Gorsuch It Is

I think Gorsuch seems like a perfectly reasonable pick given that the country has made it pretty clear that his views are in line with what they want. I don't agree with his views, but I was never likely to find much common ground with any Trump appointee. At least he seems like an intelligent, competent judge.

The Dems need to let the process work. Raise concerns, vote in line with what the electorate wants, but let it play out and don't pull the same **** the right did.
 
He will vote to overturn Roe v Wade when/if it comes before the court. Is that specific enough? When he gets in your a Ruth Bader Ginsburg heart attack away from all hell breaking lose. If you think the left is violent now, see what happens when you try to overturn Roe v Wade.
 
cajunrevenge said:
He will vote to overturn Roe v Wade when/if it comes before the court. Is that specific enough? When he gets in your a Ruth Bader Ginsburg heart attack away from all hell breaking lose. If you think the left is violent now, see what happens when you try to overturn Roe v Wade.
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And it would be absolutely shocking to find out how many Americans think that would be an end to legal abortions.
 
striker42 said:
It would be beyond idiotic for the democrats to make a stand here.
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One should never use the phrase "beyond idiotic" when discussing what any given politician, group of politicians or particular voting bloc might do. That would be like . . . beyond idiotic.
 
cajunrevenge said:
He will vote to overturn Roe v Wade when/if it comes before the court. Is that specific enough? When he gets in your a Ruth Bader Ginsburg heart attack away from all hell breaking lose. If you think the left is violent now, see what happens when you try to overturn Roe v Wade.
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I hope we never start making decisions based on how the crybabies of either side will react. I couldn't care less about how some cross burners in Alabama felt about electing Obama. I couldn't care less about how the rioting delinquents feel about Roe v Wade. Either group can have say in the conversation when they act like adults.

To me Roe v Wade is very simple. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
 
Jaw said:
To me Roe v Wade is very simple. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
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I like Justice White's (ironically or not, who Judge Gorsuch later clerked for) dissenting opinion:

I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court's judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant women and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes. The upshot is that the people and the legislatures of the 50 States are constitutionally disentitled to weigh the relative importance of the continued existence and development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of possible impacts on the woman, on the other hand. As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.

The Court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life that she carries. Whether or not I might agree with that marshaling of values, I can in no event join the Court's judgment because I find no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of priorities on the people and legislatures of the States. In a sensitive area such as this, involving as it does issues over which reasonable men may easily and heatedly differ, I cannot accept the Court's exercise of its clear power of choice by interposing a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing mothers and doctors with the constitutionally protected right to exterminate it. This issue, for the most part, should be left with the people and to the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs.
 
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cajunrevenge said:
He will vote to overturn Roe v Wade when/if it comes before the court. Is that specific enough? When he gets in your a Ruth Bader Ginsburg heart attack away from all hell breaking lose. If you think the left is violent now, see what happens when you try to overturn Roe v Wade.
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I'm not sure what his feelings on Roe v. Wade are. The only public statement he's ever made on it was when he wrote that if the Supreme Court determined that a fetus was a legal person then there is no legal basis for prioritizing a mother's liberty interests over the fetus' right to life. That's not really an opinion on abortion as much as it is a correct legal statement. The determinative question is whether the fetus is a person or not and he's never made any statements on that. So there's really no telling how he'd come down.

Also, I doubt all hell would break loose if Ginsburg left the court and was replaced. Assuming Gorsuch is Scalia 2.0 and whoever replaces Ginsburg is the same, you'd have Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and whoever as the solid right block. However, Roberts and Kennedy are not so easy to cubbyhole. You'd need to get one of them. Kennedy is a moderate (remember, he wrote the opinion on the gay marriage case) and Roberts has shown a desire to keep the court's role restrained. The Obamacare case was a perfect example of that. It's easy to forget that Roberts sided with the left and wrote the opinion there. So if Trump replaces Ginsburg with another Scalia you'd definitely see the court shift right but I think movement would be more measured than people really expect.

