court that actually decides many political issues. And that Court is small (enough so that a single retirement can throw things into disarray) and unrepresentative of America at large.
In an earlier article, responding to Democrats’ plans to “pack” the Court with several additional justices whenever they get control back, I suggested going a step further, and add fifty new justices, one each to be appointed by every states’ governor. My proposal wasn’t entirely serious, being meant to point up the consequences of opening the door on this topic. But on reflection, maybe it was a better idea than I realized.
Under my proposal, the death or retirement of a single justice wouldn’t be much more than a blip in the news, instead of something serious enough that there are people talking about violence in the streets. A Supreme Court composed of 59 justices wouldn’t have the mystique of the current Court — you might believe in 9 Platonic Guardians, but the notion of 59 such is absurd. And since governors would presumably select people from their own states, it would bring a substantial increase in diversity to the Court.
It’s hard to even imagine how that would work or whether it would have the desired affect, but I doubt that such a law could ever be passed by Congress in order to set it up. And why would it stop
at 59?
Congress also has the ability – at least, on paper – to limit the Court’s jurisdiction in appeals cases by taking certain topics off the table. But again, I doubt that Congress would ever pass a law taking away really important areas of contention from the Court’s jurisdiction. The Court and its increased power are too tempting a way to circumvent the legislature and even the president, and since appointments continue for life, it seems that every appointment from now on is going to start a war, either metaphorical or actual.
[NOTE: Regarding Bork’s hearing, Joe Biden played a role:
Bork also contended in his best-selling book, The Tempting of America, that the brief prepared for Sen. Joe Biden, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, “so thoroughly misrepresented a plain record that it easily qualifies as world class in the category of scurrility.”
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.]
Can anyone truly doubt that, were Schumer running the Senate with a Democrat in the White House, he would not do everything within his power to confirm, quickly and decisively, a progressive nomination from his president? Can anyone believe that, in this hypothetical case, deranged conservatives would be threatening to unleash more chaos in the streets and to burn down the whole system?
Is the system broken, or, are some people simply behaving badly? No system works if enough malefactors act up.
what actually happened was that SCOTUS used a supposed right of “privacy” to prohibit the banning of abortion
Conceived as a wicked solution. Birthed in a Twilight Amendment. Life deemed unworthy of life was/is a progressive principle indulged through liberal license.
No system works if enough malefactors act up.
Exactly. Religious philosophy (i.e. behavioral protocol), or its relativistic cousin “ethics”, to keep honest people honest, and competing interests to mitigate the progress of others running amuck.
Our Founding Fathers left one item out of the Constitution.
A specification on the number of justices on the Supreme Court.
It should have remained at 7, because Roosevelt expanded it to 9.
A second item that might have been useful would have been either a term limit or an age limit for members of the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court.
Because of Roosevelt, we got a term limit for POTUS.
The best system of government, as Aristotle and Thucydides recognized, is a mixed one which shares power between the Many and the Few. Our system has evolved in ways somewhat different from what the Framers intended, but the federal judiciary currently represents the Few and their values, and acts to check democratic majorities (or mob rule, if you wish). The real problem is that the Few have decided that the major moral and political issue of our time is sexual freedom, a rather base and trivial concern. I am by upbringing, education, and income a member of the Few (as is neo, mostly), but I find this concern of my fellows rather baffling. Maybe neo has some thoughts about why wealthy educated people consider sexual freedom the major issue of our time.
Roe enshrines the argument that a woman’s “right to privacy” supercedes her baby’s right to life.
That is why advocates of pro-“choice” must argue that the unborn are not a person and only a lump of cells, i.e. a fetus.
Willfully blind to both where that argument leads (societal dehumanization) and that willful blindness does not absolve them of their ‘choice’.
Ignorance is excusable, as we cannot be responsible for that of which we are unaware. Willful blindness is a refusal to consider whether we are in error and, at the least perpetuates error while at worst turns error into monstrousness.
The trouble with SCOTUS, whether 7 or 9 or 59 judges, is that it is a tyranny just like the Politburo of the USSR. It is a handful of regents, and it is ultimately our doom, or a cause for armed conflict. That Superiority is inherently morally corrupting is shown by the inexorable leftward shift of judges once empaneled. An amazing example is these six jurists who overwhelm biology with law by declaring each individual has the right to choose its own “gender”; we do not hear the word “sex” used any more, as in XX or XY, do we?
First, no Federal judge should have lifetime tenure.
Second, term-limit them. Say ten years per seat. One could ascend from District (10yr max) to Appeals (same) to SCOTUS (same), but never down the ladder again.
