Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Roe v. Wade

[Arthur Rubin]

What, _exactly_, did Ruth Bader Ginsburg say about Roe v. Wade?

I've seen:
1. She approved of the decision but found the reasoning weak (or invalid)
2. She would have supported Roe in the specific case, but NOT set up guidelines (which had the force of law)
3. She supported using a different clause in the reconstruction amendments to support Roe, and possibly a different framework

and a few other possibilities.

What, really, did she say?

I'm NOT asking how the members of this group would have ruled if they were on the Court. That might not be a violation of the group guidelines, but I see no point in asking.

--
Arthur L. Rubin
Confused in Brea

[Rick]

"Arthur Rubin" wrote in message
news:6f6fb79f-3ea0-45bc...@googlegroups.com...

Read this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/us/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade.html


--

[Barry Gold]

On 6/27/2022 10:31 AM, Rick wrote:
> Read this:
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/us/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade.html

Paywall.

--
I do so have a memory. It's backed up on DVD... somewhere...

[Nick Odell]

On Tue, 28 Jun 2022 00:07:50 -0700 (PDT), Barry Gold
<bg...@labcats.org> wrote:

>On 6/27/2022 10:31 AM, Rick wrote:
>> Read this:
>>
>> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/us/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade.html
>
>Paywall.

Turning off javascript works for me.

Nick

[Rick]

"Barry Gold" wrote in message news:t9crvl$lcrn$1...@dont-email.me...

>
>On 6/27/2022 10:31 AM, Rick wrote:
>> Read this:
>>
>> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/us/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade.html
>
>Paywall.
>

Sorry. It was free when I first tried it. Here's a similar article from
the Washington Post. If that's also blocked, the text is below the link.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/05/06/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-wade/

The Supreme Court probably wouldn’t have the votes to overturn the right to
abortion in Roe v. Wade, as a leaked draft opinion proposes, if Justice Ruth
Bader Ginsburg were still on the court. But Ginsburg was not a fan of the
reasoning behind the 1973 ruling.

Ginsburg, who died in 2020, criticized the 7-to-2 decision both before and
after she joined the high court. She argued that it would have been better
to take a more incremental approach to legalizing abortion, rather than the
nationwide ruling in Roe that invalidated dozens of state antiabortion laws.
She suggested a ruling protecting abortion rights would have been more
durable if it had been based on the Equal Protection Clause of the
Constitution — in other words, if it had focused on gender equality rather
than the right to privacy that the justices highlighted.

Ginsburg actually didn’t think Roe was the best case for establishing
abortion rights. She would have preferred a case she worked on as a lawyer
for the American Civil Liberties Union in the early 1970s.

In that case, Ginsburg represented an Air Force captain who became pregnant
while serving as a nurse in Vietnam. In a twist, Ginsburg championed the
woman’s right not to have an abortion; an Air Force rule at the time
dictated that pregnant women had to terminate their pregnancies or be
discharged.

Ginsburg challenged the rule on behalf of the woman, Susan Struck, in a case
called Struck v. Secretary of Defense and won a stay preventing Struck’s
discharge while the courts reviewed the case. In December 1972, two years
after Struck gave birth to a baby and shortly after the Supreme Court agreed
to hear the suit, the military changed the policy and let Struck remain on
active duty.

The court agreed to drop the case as moot. The following month, it issued
its Roe v. Wade ruling.

[Nobody Special]

On 28/06/2022 08:07, Barry Gold wrote:
> On 6/27/2022 10:31 AM, Rick wrote:
>> Read this:
>>
>> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/us/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade.html
>
> Paywall.
>

Try this:

<https://www.printfriendly.com/p/g/KjZLGd>

[RichD]

On June 28, Rick wrote:
> The Supreme Court probably wouldn’t have the votes to overturn the right to
> abortion in Roe v. Wade, as a leaked draft opinion proposes, if Justice Ruth
> Bader Ginsburg were still on the court. But Ginsburg was not a fan of the
> reasoning behind the 1973 ruling.
>

> She suggested a ruling protecting abortion rights would have been more
> durable if it had been based on the Equal Protection Clause of the
> Constitution — in other words, if it had focused on gender equality rather
> than the right to privacy that the justices highlighted.

So, Ginsburg advocated equal consideration to father
and mother in abortion decisions?

Where's King Solomon when we need him?

--
Rich

[John Levine]

According to RichD <r_dela...@yahoo.com>:

>> Constitution — in other words, if it had focused on gender equality rather
>> than the right to privacy that the justices highlighted.
>
>So, Ginsburg advocated equal consideration to father
>and mother in abortion decisions?

Don't be silly. Nobody, regardless of gender, should be forced to bear
a child agaist his or her will.

Yes, this is considerably easier to implement for men.

--
Regards,
John Levine, jo...@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

[Stuart O. Bronstein]

No, that is not what she meant.

She meant that "equal protection" (meaning that everyone is entitled
to the same rights under the law) is more a durable part of the
Constitution than the right of privacy, which really isn't mentioned
much if at all.


--
Stu
http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

[Rick]

"John Levine" wrote in message news:ta4hho$2lvq$1...@gal.iecc.com...
>
>According to RichD <r_dela...@yahoo.com>:
>>> Constitution — in other words, if it had focused on gender equality

>>> rather
>>> than the right to privacy that the justices highlighted.
>>
>>So, Ginsburg advocated equal consideration to father
>>and mother in abortion decisions?
>
>Don't be silly. Nobody, regardless of gender, should be forced to bear
>a child agaist his or her will.

