Roe v Wade Overturned

The nerve! I read most of the article; the string of epithets I'm spewing is long and complex.

The women of Texas are suffering at the hand of the religious right, their physical and mental health at risk, aargh. And is this what Federal law will become for everyone with the Justices who are in place? Six weeks.

I'm sad and furious. Keep your hands and disgusting brains off women's bodies and minds. The danger of suicides to come is big. I'm stopping here.

Nothing like old white men telling women what they should/shouldn't do with their bodies.  If hell is a real place, Greg Abbot and the rest of the ilk have a warm spot waiting. 

wait, don't they want limited govt?

Will TX have the hottest handmaids?

my understanding is that Supreme Court declined to stay enforcement of the new law.  They did not rule on its merits.  The law will be challenged and work its way back up on a full record.  SCUTUS usually stays enforcement but not this time.  Roe has NOT been overturned  

No one should be surprised.

SC killed R v W in TX.

With two illegal justices.

but for today it is not the law of the land.

It's not the rule for Texas, but it is everywhere else. It is unsettling that a stay was not issued, but it does not mean Roe was overturned - yet. The law will be challenged and then we'll see how ballsy the conservative majority is with regard to stars decisis.

Also furious (*&@#*$^%!!!
I used to work on this issue in the early 90s in Seattle when I worked for the ACLU.  

Here's a new article from The Atlantic: 
 

The Deviousness of Texas’s New Abortion Law

The statute is the culmination of a decades-long strategy to end abortion without actually banning abortion.

By Mary Ziegler

About the author: Mary Ziegler is a professor at the Florida State University College of Law. She is the author of Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present.

Last night, the Supreme Court faced an unprecedented emergency application. Unless the Court acted, abortion would be functionally illegal in Texas.

In May, the state had adopted a version of a “heartbeat bill” that went into effect today. So-called heartbeat bills prohibit abortions once a physician can detect fetal cardiac activity, usually around the sixth week of pregnancy, before most people know that they are pregnant. Texas lawmakers had considered such a bill before but balked at the prospect of a possible loss in court—and the thought of forking over legal fees to Planned Parenthood. S.B. 8, the law that now prevails, promised to give conservative lawmakers everything they wanted: the ability to ban abortion with none of the risk.

The key, as Texas lawmakers saw it, was not to criminalize abortions. Instead, the state has authorized private citizens in the state—quite literally any private citizen—to file lawsuits against anyone who performs or “knowingly … aids or abets” an abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy. When plaintiffs in these suits succeed—and many inevitably will—they will receive at least $10,000 from defendants and an injunction preventing a provider from performing any more abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

Relying on individual activists to flood the courts with lawsuits might seem riskier for anti-abortion-rights lawmakers (the state would need to find a supply of willing plaintiffs rather than doing the job itself) than an outright ban, but the opposite is true. Texas designed its bill to make it nearly impossible to challenge in court.

That’s because state lawmakers and judges can shield themselves using a doctrine called “sovereign immunity,” which typically prevents someone seeking to block a state law from suing the state itself. The Supreme Court created an exception to that rule in a 1908 case called Ex parte Young: Someone challenging the constitutionality of a law can sue the state officer charged with enforcing it. But in Texas, there arguably is no such officer because only private citizens can sue to enforce the law. Abortion providers could wait to get deluged in court, find themselves buried under $10,000 damage awards, and argue that those penalties are unconstitutional. But virtually no doctor seems ready to do that—the state’s providers have responded to the law by no longer offering abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy.

The idea of using lawsuits to end abortion emerged decades ago. Unsurprisingly, it first gained steam in Texas. In the 1990s, Mark Crutcher, an anti-abortion-rights activist from the Dallas metroplex, tried to create a self-help industry for members of his movement. He put out instructions on how to write letters to the editor and how to stay on message in debates. But he was convinced that civil lawsuits could gut Roe v. Wade. He sent out “Spies for Life” to gather evidence on whether providers in the state were doing anything wrong. And he provided lawyers across the country with a 79-page manual detailing how to sue abortion doctors for medical malpractice. The result, he hoped, would be skyrocketing insurance rates for abortion clinics and legal bills that most doctors would be unwilling to pay.

Crutcher’s strategy was quite clever: eliminate abortion access without the kind of fanfare that a major Court decision would spur, mobilizing the opposition and risking a backlash. “Right now,” Crutcher wrote, “the future of abortion in America is in serious jeopardy simply because access to abortion is evaporating.”