Third, the peoples’ representatives should have the power to overturn SCOTUS decisions, by a simple majority of House and Senate combined; no supermajority. They represent the people; SCOTUS does not.
As far as Roe is concerned, it was a long time abirthing, back to the days of the Griswold decision, the venture into penumbras and emanations. Which is the power of the tyranny under which we have already lived a long time. Who gave John Marshall the power?? He arrogated that unto SCOTUS and himself.
je,
Heads I win, tails you lose… is the game they play.
y81,
The Roman patrician class long ago demonstrated that “Bread and Circuses” is a highly effective way for the Few to control the Mob. Our wealthy, ‘educated’ elite know full well what happened to both the French and Russian elite and, to a lesser degree our Robber Baron class. Keep the mob satiated is the best way to be secure while fleecing the sheep.
Their problem is that out of greed and white guilt, they are enabling the means with which they will be hung.
Cocaine Mitch summarizes the state of things.
Worth all nine minutes.
https://twitter.com/chiiium/status/1308134618642747394?s=21
Cicero,
If the “people’s representatives” have the power to overturn SCOTUS rulings, especially by only a simple majority, then the current consensus of the mob determines what is Constitutional and what is not.
The trouble with our governance is that, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” [ my emphasis]
A sustainable morality can only be achieved by a religious people because absent a ‘higher authority’ morality is reduced to the current consensus of the mob. And that is a ‘boat without a rudder’.
Not just Roe, but obergefell v. hodges.
And bostock v clayton county .
Outrageous. If Bostock was based on a 1964 Civil rights law that admittedly was not envisioned by it’s authors as protecting transgenders, it demonstrates most clearly legislation from the bench.
Yes, exactly this. Great post. I have been mildly sympathetic to the pro-choice movement much of my life, but am becoming more pro-life as I age. I cherish my 3 grown kids, want grandchildren some day, and cannot help but look at horror on the genocide of 10mm+ black babies aborted since Roe v Wade.
This was a terrible piece of constitutional law, inventing “rights” out of whole cloth. We needed a national consensus on this issue, and a few black robes stole it from us. It has since happened again and again.
What is the left afraid of? If their will matches the nation’s on this issue, turn it over to the voters, whom they clearly don’t trust.
Unfortunately the Supreme Court is a ratchet wrench. If it goes left, it goes, but if it goes right, it doesn’t go.
Perhaps more than anything, this discourages my optimism that things will work out in the long run.
The system isn’t broken. It is the victim of malpractice.
I have never quite understood why some Republican President has not simply said, “the court has over stepped its bounds. It is treading on the purview of equal branches; in this case the Executive. Therefore, I am ignoring this extra constitutional ruling. If the court wishes to enforce it, they better bring their Marine Corps.”
All hell would break loose. If the Democrats controlled the House they would wield their favorite fly swatter, and impeach. If they also controlled the Senate, they might succeed. So, I suppose a prudent President would pick the time and issue.
Screams, and gnashing of teeth. The usual talking heads would declare a constitutional crisis–pretending that there had not been one since at least FDR–but the air might be a lot clearer.
At this time IMO Trump should quit mocking poor old Joe, and make the point to the American people that he was duly elected to serve until 1/20/21; not until 9/21/20. The opposition does not get to define the limits of his purview during his legal term in office. Furthermore, the Senate is also being paid to work through their complete term. (The bit about the Senate working is a bit tongue in cheek.)
Just to rub it in, he might remind Schumer, Biden et al, that they were warned when they cheered Harry Reid on to trample all over precedent and procedures to steam roll the GOP minority, that it would neither be forgotten nor forgiven. But, they apparently thought that they would wield power forever.
The problem isn’t the system.
The problem is us.
There is no system that can be made by humans and that has humans running it that will not degrade and degenerate over time.
The duty of citizens of a Constitutional Republic, vs peasants of an aristocracy, is to pay attention to those who raise themselves up as our “betters”, eyeball them hard and constantly, keep their feet to the fire and drag them down and destroy them when they go astray.
And, there is a duty to protect our lands and culture from intrusive enemy, either in persons or ideology. Do whatever is required to destroy that enemy which is itself bent toward destroying us.
Instead, we hide from it. Say it’s not our responsibility. Cry out for “someone do something!”
We act as peasants. Not citizens.
We wait for our betters to fix the issues they’ve made because our betters are the cause of the issues.
The powers that be have grown accustomed to treating us as idiot cattle because we insist on behaving as idiot cattle.
It should have remained at 7, because Roosevelt expanded it to 9.