Runnin said:
One should never use the phrase "beyond idiotic" when discussing what any given politician, group of politicians or particular voting bloc might do. That would be like . . . beyond idiotic.
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This is true. Politicians often act without fully thinking through the ramifications. Suffice to say the Dems digging in their heels on Gorsuch has no good end for them. They can't win and would gain nothing. The best result for them would be to put Gorsuch through a grueling confirmation, grandstand in front of the press, but ultimately let him go to the full chamber for a vote where he's confirmed on party lines. Doing that would let them keep the moral high ground and not become hypocrites on this issue, give them ample chance to take shots at trump, and avoid the nuclear option which might be important in a couple years.
 
Hawk said:
I like Justice White's (ironically or not, who Judge Gorsuch later clerked for) dissenting opinion:

I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court's judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant women and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes. The upshot is that the people and the legislatures of the 50 States are constitutionally disentitled to weigh the relative importance of the continued existence and development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of possible impacts on the woman, on the other hand. As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.
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Interestingly enough, Ginsburg probably feels the same about this now. She's said several times how she thinks the court made a huge blunder in deciding Roe v. Wade. She believes that had the national discussion continued, you'd have seen a growth in the view that abortion should be legal. But the court shocking use of power cut the discussion off and cemented the camps where they were. Instead of advancing abortion rights it set off an all out war. The court deciding in your favor isn't always a good thing.
 
The issue I have with most discussions on Roe v. Wade is that the argument against abortion always seems to center around the choice aspect, while dismissing the very real concerns about issues of the safety of the mother. Yes, abortions happen due to the choice of the mother, but they also happen due to medical necessity, and any measures taken limit abortion are going to make those medical decisions much more difficult. In theory you can say that abortions are allowed in the case of a medical emergency, but in practice it gets very tricky as access to abortions goes down. If a state outlaws the practice in general, who the **** is going to perform them when necessary?
 
mqt said:
The issue I have with most discussions on Roe v. Wade is that the argument against abortion always seems to center around the choice aspect, while dismissing the very real concerns about issues of the safety of the mother. Yes, abortions happen due to the choice of the mother, but they also happen due to medical necessity, and any measures taken limit abortion are going to make those medical decisions much more difficult. In theory you can say that abortions are allowed in the case of a medical emergency, but in practice it gets very tricky as access to abortions goes down. If a state outlaws the practice in general, who the **** is going to perform them when necessary?
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Unless I'm mistaken an OBGYN can perform the procedure. I've known people who have had miscarriages and have had to have the dead fetus removed and that was done by the OBGYN. So I don't think access is as much of an issue.

People get too bogged down in the life of the mother stuff. There's an axiom that bad facts make bad law. Essentially, you don't make general rules for everyone because the bad facts of certain instances. You make exceptions for the cases with bad facts. So instead of granting a right to an abortion for everyone because some cases the life of the mother is at stake, you could grant an exception for the life of the mother.
 
striker42 said:
Unless I'm mistaken an OBGYN can perform the procedure. I've known people who have had miscarriages and have had to have the dead fetus removed and that was done by the OBGYN. So I don't think access is as much of an issue.

People get too bogged down in the life of the mother stuff. There's an axiom that bad facts make bad law. Essentially, you don't make general rules for everyone because the bad facts of certain instances. You make exceptions for the cases with bad facts. So instead of granting a right to an abortion for everyone because some cases the life of the mother is at stake, you could grant an exception for the life of the mother.
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Let's face it, Roe v Wade was about trying to promote gender and socio-economic equality. On the gender side, everybody knows a guy can say whatever he wants/needs to get the woman to sleep with him, then when she turns up pregnant he can just walk away. She can't. On the economic side if a wealthy person makes a mistake they can usually make it go away by spending some of that money. If a poor person makes a mistake they are stuck with it. I'm not saying I like Roe or anything of the sort, but I do at least see some of the points they were trying to make. Also, even the Justices themselves (again you can enlighten us on this more than I) admitted the right to an abortion wasn't in the Constitution, the right to privacy (their bell cow) isn't even specified in there. They wanted to make this decision, it was the era where so many of the old ways were being struck down so when they couldn't find Constitutional justification for what they wanted to do, they created it. Let's not call it a baby, no decent person would kill a baby, let's call it a fetus, I don't even know what the hell that is so sure yeah it must be OK to kill it/them (ironic because one of the first definitions, if not THE first when you look up what fetus means, is BABY). Even Norma McCorvey says now she was being used a guinea pig by two young female attorneys who wanted to make a name for themselves. It's a difficult situation, certainly not just a black/white one, and for anyone who didn't already know, I'm pro-life.
 
