Alabama abortion ban: Republican state senate passes most restrictive law in US

[merithyn]

You'd think that would be impossible since they lack jurisdiction, but that hasn't stopped the sex tourism laws from being enforced. Perhaps it's a matter where the feds can do it and the states can't? 

The Feds wouldn't be involved. Which is why I asked the question. How is this even enforceable?

[crazy canuck]

"Human life has rights, and when someone takes those rights, that's when we as government have to step in," said the state senator Clyde Chambliss. "When God creates that life, that miracle of life inside the woman's womb, it's not our place as humans to extinguish that life. That's what I believe."

Yes, and these same idiots are usually huge fans of the death penalty.  Did God not create the lives of murderers too?

Well and also the same individuals who don't want to fund programs to take care of all these children they are forcing women to carry to term.

Well that is the thing. Ok so we have these tens of thousands of babies carried to term and then dumped on the social services. We are doing a disgraceful job caring for the ones we already have under state stewardship.

There's a shortage of adoptable babies in north america - that's why you see so many families adopting from overseas.

It's the toddlers onward that we do a shitty job looking after in government care.

First what is this "we" stuff.

Second, the US does in fact does poor job supporting babies

Compared to 19 similar OECD countries, U.S. babies were three times more likely to die from extreme immaturity and 2.3 times more likely to experience sudden infant death syndrome between 2001 and 2010, the most recent years for which comparable data is available across all the countries. If the U.S. had kept pace with the OECD's overall decline in infant mortality since 1960, that would have resulted in about 300,000 fewer infant deaths in America over the course of 50 years, the report found.

The reasons the U.S. has fallen behind include higher poverty rates relative to other developed countries and a relatively weak social safety net, says lead author Ashish Thakrar, medical resident at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System.

http://time.com/5090112/infant-mortality-rate-usa/

It is entirely correct to observe that the very people who go on about the sanctity of life to support this law will do nothing to enact laws which support all those unwanted births.  They are all Fundamentalist Christian Republicans after all.  If the baby dies it will be by God's hand, much better than allowing a woman to obtain an abortion - or so their logic seems to go.

[Barrister]

A few thoughts on this:

1. Personally, I'm pro-life, and if a pregnant woman ever asked for my advice (none have, and none ever will) I'd recommend against an abortion (day after pills and like are a different story though).

2. As a matter of public policy, while I would like to see some restrictions put in place in Canada (where we have no abortion law at all), I would not want to see the abortion outlawed.

3. No matter what you think of abortion, Roe v Wade seemed like a bad precedent.  I can't see how you can read in abortion rights in the US Bill of Rights.  I feel like abortion is a matter that should be decided by legislators, not judges.

4. I have met a few people from my time in politics who care very deeply about abortion, and they always appeared to be very genuine and compassionate people.  But there weren't that many of them.

5. But what seems to be going on in the US right now seems to have very little to do with concern about unborn babies.  It frankly seems like more of this "own the Libs" Trump-style culture wars than with anyone sitting down and saying "you know I think this would make for good public policy".

[FunkMonk]

Pat Robertson said this law goes too far and will likely lose in the Supreme Court.

Even Pat Robertson 

It will be enjoyable to see Republican heads explode when Roberts sides with the liberals in this law. I'll fear for his safety afterward, though.

[frunk]

Pat Robertson said this law goes too far and will likely lose in the Supreme Court.

Even Pat Robertson 

It will be enjoyable to see Republican heads explode when Roberts sides with the liberals in this law. I'll fear for his safety afterward, though.

It's so dumb that I can't tell if Repubs really have gone that far off the deep end, or they hope that it will fail at the Supreme Court so that getting more Supreme Court nominees remains an election issue in 2020.

[merithyn]

5. But what seems to be going on in the US right now seems to have very little to do with concern about unborn babies.  It frankly seems like more of this "own the Libs" Trump-style culture wars than with anyone sitting down and saying "you know I think this would make for good public policy".

The US has never had compassionate pro-lifers, in my memory. They have never been of the mind to work to find multiple solutions, like expanding sex education, offering free or low-cost birth control, holding fathers equally as accountable, or providing safe, clear alternatives that aren't religious-based. It has always, in the history of abortion rights in the US, been entirely about demanding that women not have sex so they don't get pregnant. And if they do, then they just have to live with the consequences.

[merithyn]

What's the over/under on Kavanaugh voting to uphold "established law"?

[Admiral Yi]

What's the over/under on Kavanaugh voting to uphold "established law"?

You can't do an over/under on a yes/no bet.

[crazy canuck]

What's the over/under on Kavanaugh voting to uphold "established law"?

According to the NYTimes, not entirely clear but the more likely route is to undermine access to abortion slowly over time.  When it comes to overturning completely:

"What we don't know," Professor Franklin said, "is the extent to which either Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Kavanaugh feels sufficiently bound by 50 years of precedent, or by a desire not to be viewed by the public as discarding that precedent for political-ideological reasons, to pull back from the brink."

Melissa Murray, a law professor at New York University, said much would turn on Chief Justice Roberts, who might have conflicting impulses.

"Recent departures and appointments, coupled with an increasing skepticism of established precedents, suggests the Supreme Court is more amenable than ever to overruling Roe," she said. "The recent spate of restrictive abortion regulations reflects this new reality."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/us/politics/supreme-court-abortion.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

[dps]

5. But what seems to be going on in the US right now seems to have very little to do with concern about unborn babies.  It frankly seems like more of this "own the Libs" Trump-style culture wars than with anyone sitting down and saying "you know I think this would make for good public policy".

The US has never had compassionate pro-lifers, in my memory. They have never been of the mind to work to find multiple solutions, like expanding sex education, offering free or low-cost birth control, holding fathers equally as accountable, or providing safe, clear alternatives that aren't religious-based. It has always, in the history of abortion rights in the US, been entirely about demanding that women not have sex so they don't get pregnant. And if they do, then they just have to live with the consequences.

As a conservative, I'm calling bullshit on this.  Though I in no way claim to be a compassionate conservative.

[The Minsky Moment]

Lawtalkers, I have a question about the whole "If they leave the state for an abortion, we'll still try them for murder" part of these laws.

How does that work? I mean, that strikes me as not okay.

Better start dusting off those old fugitive slave precedents . . .
Alabama can define whatever it wants to as a crime, constitution permitting.  Where things get tricky is when the invoke the rendition clause under Article IV to bring people back to Alabama for trial based on acts entirely committed in another state.

Imagine (for example) California retaliates by criminalizing handgun sales and then makes it a crime to leave the state to purchase a gun.

This is the kind of interstate shit show that helped lead to the last civil war.

[The Minsky Moment]

What's the over/under on Kavanaugh voting to uphold "established law"?

You can't do an over/under on a yes/no bet.

Also no point in betting against a sure thing.  Justice Blutarsky was put on the Court for a reason and it wasn't for his vote to add Pabst Blue Ribbon to the Supreme Court cafeteria.

[Admiral Yi]

Also no point in betting against a sure thing.  Justice Blutarsky was put on the Court for a reason and it wasn't for his vote to add Pabst Blue Ribbon to the Supreme Court cafeteria.

What odds you offering? 

[The Minsky Moment]

You'd have to define outcomes. 
There is a lot of ground to cover between reaffirming Roe and upholding the AL and GA laws as written without questioning one jot or comma.

[Admiral Yi]

You'd have to define outcomes. 
There is a lot of ground to cover between reaffirming Roe and upholding the AL and GA laws as written without questioning one jot or comma.

OK, define an outcome.  What was the sure thing you believed there was no point in betting against?