The number fluctuated between five and ten for 80 years, then was fixed at nine in 1869. Again, setting the number requires an act of Congress, so Roosevelt could not have made that happen.
There is no system that can be made by humans and that has humans running it that will not degrade and degenerate over time.
No, but there are more functional and less functional systems. That’s why we have systems. The system we’ve got stinks.
I have never quite understood why some Republican President has not simply said, “the court has over stepped its bounds. It is treading on the purview of equal branches; in this case the Executive. Therefore, I am ignoring this extra constitutional ruling. If the court wishes to enforce it, they better bring their Marine Corps.”
Just deny them the use of the U.S. Marshal Service.
One obvious occasion for the President to have done that would have been in 1985, when a power drunk federal judge in the Hudson Valley jailed three members of the Yonkers City Council because they refused to comply with an order from him about how to site public housing projects. (The judge in question lived in Pound Ridge, NY, which had no projects). I’d have loved it if Reagan just read a brief open letter to judge whatshisname telling him ‘sorry, you’re gonna have to work this out with the City Council on your own’.
“The system we’ve got stinks.”—We have the oldest written Constitution in the world, and the oldest continuous democratic republic. So we don’t totally stink.
Oldflyer. Hear, hear!
“The system we’ve got stinks.”—We have the oldest written Constitution in the world, and the oldest continuous democratic republic. So we don’t totally stink.
It has a certain durability, but it hasn’t functioned passably in decades.
Art Deco, I am sure that if challenged you could name a system that works better.
I stand by my statement; “not broken, but victim of malpractice”. I would add that in addition to malpractice it has been victimized by timidity bordering on cowardice by those in a position to challenge the malpractice.
It has a certain durability, but it hasn’t functioned passably in decades.
*********
You’re confusing cause for effect.
It’s been dysfunctional because we sat on our hands and watched it get taken over by domestic enemy and did exactly nothing but whine to each other about it.
We. Let. It. Happen.
“We. Let. It. Happen” Hereogar
Anybody who spoke out against it and voted for those who objected to it… did NOT let it happen. We were overridden.
It has often been said that, “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat history’s lessons”.
Far less often is the corollary heard; in a representative democracy, those who DO learn from history are often dragged through a repeat of the same lessons by those who did NOT learn from history’s lessons.
We are currently threatened with that circumstance.
History, improperly taught as mere dates is useless. When properly taught of immense value.
Example; in 480BC a few Greeks at Thermopylae delayed a much larger Persian force invading Greece. The average student is left with… so what and quickly forgets it.
Context is everything because in context is meaning found; in 480BC a few Greeks at Thermopylae critically delayed a much larger Persian force invading Greece and in sacrificing their lives, saved democracy from being still born. That sacrifice allowed the rise of the Western Civilization that birthed America. The most important human achievement in history.
Had Leonidas not led his 300 Spartans and the 6700 other greeks to the defense of Greece, the entire history of the world would be different. Almost certainly, there never would have been an enlightenment, never been an America.
“What is the left afraid of? If their will matches the nation’s on this issue, turn it over to the voters, whom they clearly don’t trust.” – Brad
Your question is rhetorical, right?
I can remember some elections, especially those concerning propositions in California, where leftist judges overruled the voters (FROM LEFTIST CALIFORNIA), but none where the nation’s will matched the Left’s agenda.
Oldflyer on September 21, 2020 at 8:32 pm said:
The system isn’t broken. It is the victim of malpractice.
I have never quite understood why some Republican President has not simply said, “the court has over stepped its bounds. It is treading on the purview of equal branches; in this case the Executive. Therefore, I am ignoring this extra constitutional ruling. If the court wishes to enforce it, they better bring their Marine Corps.”
* * *
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcester_v._Georgia
In a popular quotation that is believed to be apocryphal, President Andrew Jackson reportedly responded: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”[5][6] This quotation first appeared twenty years after Jackson had died, in newspaper publisher Horace Greeley’s 1865 history of the U.S. Civil War, The American Conflict.[6] It was, however, reported in the press in March 1832 that Jackson was unlikely to aid in carrying out the court’s decision if his assistance were to be requested.[7]
…
The Court did not ask federal marshals to carry out the decision.[9]
“Context is everything because in context is meaning found;” – Geoffrey
OR: victory usually goes to those who frame the narrative their way most persuasively.
Sometimes that even includes telling the truth.
“Cocaine Mitch summarizes the state of things.” – Lee
There is a new name for the Senate.
https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2020/09/19/the-mob-is-already-targeting-mitch-mcconnell-and-he-doesnt-care/
This is a poll-prestidigitation exercise (probably futile, but it keeps the clicks coming), which I cite solely for one paragraph.
