There is another issue:
We don’t live in a dictatorship. No judge has the authority to “weigh in” on any issue.
This is another case where facts and, say ‘truthiness’ collide. Since the Warner Defense Act, we have private paramilitary forces operating on US soil (blackwater).
We know, from the footnotes of the Yoo torture memo that the current administration considers the 4th Amendment effectively suspended.
We have already conceded in engaging in secret detentions, and over 100 detainees have died in our custody, many of the deaths medically ruled “murder”, but no accountability for the acts.
The president has argued that he is not constrained by the constituion, or even laws passed by Congress (look at his signing statements). The administratin asserts that anyone, even a US citizen on US soil, can be held, forever, without legal recourse soley on the president’s authority.
The vice president has argued that he is a unique branch of the government, wholly outside the rule of law…
It seems to me that if someone has their own ‘security force’ that can wield deadly force, seemingly without consequenc, and they assert that they are the ultimate arbiter for liberty - and life (since torturing people to death has no consequences), we have to start giving serious consideration to definitions like ‘facism’ and ‘dictatorship’.
We have former and current high ranking members of our government who already cannot travel to certain nations because of civil and criminal charges. The Yoo memo has already triggered an investigation, if war crimes are actually charged it might be a good time for Americans to consider what they actually stand for.
Abortion became legal … and anti-abortion laws in the individual states … because the Federal Supreme Court … the judicial branch went way over the line in assuming powers it didn’t have … and outlawed all the state laws prohibiting or limiting abortion.
You seem a little confused about history. Abortions were legal for the first century or so in the US. You can find them widely advertised in newspapers up to about 1850-1870 (depending on locale).
PRIOR to the supreme court decision, 15 states revised their aboriton laws, and legal abortions jumped to about 600,000 per year just prior to the Roe decision. Simply overturning Roe (and Casey), would return us to that situation, with the matter being set state by state.
What also must be considered are illegal abortions. We really have no idea how many have occured in the US. At points in history (like during WWII) we have a rough idea of ‘surges’, because of upturns in maternal deaths. But since the widespread use of antibiotics and plasma, those deaths have dropped to a statistically meaningless low (contrary to the myth, back alley abortionists were essentialy non existant by the 1970s - most illegal abortions were/are performed by medical practitioners).
But, worldwide, research strongly suggests that legal status have only a very small impact on abortion rates. And, since we don’t live in isolation, access to chemical abortificants, which women use in the privacy of their homes now, will be impossible to truly restrict.
Since then, a Republican president, George W. Bush, has appointed two pro-life justices.
Again, this is the gap between faith and evidence. Roberts stated, under oath, that Roe is the law of the land and he did not envision it being changed. He, and Alito, applied Roe/Casey, without comment in their first reproductive rights case.
If we assume secret knowlege (call it Gnostic Politics), wouldn’t lying under oath, or misreprenting one’s beliefs in a opinion be “judicial activism”?
I hear that term a lot, but it seems that people are more concerned with results than the actual principle. Consider Gonzales v. Carhart. The court found that politicians, not doctors, are the best at determining “medical necessity”. Since not even the people who wrote and supported the original ban think it will stop a single abortion, judicial activism in expanding government power would seem to be the most significant outcome of the whole matter.
cont.