My stance on abortion is a little different. First and foremost I HATE most of the arguments you hear. Whether it's "Don't tell me what to do with my body" or "Abortion is murder" they're almost all founded on unsound premises.

The basic question at the heart of everything is what moral and legal obligations are owed to a fetus. And that's not a question with an objective, empirically provable answer. Ultimately it comes down to personal belief and saying "I personally believe X" isn't a particularly strong rhetorical position. So people tend to move one step down they line. They assume whatever they've decided about obligations to the fetus is correct and then argue from there.

If you believe you don't owe any obligations to a fetus then it is wrong to tell a woman what she can and cannot do in terms of abortion. You are infringing on her personal autonomy. This conclusion flows easily from the assumption.

Conversely, if you assume that a fetus is a life with the same obligations owed to it that you'd owe to any human life, then actively taking steps to terminate that life is by definition homicide. The conclusion is inescapable after the initial assumption.

The problem is that everyone out there screaming doesn't even realize they've made that initial assumption. They can't believe how someone could disagree with them because they've not drilled down into their beliefs far enough.

So what moral and legal obligations are owed a fetus? I have personal beliefs on this issue but they aren't particularly relevant as I acknowledge that they are simply my personal beliefs. They are informed by my experience and other beliefs I hold and I acknowledge that others could reach a different conclusion. Instead of trying to browbeat someone with flawed logic, I'd much rather discuss the legal philosophy at the heart of the issue.
 
striker42 said:
My stance on abortion is a little different. First and foremost I HATE most of the arguments you hear. Whether it's "Don't tell me what to do with my body" or "Abortion is murder" they're almost all founded on unsound premises.

The basic question at the heart of everything is what moral and legal obligations are owed to a fetus. And that's not a question with an objective, empirically provable answer. Ultimately it comes down to personal belief and saying "I personally believe X" isn't a particularly strong rhetorical position. So people tend to move one step down they line. They assume whatever they've decided about obligations to the fetus is correct and then argue from there.

If you believe you don't owe any obligations to a fetus then it is wrong to tell a woman what she can and cannot do in terms of abortion. You are infringing on her personal autonomy. This conclusion flows easily from the assumption.

Conversely, if you assume that a fetus is a life with the same obligations owed to it that you'd owe to any human life, then actively taking steps to terminate that life is by definition homicide. The conclusion is inescapable after the initial assumption.

The problem is that everyone out there screaming doesn't even realize they've made that initial assumption. They can't believe how someone could disagree with them because they've not drilled down into their beliefs far enough.

So what moral and legal obligations are owed a fetus? I have personal beliefs on this issue but they aren't particularly relevant as I acknowledge that they are simply my personal beliefs. They are informed by my experience and other beliefs I hold and I acknowledge that others could reach a different conclusion. Instead of trying to browbeat someone with flawed logic, I'd much rather discuss the legal philosophy at the heart of the issue.
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My biggest issue is the inconsistency of the pro-choice side.

I cringe when I hear... "it's ok at 22 weeks, but not 23 weeks." Oh, so 1 week is the difference between life and death? I cringe when one mother can sue a doctor for harming a fetus, while another can pay the doctor to destroy it. I cring when I hear "what if the child has a deformity and won't have a quality of life?"... my question is why wouldn't we then be allowed to murder it after it was born and learning of the same circumstances?

I cringe when I hear "what about rape and incest!"... for one, it's statistically irrelevant, and two, that doesn't change the fact that it is a living, breathing human human fetus.
 
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