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2020/09/21/wargaming-the-electoral-college-5-scenarios-3-startling-finishes-n949551
“By the time the dust cleared, the Democrats might have developed the technology to reanimate Ruth Bader Ginsburg — and don’t fool yourself into thinking they aren’t trying.”
The Left is attacking along a familiar line, and using familiar “troops” – that is, faux Christians.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2020/09/21/has-the-smear-campaign-against-amy-coney-barrett-already-begun-n948943
The Tweeter is taken apart by others, but there is only one real explanation for her lack of knowledge about a common, foundational, Christian doctrine.
https://babylonbee.com/news/survey-finds-95-of-evangelicals-dont-believe-in-god-bible-jesus
My only quibble, based on what the Bee claims Evangelicals do believe in, is that she more likely identifies as an Episcopalian.
https://episcopalchurch.org/what-we-believe
BTW, if you haven’t had your daily fix of Bee balm, they are on an RGB roll.
Vodkapundit has already been there —
https://babylonbee.com/news/ninth-circuit-court-overturns-death-of-ruth-bader-ginsburg
Roe, being decided, no Legislated, by the Court, began the whole sorry over-politicization of every aspect of life.
Women need the right to choose how to control their bodies.
Unborn human fetal babies need the right to live, to be born.
An unborn baby is inside of a woman, but with different DNA and thus a different body. Women who choose to have sex are choosing to risk getting pregnant.
Pregnancy risk is unfair – women have it, men don’t; and trans folk don’t. Only real XX women.
The EU has countries like Poland where abortion is illegal; and only recently was it legalized in Ireland.
Legal abortion makes it harder for a women to say “no” to sex with any party mate. So more women say “yes”, or at least avoid saying “no” and accept sex they’re not sure they want, especially after a few drinks (like “Sex on the beach”!)
Feminists “say” they want women to be less sexualized objects – but a legal abortion culture means, in practice, all women are sexually available sex objects, all the time.
59 is a good large number, but more important is the process of choosing. 9 now plus one from each of the 50 states, so the “national” issue becomes much less. Giving states more power will be good for getting an amendment passed to change that selection process; tho Congress could pass such a law today.
This is a far better change than getting rid of the electoral college. The Court is making political decisions, more than legal decisions.
A country is the people AND the land – and the customs of the people who live there. Always different between city folk and the rest.
I thought this post had a refreshingly different viewpoint, that will be totally lost on the raging partisans.
https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2020/9/18/21446272/ruth-bader-ginsburg-rbg-died-pancreatic-cancer-scalia-friends-disagree-better
what actually happened was that SCOTUS used a supposed right of “privacy” to prohibit the banning of abortion, under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
And look to what uses the “right of privacy” is put now.
Repeal the seventeen amendment!!!
Throwing down the gauntlet.
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/09/21/graham-weve-got-the-votes-to-confirm-justice-ginsburgs-replacement-before-the-election-and-thats-whats-coming/
Nobody here is unaware of why Senator Graham changed his 2016 stance on election-year Supreme Court nominations, but just as a reminder —
https://www.chicksonright.com/blog/2020/09/21/2018-video-lindsey-graham-to-dems-boy-yall-want-power-god-i-hope-you-never-get-it/
PapaMAS: the longer I am alive, and I’m 60 now, it seems that its human nature to try to get around any system, any rules, any laws for our own benefit and damn the other guy.
Art Deco, I am sure that if challenged you could name a system that works better.
God works better.
The ironic thing about that proposal from Reynolds to which Neo referred is that it would restore something of the spirit of Amendment XVII. I could be happy about this, were it not for the fact that it would be simultaneously an admission that our system of federal government will have emerged fully from its chrysalis in the form of a kritarchy. I’m not quite ready to throw in the towel on the Constitution yet.
I suppose this means that the next true constitutional crisis at the Federal level could well come in the form of a decisive test of strength between the Executive and the Judiciary, the Legislative being something of a bystander at that point as real power will have migrated from it to the other branches by then. This may be down the road some years yet, but I could see it happening fairly soon, too, depending. Trump vs. the Ninth Circuit + SCOTUS, for example, in 2022, say; or a future socialist President vs. a conservative SCOTUS (I don’t know enough about 1935, else I might be tempted to refer to that instance). Or maybe something a little more creative, like some coalition of governors vs. a state Supreme Court. There may be several possible triggers and it’s all just me thinking out loud, anyway.
