Texas vs Roe vs Wade

[Berkut]

Okay, a recent one is conversion therapy - it's being banned in lots of places.  Even if you want to receive conversion therapy you can't get it.

Regulating medical procedures is certainly one of the powers of the state.

So you do think the State has the Constitutional right to decide what medical procedures people should be allowed to get in general, and abortion is not "special". They could, constitutionally, say that women are not allowed to be on birth control anymore, for example?

[The Larch]

Okay, a recent one is conversion therapy - it's being banned in lots of places.  Even if you want to receive conversion therapy you can't get it.

Regulating medical procedures is certainly one of the powers of the state.

Conversion therapy is not a medical procedure, it's pseudoscience, quackery, and a scam.

[Barrister]

Okay, a recent one is conversion therapy - it's being banned in lots of places.  Even if you want to receive conversion therapy you can't get it.

Regulating medical procedures is certainly one of the powers of the state.

So you do think the State has the Constitutional right to decide what medical procedures people should be allowed to get in general, and abortion is not "special". They could, constitutionally, say that women are not allowed to be on birth control anymore, for example?

Sure.  The government has long regulated medicine.  It's not as if hormonal birth control is without risks either.

[Admiral Yi]

I think Roe was a bad ruling and would be very happy to see it overturned and replaced with identical legislation, but I'm not sure under what Constitutional power of Congress they would enact it.

[Sheilbh]

Sure.  The government has long regulated medicine.  It's not as if hormonal birth control is without risks either.

Yeah and - from my admittedly very different perspective than the US - I wouldn't really see the constituion as the place to put medical procedures.

[Berkut]

Sure.  The government has long regulated medicine.  It's not as if hormonal birth control is without risks either.

Yeah and - from my admittedly very different perspective than the US - I wouldn't really see the constituion as the place to put medical procedures.

The constitution is NOT the place for medical procedures.

It IS the place for basic rights around personal liberty and the right to make decisions about your own health.

Beebs is consistent in his disdain for personal liberty in the face of the state deciding what is best for individuals, I will give him that.

[Berkut]

Okay, a recent one is conversion therapy - it's being banned in lots of places.  Even if you want to receive conversion therapy you can't get it.

Regulating medical procedures is certainly one of the powers of the state.

So you do think the State has the Constitutional right to decide what medical procedures people should be allowed to get in general, and abortion is not "special". They could, constitutionally, say that women are not allowed to be on birth control anymore, for example?

Sure.  The government has long regulated medicine. 

Of course.

We are not talking about regulating medicine though, we are talking about the State having the power to deny people the right to make their own choices around medical procedures.

You clearly feel that power is unfettered, and only constrained by what is palatable to whomever holds the power to pass laws at the moment (I was going to say to whomever the majority elects, but we know this has nothing to do with what the majority wants, of course).

It's not as if hormonal birth control is without risks either.

Not talking about risks, nor did anyone say anything about hormonal birth control. You keeping adding in these extraneous pieces - why is that?

Your argument has to live on the constitutionality of the state having the power to regulate personal choices in health care, absent compelling need. It is not about "risks". A condom has no appreciable risks, and yet you feel the state could, if it wanted, deny people the right to use a condom. Hormonal birth control has risks, but they are minor and easily managed under almost all circumstances, but you are not arguing that the state has the right to regulate their use to minimize risk, you are arguing that it is has the power to simply deny a women the right to control her own productivity even absent ANY risk doing so....right?

[Barrister]

This is pretty well-settled law Berkut.

Governments banned marijuana for years and years.  There were lawsuits arguing much as you have said - that people should have the right to use marijuana if they want to.  The courts disagreed and held it was within the governments power to ban marijuana.

Then a number of jurisdictions reversed themselves and made marijuana legal.  That too was within their power to do so.

[Berkut]

This is pretty well-settled law Berkut.

Governments banned marijuana for years and years.  There were lawsuits arguing much as you have said - that people should have the right to use marijuana if they want to.  The courts disagreed and held it was within the governments power to ban marijuana.

Then a number of jurisdictions reversed themselves and made marijuana legal.  That too was within their power to do so.

The courts decided that the state could restrict the use of marijuana because it was a recreational drug, not because it was a medical procedure.

I don't think the idea that the state can tell women they are not allowed to use birth control is settled law at all. Indeed, I am quite certain it is settled, if at all, in exactly the opposite manner.

We now have  a SC who doesn't much care about settled law or individual liberty of women, so we can see just how un-settled settled law will become.

But like I said, you are, if nothing else, consistent in your views about personal liberty. Or the lack thereof.