Activists tried to run with Crutcher’s idea in the years that followed. Most focused on patients who claimed that they had not given informed consent to an abortion (Louisiana passed a law authorizing these suits, which the conservative Fifth Circuit upheld). But interest dried up because most anti-abortion-rights leaders had no interest in slipping under the radar. They wanted to attack Roe directly, secure a decision overruling it, and lay the groundwork for a decision recognizing fetal personhood under the Fourteenth Amendment and thereby making abortion unconstitutional.

S.B. 8 is the signal achievement of strategies like Crutcher’s. With this law, Texas focused on eliminating abortion, not repudiating Roe, and the Supreme Court’s response last night—or, more accurately, the lack thereof—spoke volumes. A district court had blocked the law from going into effect (concluding that state judges were the officials charged with enforcement), but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay of all proceedings in the lower court, including those involving efforts to block the law from going into effect. Providers filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court, and the clock began to run; the Court had until midnight yesterday to act before Texas’s ban went into effect.

When the clock struck midnight, the justices had done precisely nothing. There was no order allowing the law to go into effect or preventing its enforcement. As of this morning, the justices had still not spoken a word.

Some will hesitate to read too much into the Court’s silence—after all, Texas designed its law to be difficult to challenge. And the Court already has a major abortion decision coming up: Next summer, the justices will hand down a decision on a quite different abortion law—one that criminalizes abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy. Mississippi, unlike Texas, invited a constitutional challenge because state lawmakers are gunning for abortion rights. There is no guarantee that the justices will be willing to declare the end of abortion rights for the world to see, regardless of what they do or don’t say about S.B. 8. There is also no telling whether the Court may yet rule on Texas providers’ emergency requests.

But the Court’s silence is revealing. Imagine if Massachusetts had mandated vaccines for those with bona fide religious objections and allowed private citizens to use litigation to enforce that decree. Or if California had outlawed the private ownership of handguns. For decades, the Court has written that abortion is so divisive because it touches people’s most deeply held beliefs about life in the womb, the rights of women, equality between the sexes, and the role of doctors. Whatever else one could say about the Court’s abortion jurisprudence, the justices seemed to take these clashing beliefs seriously. Not anymore. The message from the High Court was one of stunning indifference. The Supreme Court looked at the prospect of a functional ban on abortion and saw no emergency at all.

In the 1990s, Mark Crutcher predicted that the path to ending abortion might be civil lawsuits. If the Supreme Court’s inaction is any indication, he just might have been right.

Mary Ziegler is a professor at the Florida State University College of Law. She is the author of Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present.

The Texas Taliban hates women. 

^and they pretend to love and care about children too....until after they have been born

Roe has NOT been overturned 

Correct. 

As for the idea that the latest Justices are going to overturn all sorts of things because they were appointed by he who should not be named, it hasn't been happening. As a matter of fact, many crazy elected officials have already said that those who didn't vote the way everyone said they would should be removed from the bench. When they were appointed, I went on record that some of the votes would surprise people. Once you are appointed to the Supreme Court, you do what you think is legally correct, not what politicians and the public believe is the correct course. 

Ditto Jr's comment. 

This will come back to Scotus in time.

Sad day, but hopefully lawsuits by the score will be filed in the next 48 hours. 

In the meantime:

Fuck Texas and fuck their Lone Star Beer.

Fuck that Fucking Alamo and fuck that Long Horn Steer.

With two illegal justices<<<<

Not sure I'd go that far, but in a certain sense, they are "aberrations" ... since in a rational world, Trump should've been impeached 3x.

Having said that, what if indisputable evidence arose of Trump having received specific instructions on who to nominate for SCOTUS from a foreign adversary?  Hardly suggesting it's the case, but at this stage, I wouldn't bet my life that it could not have happened.  It's just weird to ponder how even in an extreme hypothetical circumstance, it'd still be Constitutional.  The only remedy would be expulsion via Congress, and we've seen how the super-majority threshold vs. "strength of character" has been an issue.

There is a site where you can report someone who you think might be having an abortion down in Texas...

https://prolifewhistleblower.com/anonymous-form/

Sure would be a shame if people flooded it with fake reports.

(it may not work if your IP is OCONUS)

Now that you can open carry in Texas even without a permit I wonder if the same lawsuits that apply to abortions will apply in any gun violence, maybe sue the clerk at Dick's Sporting Goods that sold the gun.  Let's see how much Texas really believes in the right to life 

Just a thought. Not sure on all the facts, but throwing this out there nonetheless. I'll admit, might be naive and idiotic. If you're gonna throw stuff at me, make them soft objects please. 