Richard F Cook: I agree. I am a firm believer in the iron rule of bureaucracy, for example.
Ymarsakar, responded to my challenge to Art Deco: “Art Deco, I am sure that if challenged you could name a system that works better.” by opining,”God works better.”
God has granted us free will when it comes to political arrangements–for the time being.
Hearkening back to my suggestion at 8:32 yesterday evening that a President simply ignore extra-constitutional rulings by Judges and SCOTUS, I see this morning that some Democrats are advocating that if Trump/McConnell move forward then Harris/Biden ignore any ruling by SCOTUS.
Geoffrey Britain on 9/21 said, “The trouble with our governance is that, ‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.’ ”
With which I totally agree. Though he left out “with a predominant middle class”, which holds those values.
Well, Houston, we have a problem. Morality and religiosity cannot be imposed upon a people unless it is by Islam: convert or die. All other faiths are based on persuasion, not coercion.
There is a reason the Democratic Party has been the secular, anti-God Party, increasingly anti-Semitic and pro-Islamic, and GB put his finger on the why.
At some point we need to cease excusing the DP as merely being “The Other”, and condemn it as evil. I think that point has been passed already!
Art Deco, I am sure that if challenged you could name a system that works better.
The Journal of Democracy published an article a number of years ago comparing constitutional systems. It included regressions of economic performance measures. I imagine there’s some literature on that and some critiques of method. (That particular article advanced the thesis that parliamentary regimes are preferable).
I can think of a dozen different things you might do to improve the political architecture. Of course, you never really know ex ante how things will work out in re any different measure. So many unobserved vectors.
Is there a Journal of Democratic Republics? Parliamentary regimes, like in Great Britain, Canada? I’ll pass on them.
How about Article V Convention of States process to address the areas exploited by the left in their attack on our Democratic Republic? It’s old news but constitutional.
https://conventionofstates.com/news/convention-of-states-explained
Try this process:
Article V Convention of States
https://conventionofstates.com/news/convention-of-states-explained
Parliamentary systems no thank you.
“The system we’ve got stinks.”
The system is fine. It could possibly be improved here or there but that’s not the cause of our current distress. Take the Supreme Court as Super Legislature. It’s a terrible way to take care of the public’s business but it has and can be workable.
The problem is that the Left is insisting, and threatening violence to enforce it, that the Right is NEVER allowed to control that Super Legislature. That’s not a systemic issue. That’s a human one.
Mike
Article V Convention of States. Amend the Constitution to deal with the abuses of the system that have manifested themselves since the 1930s.
But on a more serious note the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has resolved the RBG problem:
https://babylonbee.com/news/ninth-circuit-court-overturns-death-of-ruth-bader-ginsburg
You can’t allow abortion after 20 weeks of gestation because premies at 20 weeks have about 1-3% chance of surviving. NEJM. This means that if they do a prostaglandin-induced abortion, the fetus has a good chance of being alive and they have to do something to kill it, post delivery. Usually they put it in a box on a shelf someplace and let it die from hypothermia. No one wants the baby because it has usually been aborted often for trisomy 21 (Downs,) or 18 or simply because the mother could not decide what to do. If they do a D&E, dilation and extraction, earlier than 20 weeks, or a D&C in the first trimester, of course the fetus is disrupted and this quandary is avoided but again, if done well into the second trimester. the OB personnel, are not pleased or are even revolted by the large fetal fragments. The Court made a clumsy decision by allowing abortions through the end of the second trimester—26 weeks—and should have restricted the procedure to the first trimester, 13 weeks, just as all the European nations have done, or at most 20 weeks… I don’t think Blackman and SCOTUS had good consultation prior to the decision in RvW. All the states that used to allow it for the sake of the mother’s life, used the 20 week limit.
The problem now is that even talking about RvW is like talking about the collapse of feminine rights and principles and is seen as a slippery slope to hell.
So we have to defend forever a dumb law.
Dnaxy:
Also it’s only in recent years that fetuses that small can survive. The law has not kept pace with medicine. What’s more, now that ultrasound has advanced so greatly, we get a better idea of what the young fetuses look like in the womb, even as early as 2 or 3 months. They look like tiny little babies even though everything isn’t totally formed. See this.
The system is fine.
No, it’s not, or your federal appropriations would not consist of ghastly catch-all continuing resolutions. That’s for starters.
Art Deco and Mr Bunge:
http://i.imgur.com/wJTZIPB.gif
I agree with Art, it isn’t.
The idea that Roe v. Wade was actually an impediment the evolution of Abortion laws and regulations is an interesting point of veiw that I had never considered.
Thank you.