(05-15-2019 06:53 PM)Hambone10 Wrote: (05-15-2019 02:41 PM)tanqtonic Wrote: (05-15-2019 01:32 PM)Hambone10 Wrote: Unlike what most people (and clearly you) think and have been told by their left wing (in general) masters... RvW didn't make abortions legal. It specifically gave the state the right/obligation to regulate abortions AFTER VIABILITY.... which in effect, but not by words made abortions prior to viability 'legal'. The left has routinely challenged this decision, wanting late term abortions. This is merely the other side of that coin.
Actually, it did in a qualified manner. With one fell swoop it made almost all abortions performed in this country legal; a fundamental right, in fact.
Quote:This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action .... is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.
In this sentence it proclaimed that a woman had a fundamental right to abortion. But, it balanced the right of the unborn by delineating the ability of the state to intercede with restrictions in the *final trimester.*
What you dont provide is that Casey upgraded the right defined in Roe to the 'undue burden' standard and overruling the '3rd trimester standard'. In short, the Court stated that any law which placed an undue burden on a woman seeking an abortion for an unviable fetus was de facto unconstitutional. But it changed the strict 'third trimester' line with a watered down version that gives states the right to restrict the procedure post-viability, but any such restriction must have an 'endangerment of the woman's life or health exception.
Casey changed the third trimester carve out to a post-viability carve out. But both enshrine the abortion procedure outside of those times as a fundamental right.
Your correction is valid and I over-stated... but let me say it differently....
Take each line by itself and pretend the other doesn't exist.
With just the first, it essentially says that the people never gave up that right to the state. it AFFIRMS that abortions are legal, but it doesn't create that power. It can't.
If you only have the second, the first is essentially assumed. I mean, how can the state only regulate abortions after a point if people don't have the right to an abortion UNTIL that point?
The second doesn't need the first.... except as this and other cases have spoken about the rights of the unborn. It doesn't create these rights, it recognizes them
In order to have 'universal' late term abortions, the left would have to overturn RvW as well.
None of the SCOTUS cases have vested *any* rights to the unborn. An unborn has zero rights (fundamental or not) with respect to Roe, Casey, and all the rest.
Think of the right delineated by the line of cases as any other fundamental right. 1st, 2nd, 4th, etc.
You are correct that the rights are seemingly 'magically sprung into existence and vest automatically'. This is an inherent product of the wording of, for example, the 1st Amendment. All of the rights espoused in the Constitution as 'fundamental' are expressed in the 'negative' -- that is that the Government cannot infringe on these existing rights.
And, for every Bill of Rights right, no matter how that the government 'shall not infringe', there are always exceptions. And these exceptions are always built on the importance of the government to restrict such action.
1st Amendment -- fraud, libel, and treasonous activity is excepted.
2nd Amendment -- so many that cant be listed.
4th Amendment -- exigent circumstances, waiver, permission to search.
And the list goes on for each right.
So the 'answer' to the issue is that SCOTUS has 'found' an inalienable right to abortion. Some will disagree whether that is proper or not, I personally think that Roe and everything that followed is absolutely atrocious law that made a right up out of unicorn farts and pixie dust. But notwithstanding my *opinion* on the structure of Roe etc., the SCOTUS has found such a fundamental right.
But, like every other right, if the government can find a really, really, really, really, really, really good reason (that is the proverbial 'overriding concern'), then the view is that the fundamental right doesnt really 'reach' there.
So while the 'viability' standard is the 'overriding concern', that does *not* vest any rights to any fetus.
My view is that for the Court to grant such an expansion of Roe and Casey as to reach into the viability period, all they would have to do is reconsider the government's reach as not to be an 'overriding concern'. That is not a function of overriding Casey, but simply stating that the 'overriding concern' bar is so high that it really cannot be met in any way, shape, or form by any circumstance. In that manner a Court could very easily expand Roe and Casey and never have to deal with overriding any provision of those.
If in fact Roe and Casey created an alternative set of rights for the unborn, you would be spot on. But there is zero language in any of the cases in the Roe-thread that creates any 'right' for any unborn --- the best is that they say that the government concern for life is sufficient for governmental restriction of viablility period pregnancies. But that falls very short of creating a 'right' that vests with a fetus.
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Alabama just passed a near-total abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest
