Re: Civility
 

An acorn is not a tree. If you believe that a blastocyte has a "soul" such as to justify forcing a woman to term, we cannot have a rational discussion.

Re: Civility
 

Put another way, are you suggesting that an unborn fetus is a "person?" That would have a lot of impiications. Lawsuits from the father to enjoin the mother from having a glass of wine? Is the fetus entitled to legal counsel? And, then, to your point about state control - can we imprison pregnant women to make them go to term? Mandate what they eat and drinik? Matrix-like fetus farms?

I, in some ways, support so-called states rights, but not when the claimed state's right is fundamentally abhorrent to a basic human right, to control my own body, to choose whether to have a child. Anyone who denies this choice to someone is a slaver.

Re: Civility
 

And, since I'm on a roll, assuming that forced baby-making is not prohibited for the reasons in Roe, why isn't it a violation of the 4th, 6th, 13th or 14th Amendment? You can argue that the government can abrogate all those rights with a rational basis, but all the people and arguments on the forced-birth side are religious, and - by definition - irrational.

Re: Civility
 

And, if is not an irrational religious thing, please explain the rational basis for the state allowing the parasite to control the host.

Re: Civility
 

Stop me. But, in the current era of "compelled speech" arguments, can you compel a woman to have a child if she believes in population control, or if that child may some day say something she disagrees with? Or if her "religion" is against miscegenation but she really likes Hennessy and went to a Kardashian party?

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

The Thirteenth Amendment is settled law, and it will take a while for even this crowd to undo it.

Re: Civility
 

It's hard to know what motivated that dude to turn violent after years of threats, just as I'm sure it's hard to say why the guy who shot Rep. Scalise et al took that turn. The only iron-clad rule is that when someone with arguably Islamic beliefs does something, he or she is motivated solely by extremist Islamic beliefs (a/k/a "terrorism") and no other potential causes may be considered.

Re: Civility
 

It means a lefty Democrat is saying it, and Republicans are pretending that all Democrats support it.

Re: Civility
 

Why is that? If Kennedy is replaced by someone willing to undo Roe, wouldn't that be 5?

Re: Civility
 

I think that Chief Justice Roberts will try to hold off on it for a decent interval, but yes.

Re: Civility
 

As my hippie Con Law professor put it, without Roe the state could compel abortions just as easily as it can forbid abortion.

He also convinced me that Babe Ruth was a beneficiary of affirmative action because the American League turned away more qualified black pitchers in order to reserve slots on the pitching staff for less qualified white dudes. (Yes, he said “dudes” but it was more in the chill former surfer Gen X version than the Lebowski version.)

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

13th amendment has something to do with union officials demanding a cut of actual employees salary? I saw a union estimate they will lose 200000 members and that will be $220 million a year. $1000 per employee. And you bring up the 13th? WTF?

Re: Civility
 

Surprisingly, I agree with that Roberts will be the Roe anchor 5th.

Re: Civility
 

We are all Babe Ruth.

Re: Civility
 

I think the Roberts anchor on Roe means Roe won't be Roe anymore (and it already isn't, it's really Casey).

We may see Roe remain in place the way we saw Korematsu overruled - in name only. It's a win-win all around for the Republicans if they can keep a lot of their single issue voters, many of whom are increasingly horrified by other things they are doing, by continuing to rail against Roe, even as it becomes, as it already has, increasingly necessary to travel long distances to get the procedure so in large parts of the country it is effectively banned.

But I am under no illusion that the long term goal is a federalist one.