OK, so the sanction is a fine? Like $10,000? I'm guessing some folks with beaucoup bucks could start a fund that could be supplemented with nationwide donations to pay off any fines. Sort of a way to say OK, you want to go through all the bureaucratic processes to enforce your law, and we'll pay the fine in the end so people can get the medical services they need.  Yeah, it would suck giving these a-holes money but could that be a way to circumvent the law and render it useless. More states doing this would be problematic, but necessity is the mother of invention, and the people will rise up and figure a way to answer the challenges. 

Sure gonna stir up the religious right for the 2022 election.    

Vaccines in Texas? My body, my choice. Carrying an unwanted child for 9 months? Not so much.

And even in the case of rape?. My god, who DO these people worship? Is compassion part of their theology? 

Not so much.

We live in two seperate countries. Lincoln should have let the south go.

Only the vaccinated should be allowed to abort their babies.

The lawsuits that can be brought against someone is not limited, anyone can sue the doctor, receptionist, Uber driver that brought patient to the clinic. That is my understanding. No fund would be large enough and would be a never ending hole to throw money down. Vote them out is the option 

...SCOTUS cannot simply 'voted out' (again/forever, Elections Matter) and a good grip of states already have pending "trigger" laws on their books in hopes they can chip away at or reverse Roe v Wade, not to mention their ready, willing, and able AG's whom will go to court to make the arguments.

Ideologies aside, we have been testing the boundaries between Fed/States rights for a while now and something is bound to snap. Take Cannabis, for example, as stupid as the ban has always been, here we are in an oddly unworkable scenario that keeps generating more and more heavily taxed revenue - yet the Federal ban lives on?

The U.S. increasingly looks like a patchwork of 50 different countries that will soon require some sort of visa/passport to pass through, complete with a map of respective laws to hopefully avoid prison.

joe has the answer

open carry that fetus right out your body

we will bring a whole new meaning to 

stand your ground

From Jim Wright on Facebook:

The new Texas anti-abortion law offers $10,000 to those who report anyone getting or facilitating an abortion.

I suspect this will be fairly effective. After all, encouraging snitches to rat out suspected miscreants for money worked pretty well for the Gestapo, the KGB, the Stasi, and Tail Gunner Joe and the House Unamerican Activities Committee.

I mean if that's what you're going for...

Anyway, I did my part to help Texas enforce their law.

Any way for recouping money for Ted Cruz not being aborted? Only seems fair 

ditto jaz dittoing jr ..........Texas, you shithole!!!!!!!!

nothing says freedom and rights like encouraging mccarthy-like snitching on your fellow citizens.

Why try to win voters with policy, when you can just throw your detractors in jail. Trump playbook, anyone not on your side is an enemy. 

nice, J

(((machete)))

https://www.themarysue.com/anti-abortion-tip-line-gets-shrek-porn-and-me...

>>>open carry that fetus right out your body

we will bring a whole new meaning to 

stand your ground
 

this is 100% psycho talk.  Did the spirit channel you?

I do agree this law is fucked, the more democrat abortions the better.

fuck the american taliban 

"I do agree this law is fucked, the more democrat abortions the better."

What rock did you crawl out from under?

I "may have" "reported" some of them there dangerous abortionists.

Sotomayer's' dissent brought the  brutalz.  

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-abortion-law-supreme-court-sotomayor-...

The law will be repealed when Ted Cruz* is found arranging for his mistresses' or his daughters' abortions

*insert any GOP legislator

Stasi tactics.

Go Daddy acts.

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/570846-godaddy-drops-texas-based-a...

They are really trying to turn Texas blue.  

This new law sounds like an inducement to a whole lot of vigilanteeism, perhaps including  incidents not abortion-related.

racket i hope you are very upset by my statement

and, how dare you assume or call me a democrat

and nobody gives any fucks for the abortions that likely most politicians female relatives have had the luxury of receiving since it has been a thing

the fact they lost their snitch ass website is lovely though

and, much like the Kpop kids and Shrek trolls, it really is the younger generation actively dealing with so much of the bullshit being perpetuated on American Citizens

go kids !

lastly 

thank goddess we still have Justice Sotomayor !!!!!!!!!

BOYCOTT TEXAS!

As much as possible. Sorry Austin. You're cool, but....

Woman Is The Nigger Of The World

- JL

Sorry ladies :-(   Keep this between your legs and life will be grand...right?

When was the last time Bette had some dick?  

Heeeeeey grandma 

Ted Cruz is found arranging for his mistresses>>>

Don't you mean his misters?  That guy puts the fem in effeminate.  Maybe either Truman Capote or Liberace have a long lost son.

>>>>>When was the last time Bette had some dick?  

She's probably had sex dozens of times since your last coitus in Amsterdam. 

