Senate Abortion: Why not?

Average time of that process from start to finish will be +9 months.

 

The main purpose will obviously to prosecute anyone 'falsely' accusing someone of rape, i.e. every single rape accusation.
Like with COVID, the Republican method for dealing with rape is to stop anyone reporting it.

 

Amazing how just a few shy years ago these people were raging about Obamacare and the government getting in between them and their doctors.

These people were never against death panels. They were only scared they wouldn't be the ones running them.

 

It would just be one endless victim blaming, slut shaming, humiliation conga. Personally, I would consider it justification for terrorism.

 

Judging by their leaders' comments over the few years-centuries, they don't think rape really ever even happens.

 

It's the 'compassionate conservatism' we always see here from posters:

"OF course [racism/rape/misogyny] is wrong. And I'm the first to speak up against it! It's just not something that is happening these days. Also, people like me are the actual victims."

 

That’s a great idea! In fact, let’s do it for all medical care, not just abortion.

We could do coronary artery bypass grafting as long as you’re not too overweight or if the community determines your diet isn’t too unhealthy, we can determine insulin coverage for diabetics as long as you don’t eat too many sweets or stuff your fat face too often, we can cover blood pressure medications for people who are nice because angry people are raising their own blood pressure so why should we have to pay for their medications, etc.

I could do this all night.

 

An example of how we live in very different countries.

Our far left, in the frame offered by their own parliamentary time, offered a constitutional reform to sanctify the right to abortion. This wasn't seen as a necessity in France by and large, because, put in a few words, we aren't the USA. However, our far right decided to rebound on this, and propose to amend our far left's proposal so that the current rights to abortion (at will until 14 weeks have passed, on medical advice afterwards, with a clause of conscience for the doctor asked to intervene) be sanctuarised, so that the right to abortion, the clause of conscience, and the medical exceptions are all sanctified under our constitution.

Passing this either requires getting through both the national assembly (where nobody has an absolute majority, but Macron's party has a relative one) and the senate (where the traditional right are going to have an absolute majority for another year before going down to a relative majority), and then either a two-thirds majority in a vote by the national assembly and the senate combined in congress or a majority in a referendum that asks a yes/no question on the constitutional revision.

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/23/abortion-pills-opponents-environmental-laws-00070603

If President Vaderize were in power, my response would be as follows:

"Sure, we'll allow the FDA to authorize further studies into drugs that have already been extensively studied and deemed environmentally safe, as soon as Congress lifts the ban on the CDC studying gun violence as a public health emergency. Isn't politics great?"

Never happen, but it would be awesome to watch Republicans try and explain why that is a totally unreasonable tit-for-tat.

 

Unfortunately, in a loose wording the senate will kill...

 

She’ll win at the Supreme Court, because (white, male-dominated) Christianity trumps everything.

 

Sometimes, a sordid event brings up legal questions about a fetus' rights and legal status.

A French humorist has recently caused a road accident while driving under the influence of cocaine, an accident in which a pregnant woman lost her six-months fetus. And of course, the question that was raised is whether this can be considered a homicide. This is a higher profile case than usual, of course, prompting quite the discussion outside of legal circles about when the accidental killing of a fetus should fall under involuntary homicide.

French law is razor-sharp on the matter: a person only has a legal existence from the point of birth, defined as the moment the baby takes its first breath. Since a fetus has no legal existence as a person yet, a fetus' death therefore cannot be ruled as a homicide under our justice system unless an attempt was made to save it: if the pregnant woman was operated on, and if the fetus was viable enough to take one breath before dying, there is a homicide.

It is possible, since April 2021, for parents to declare a civilian identity for a deceased fetus - but that is a matter of civil law, and does not change the legal status.

 

Then there's this in South Carolina:

Women in South Carolina who get abortions can face the death penalty.

 

And the shoe has dropped regarding that ruling by the federal judge in Texas.

 

It's just overall ridiculous to establish the precedent of a judge being able to tell the FDA what they can and can't approve. So the FDA approves a life-saving new drug and a judge overrules that and says it isn't approved and so a drug that could save lives is not available; well, this is actually, if I understand the case at hand, more or less what happened in Texas. On the other side, say the FDA rejects a drug for being unsafe and a judge overrules them and forces them to issue an approval, resulting in a dangerous, untested drug being released for use in treatments. These are both absolutely nightmarish and deadly scenarios. Absolutely absurd. A ruling like this would be unbelievable in a satire, which, of course, means it's a reality in the current USA.

 

I mean, yes. This is the whole reason the Chevron doctrine existed for several decades until Republican Supreme Court Justices decided the FREE MARKET was more important and invented a new constitutional principle that is nowhere in the constitution to justify reversing it.

 

This is actually a highly prescient comment. Another federal judge in Spokane, Washington, issued a conflicting ruling in regards to restrictions placed on abortion pills that in many ways directly conflicts with the Texas judges ruling.

This will clearly end up in front of the Supreme Court sooner rather than later. Under their newly invented “Major Questions Doctrine”, they may very well wash their hands of having to rule on the merits of by stating that the Texas judge’s order was a rightful criticism of the FDA from a procedural standpoint, and that it is now up to Congress to clarify whether or not mifepristone should still be available. They could uphold the injunction without having to rule further on the legality of abortion.

That being said, tucked into the Texas ruling is another brand new right: personhood for embryos. It wouldn’t surprise me if at least three or four of the reactionary supermajority on SCOTUS doesn’t want to run with that ball and make it the law of the land.

At some point, the legacy of Trump’s judges will have to be confronted. Biden is clearly reluctant to do so, but they are trying really hard to force his hand. I have little confidence that he is up to the challenge. The voters seem to be, but if the leaders they elect won’t fight, then we are in serious trouble.

 

Well said.

 

I think Joe Biden's career shows he will try to stay near the center of what he perceives as Democratic Party voters. I agree he probably isn't thrilled about this. But if conservative judges push too far, they will stir enough outrage that Biden will be permissive of slapping back at them.

 

I hope you’re right, but the evidence to date suggests otherwise.