Updating the Abortion News

Heat and work wore me out. But this is important stuff. So you're getting blurbs. If anyone reads this stuff....

A friend sent me an email and gave me permission to post it here. He catches my own opinion with the exception I put at the end.

Note: I believe all life is sacred, so choose contraception if you don't want or can't handle another child. However, I also believe that everyone is entitled a choice as to how to live their life, and that I don't have the right to subject them to my beliefs, ideologies, morals, etc.

What I am waiting for: Hopefully Justice Roberts will point out that, overall, this is a religious choice; and that at least the First, Fourth, and Ninth amendments eliminates the possibility of the government legislating religion. Whether we like it or not WE also have the choice of no religion.

I am not responsible for someone else's soul due to their choices.

I would add that I think abortion should be rarer in a society where its citizens are thoroughly educated about contraceptives and where contraceptives are readily available. If Roe goes, contraceptives could go next. 

From The Bulwark - The Two-Word Question That Could Decisively Shape Abortion Politics:

To be fair, pro-life messages do pretty well in polls. Forty percent of Americans identify themselves as pro-life. Forty-two percent of voters support “promoting the idea that abortion ends a human life.” Forty-six percent agree, at least somewhat, that “abortion is the same as murdering a child.”

But none of these statements gets anywhere near the overwhelming resonance of the idea that abortion decisions should be left to women and families.

 From The Guardian - Pro-choice states rush to pledge legal shield for out-of-state abortions:

Only 38% of women of reproductive age live in states that have shown support for abortion rights, according to the research organization Guttmacher Institute. In contrast, 58% live in states that have demonstrated hostility towards abortion rights. Only 4% of women live in middle-ground states.

Last month, the New York state senator Liz Krueger introduced a bill that would shield New York doctors who offer abortion services to out-of-state patients by prohibiting law enforcement from cooperating with out-of-state investigations on abortion provisions.

I got a problem here. The majority of women affected by these new state laws live in anti-abortion states? So why are they not organized politically? Why do the Republicans in those states not fear a political backlash?

This article seems to fit with Robert Reich's The second American civil war is already happening, also from The Guardian. Now, I think is a pretty smart fellow,  and so well worth listening to, but I am not so sure I like his conclusion:

Where will all this end? Not with two separate nations. What America is going through is analogous to Brexit – a lumbering, mutual decision to go separate ways on most things but remain connected on a few big things (such as national defense, monetary policy and civil and political rights).

Thing is there is another document other than the Constitution uniting America, and that is the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration's language is incorporated into almost every state's Bill of Rights. What becomes of America when one set of states say that inalienable rights do not apply to all its residents or have a different meaning than in another set of states. Welcome to 1859?

The Hill reports on what might happen to the pro-choice states next year - Democrats seize on prospect of national abortion ban:

The strategy is tied to November but also reflects fears that a GOP trifecta could try to enact a federal ban or new restrictions on abortion. Those concerns were ramped up after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in remarks over the weekend that it is “possible” a GOP-controlled Congress could try to legislate on abortion.

Federal law trumps state law. The federal Republicans could follow the lead of Louisiana Republicans and make abortion a federal crime of homicide.

My own views on what to do politically, including a constitutional amendment, can be found here. What I did not add to my proposed constitutional amendment but has been on my mind, too, was this: that along with codifying Roe there will be language supporting maternal care, maternal leave, and the means to raise a child without descending into poverty.

sch 5/11/22