"If men needed an abortion the procedure would be available at an ATM!"
... Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Supreme Court now hearing arguments. 50 years of a women's right to decide could soon be gone. Never thought I'd see it get this far. Personally I'm not a fan of abortion but I'd never want to see that right taken away from those faced with such a decision. Supreme Court seems to be fast tracking this for next years elections. And if overturned trump will claim victory, saying it's all because of him stacking the Court with conservatives, and that fucker just may get elected again. This whole thing is bothering me on many levels.

If the Supreme Court is looking at public opinion, they should know that any roll back of Roe v. Wade would cause a massive backlash that will doom the GOP in 2022 and 2024 elections.   Most Americans support reproductive freedom.  

Was surprised that voter split is almost at 50\50!

No offense intended but it's those "over-65 voters"...  

Source: Gallup

Well, it's an issue that hopefully will motivate younger people to actually get out and vote.  That poll also presents sort of false dichotomy.  I can see there being people who are personally opposed to abortion and might consider themselves "pro-life" but don't want to take away another's right to choose.

I am pretty sure that whatever results someone may be seeking can be found and the true sentiments of where people actually stand on this and other issues may be somewhat elusive.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/poll-as-supreme-court-hears-mississippi-case-...

> it's an issue that hopefully will motivate younger people to actually get out and vote<

Didn't seem to help when there was an opportunity to ensure that the Supreme Court would have a liberal majority. 

The stacking was more due to Bitch Mc than chump.  Remember when Obama tried to appoint a good judge?

I think he needs to die even over chump.

^I remember 

Trump appointed 3 conservative justices. 

Clinton would have appointed 3 more liberal justices

Conservatives outnumber liberals 6-3

The Senate Majority Leader does not nominate justices, the president does.

You can point the finger at McConnell, but left leaning folks either did understand the stakes of the 2016 election, or they did not care.

<<Personally I'm not a fan of abortion

What a stupid comment

Personally I not a fan of forced births  and overcrowded  orphanages. 

The Senate majority leader is not supposed to simply block SCOTUS nominations either.....for what what was it, approximately a year at that?

>> left leaning folks either did understand the stakes of the 2016 election, or they did not care.

If the old Zone weren't gone I'd link to my thread from spring 2016 begging Bernie folks to vote for Hillary for precisely this reason. Shockingly didn't go over great. But there's lots of blame to go around -- Hillary for running a bad campaign and not giving people a positive reason to vote, RBG for not retiring when Dems held the Senate, Obama for failing to motivate Dems in 2010 and 2014, Democrats in general for forgetting for 40 years to ever mention to voters why the courts are important. The list goes on. 

Really though it's kind of weak sauce to blame individual behavior for systemic problems. The real issue is that the Constitution set up life tenure for the federal courts and the framers entirely failed to see how that would incentivize parties to do what McConnell and Co have now done. It's ridiculous that there's a super-legislature that gets to decide rights for 330 million people (and in 2000, who the president would be), and the makeup of the panel is determined by the individual health of a handful of geriatrics (not just RBG -- same thing with Thurgood Marshall who had to step down because of health a year before Clinton won). Terrible system that needs reform. But good luck with that.

^^yep. That alone should have made clear the importance of the 2016 election. The winner was guaranteed at least one justice. 

>Really though it's kind of weak sauce to blame individual behavior for systemic problems<

^i disagree, Sam, everyone knows the system is what it is. Given the stakes, one shouldn't have needed any other reason to vote. One seat was guaranteed.  Only ignorance of the importance of the Supreme Court can explain left leaning people's unwillingness to vote for Clinton, IMO.

yep. i mean all those red states would have gone hillary...

right?

give it up already. fuckin' a.

Hillary was and always will be remembered as a shitty, very polarizing candidate who would have had a difficult time winning any presidential race (obviously - she did not beat dumph).

>> ^i disagree, Sam, everyone knows the system is what it is.

Maybe maybe not, but I'm saying the system is set up badly and going around pointing fingers, even if it's totally deserved, isn't going to help fix it. Not sure anything will of course.

>>yep. i mean all those red states would have gone hillary...

right?

give it up already. fuckin' a.<<

I guess you forgot how small Trump's margin of victory was in Michigan, Wisconsin  and Pennsylvania.?

Michigan 10,704           jill stein 51,463

Wisconsin 22,748        jill stein 31,072

Pennsylvania 44,292   jill stein 49,941

That's 46 Electoral votes. 227+46=273 Clinton wins.

I know math is hard. Understanding the importance of the Supreme Court is not.

I wonder what the age demographics were for Jill S. supporters?  (A lot of us remember those Kremlins photos w/ her)

The margins really don't matter - elections are won or lost. Wild card, half-assed candidates that draw voters away from a victory do matter though (ie Ross Perot). The Electoral College is another story/discussion altogether.