[Razgovory]

In related news, Oklahoma woman sentenced to four years in prison for having a miscarriage: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/10/21/oklahoma-woman-convicted-of-manslaughter-miscarriage/6104281001/

That's scary.

[Sheilbh]

The courts decided that the state could restrict the use of marijuana because it was a recreational drug, not because it was a medical procedure.

I don't think the idea that the state can tell women they are not allowed to use birth control is settled law at all. Indeed, I am quite certain it is settled, if at all, in exactly the opposite manner.

We now have  a SC who doesn't much care about settled law or individual liberty of women, so we can see just how un-settled settled law will become.

But like I said, you are, if nothing else, consistent in your views about personal liberty. Or the lack thereof.

But the state clearly has the power - it's just in this situation it's practically via the Supreme Court. And I think that is one of the key issues of a "rights based"/legalist approach, that you end up politicising the judicial system and then you just need to keep control of/win the court.

The state has the power - it's just like an air bed the current situation has squeezed out the politics from the legislature(s) to the court.

And my guess given that two thirds of Americans support abortion is that if the court rules this way it will be a disaster for Republicans, because they'll get what they want and it doesn't have widespread enough support.

Edit: And a big issue in American politics, in my view, is that one side has appreciated that politics happens in the Supreme Court and the other likes to belive it's about law and rights and principles and unicorns.

[grumbler]

Roe v Wade was a bad decision that deserves to be overturned.  Come fight me.

Roe v Wade was a not-atypical mess of a decision with three concurring opinions and a decision-by-committee style opinion of the Court.  It may appear to be a bad decision, except for all the alternatives.

The notion that the word "abortion" appears nowhere within the Constitution, and it should be within the power of the states to regulate abortion as they see fit, seems like an entirely defensible alternative.

As I said though - just because the states can do a thing like ban abortion doesn't mean they should...

The word machinegun does not appear in the Constitution.  Does that mean that the Federal government does not have the power to regulate possession of machine guns?  Radio?  Electromagnetic spectrum?  Highway?  I could list dozens of common words not in the Constitution, but over which the US Federal government should and does exercise jurisdiction.

The word "abortion" does not appear in any state constitution in the US.  If the lack of such a word means a constitution gives no power over the named thing, then no state can regulate abortion, either.

The notion that the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people is actually explicitly stated in the US Constitution, so arguments that lack of enumeration means lack of rights is absolutely trivial to disprove.

[Berkut]

We can talk about the Constiitution until we are bllue in the face.

I am just always kind of stunned that there are people who don't appear to be religious fanatics, who will make the argument that the state has the power to deny women the right to use contraception. As an example.

I have friends who watch crap like the Handmaids Tale and think that is where the GOP is going, and I've always thought that was kind of ridiculous. But here we have people arguing, essentially, that while they think it would be a shame if the State were to do that, gee golly, well, it does have the *power* to do that. After all...it doesn't say anywhere in the Constitution that the state *doesn't* have the power to force women to have sex with men in order to bear them children!

What exactly is the point then of the Supreme Court?

[Berkut]

Before Beeb starts swearing at me again, I am not saying I think he is secretly hoping to force women to bear children for men or anything ridiculous like that.

I *do* absolutely think that there are people out there who will always take things as far as they can get away with, so positions of otherwise "moderate" people that essentially ignore Constitutional protections against the will of some people to ignore the rights of others will be used for far more extreme and dangerous purposes then they think.

This goes back to my objections to people chanting the MSM is liberal biased crap - sure, THEY may not mean that the MSM is fake news, but that narrative will and has been to create a story that is *precisely* that. That IS in fact what is meant when that is chanted by all the fucking tools who have used that to dismantle democracy, sabotage any effort to combat climate change, and now call into question vaccines and measures against dealing with the pandemic.

If we accept this argument, that the State does in fact have the absolute power to restrict anyone's personal rights to control their own health care on any basis desired (and again, I understand the argument is not that the State ought to do this, but simply that they can if they wish it), then in fact we will most certainly see places where it is used for absolute evil, like denying women the right to use birth control, as an example. And that same process that has seen the modern GOP destroy majority rule (all the while chanting about how the media is lying to everyone about this) will mean that it will be  in some cases a *minority* of the electorate who gets to decide what is best for the majority and their privacy, their health care, their control over their own personal being.

This is all of a piece. These things are happening now, and they are not separate issues.

[The Minsky Moment]

The word machinegun does not appear in the Constitution.  Does that mean that the Federal government does not have the power to regulate possession of machine guns?  Radio?  Electromagnetic spectrum?  Highway?  I could list dozens of common words  . . .

Thanks for saving me the trouble of writing the response

US has a "short" constitution - it sets forth structure and basic principles not detail.