The Green Party votes were offset by Libertarian votes.  In fact, Johnson got three times the number of votes as Stein did.   

Moreover, how many registered Democrats stayed home and couldn't be bothered to show up and vote for their own candidate?   If you are going to cast blame, there is a much bigger culprit right there.

Of course, ranked choice voting would eliminate the so called spoiler effect entirely. 

^^i disagree.  The margins in those three states demonstrate how close the election was. They decided the election.  

^Ranked choice is about as probable as eliminating the electoral college 

Ken, i count on libertarian voters to be obstinate, I was hoping for something different from the left. 

But it's irrelevant. We have a generation of conservative jurisprudence to look forward to.

<< draw voters away from victory

Ralph Nader

Never underestimate the Democrats' ability to blow a presidential race | The Week
https://theweek.com/articles/623728/never-underestimate-democrats-abilit...

Sweet! Ranked Choice will deliver a very low "majority" plurality winning candidate

As was pointed out earlier in this ill-titled thread, Roe has not been overturned. Sickening thought.

Justice Sotomayor suggests court wouldn't 'survive the stench' if abortion rights undercut.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/583814-sotomayor-suggests-c...

Sorry, but we can all smell the stench brewing. It's inevitable based on the number of 'conservatives' Justices and their  arguments,   that Roe will either be severely modified (hello 6 week bans)  or overturned entirely. Basically either scenario is horrible. 

I fail to see the "legal need" for any related change/unraveling as the issue seems obviously politically-religiously motived which would surely undermine the SCOTUS moving forward.

Why did Chelsea Clinton invite Ghislaine Maxwell to her wedding?

I was put in the ethics group while learning Radiology, and was the only pro choice member of the group (the rest were middle aged religious ladies).  

I won them all over with my basement belief, that's it's always been about Dr / Patient confidentiality, and is nobody else's biz what medical procedures / conditions any individual may be going thru....  in America, you don't get to tell your neighbors what to do   

'That stench emanating from the Supreme Court Is the smell of conservative justices, five of whom were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, doing exactly what they were put there to do: restrict access to abortions.' -Colbert

Maybe the amerikan taliban will get even more emboldened and push something like this too.

"Taliban release decree saying women must consent to marriage":

https://www.yahoo.com/news/taliban-release-decree-saying-women-085445962...

This SCOTUS will certainly attempt to overturn marriage laws, starting with gay marriage

>>>>>Maybe the amerikan taliban will get even more emboldened and push something like this too. "Taliban release decree saying women must consent to marriage":

If you read the article it turns out that this is a liberalization. Until now, the Taliban required women to accept marriage proposals even if they didn't want to.

I would say that "must" is the key word here

 >Democrats stayed home and couldn't be bothered to show up and vote for their own candidate?   If you are going to cast blame, there is a much bigger culprit right there<

They fall into the left leaning people category. 

What puzzles me is people's apparent ignorance when it comes to the importance of the Supreme Court, and rest of the federal court system. 

>> This SCOTUS will certainly attempt to overturn marriage laws, starting with gay marriage

They're coming for everything -- LGBT rights, labor rights, environmental protections. I'm not even including guns and affirmative action because those are already up this year and will be mostly or totally done by end of June. The goal of the movement is to roll back all of the liberal/progressive gains of the 20th and 21st centuries, up to and including the New Deal. They're very clear about it if you read their writing. It's really just a matter of time, unless there's reform to the structure of the Court.

>>>>>I would say that "must" is the key word here

Yes, a woman now "must" consent to the marriage or it cannot take place.

In other words, no more forced marriages.

You trust whatever these douchebags say? Best Wishes.

Not trustin' anybody. Just relating what they said.

Cool. 

elections have consequences (hillary vs trump)

a lil math and civics should've gone a long way

 
so here we are

now what?

Left wing propaganda channels on AM radio throughout rural Amerika      

all hail sinclair

Good one, Noodler. It would be fun for some die-hard progressive Dem billionaire out there to absolutely flood said AM waves with that!

35 years ago we joked about the NPR vs non NPR states in the midwest, LOL.  (long before Tim Russert coined blue vs red states)

I didn't know that he coined that phraseology. RIP Tim. Loved his show appearances, political interviews, and related commentary on TV.

Agreed, I always enjoyed his enthusiasm too...   but wanted to make sure the brain cells were still working, so looked it up, interesting read!

https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/wordroutes/thinking-about-tim-russer...

The stench is in the air 

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Wellness/texas-law-restricting-access-abortio...