But suppose that child has developed in the womb to the point where it is
viable and able to exist on its own? By the time the child has been in the
womb, say, seven or eight months, I think in this situation many people
would argue that the person carrying the child should indeed be forced to
bear that child.

--

[Stuart O. Bronstein]

"Rick" <ri...@nospam.com> wrote in news:ta5buu$ne6$1...@gioia.aioe.org:

>>Don't be silly. Nobody, regardless of gender, should be forced to
>>bear a child agaist his or her will.
>
> But suppose that child has developed in the womb to the point
> where it is viable and able to exist on its own? By the time the
> child has been in the womb, say, seven or eight months, I think in
> this situation many people would argue that the person carrying
> the child should indeed be forced to bear that child.

And that's what the Supreme Court ruled in 1973. But now the Court is
saying that, no matter how early, no matter how undeveloped, a
fertilized egg is to be considered a sentient person, and it is
permissible to prevent doctors from counseling patients to abort when
it is medically necessary to do so.


--
Stu
http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

[Rick]

"Stuart O. Bronstein" wrote in message
news:XnsAECD7888F2EBAs...@130.133.4.11...

Well no, the Court is not really saying that. It's not addressing the
rightness or wrongness of abortion per se. What the ruling essentially says
is that the Court is the wrong venue to decide this issue since abortion is
not specifically addressed anywhere in the Constitution. Since it's not a
Constitutional issue, the Court's ruling returns the issue to the states.


--

[Stuart O. Bronstein]

"Rick" <ri...@nospam.com> wrote in news:taif1c$pt4$1...@gioia.aioe.org:

>>And that's what the Supreme Court ruled in 1973. But now the
>>Court is saying that, no matter how early, no matter how
>>undeveloped, a fertilized egg is to be considered a sentient
>>person, and it is permissible to prevent doctors from counseling
>>patients to abort when it is medically necessary to do so.
>
> Well no, the Court is not really saying that. It's not
> addressing the rightness or wrongness of abortion per se. What
> the ruling essentially says is that the Court is the wrong venue
> to decide this issue since abortion is not specifically addressed
> anywhere in the Constitution. Since it's not a Constitutional
> issue, the Court's ruling returns the issue to the states.

That's a very simplistic and naive way to look at it.

For almost 100 years the Supreme Court has held that the Constitution
implies (but does not specifically state) that there is a right to
privacy. In Roe v. Wade the Court said that medical treatments
create a privacy issue, and are for the most part between a patient
and his or her doctor. A fetus does have rights that must be
respected, but (they said) that the rights had to be balanced. A
fetus would have rights that the State could protect, but only after
it could live itself outside the womb. For the three months before
that they gave the State the right to restrict abortion but only in
cases that there was some serious state interest. For the initial
three months, the State could not restrict abortions if a woman and
her doctor decided that it was in the woman's best interest.

To say, "well, it's not in the Constitution so we won't deal with
it" goes against almost 250 years of Supreme Court precedent. Almost
every Supreme Court case that ever existed dealt with issues that
weren't specifically mentioned in the Constitution.

Even religious freedom. It's not expressly mentioned in the
Constitution either. Yes, people can't be restricted from
"exercising" their religion. But that could mean that they won't
stop you from going to court, but everything else is off the table.
It's the right of privacy that actually creates our current notion of
religious freedom. If you get rid of the right of privacy, then
everything else is on the table. The government can tell you (as
state laws had done in the past) what kind of sex you can have with
your spouse, for example. The government can regulate almost
anything and everything unless it is clearly and specifically stated
in the Constitution.

That is not the common law approach to the law. That is the civil
law approach, but that is not the legal system we have. Under the
common law, laws are often written in an imprecise way. And courts
look at the principles stated in the law, the specific factors
involved in any court case, and come up with a decision based on
common sense and prior court cases - it's important that people be
able to predict what is proper and what is not.

This court wants to upend all of that.

And you think it's just about what is specifically mentioned in the
Constitution? Ha!

--
Stu
http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

[Barry Gold]

On 7/12/2022 6:00 AM, Stuart O. Bronstein wrote:
> That is not the common law approach to the law. That is the civil
> law approach, but that is not the legal system we have. Under the
> common law, laws are often written in an imprecise way. And courts
> look at the principles stated in the law, the specific factors
> involved in any court case, and come up with a decision based on
> common sense and prior court cases - it's important that people be
> able to predict what is proper and what is not.
>
> This court wants to upend all of that.
>
> And you think it's just about what is specifically mentioned in the
> Constitution? Ha!

"This court wants to upend all of that."

I think that pretty much describes justice Thomas. But based on the
comments of the other four justices who made up the majority, they ONLY
want to overturn Roe. They have explicitly said(*) that they would keep
Loving, Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. In short, they want to
overturn the one ruling that the Republican "base" objects to, while
keeping the other "substantive due process" rulings intact.

The fact that this makes no logical sense doesn't seem to bother them in
the least.

(*) Of course, can we trust what they say? All five of them lied under
oath at their confirmation hearings.

[Rick]

"Stuart O. Bronstein" wrote in message

news:XnsAED1E860D6870s...@130.133.4.11...

You can call it naïve and simplistic if you want, but the cold, hard truth
is that this Court is taking a different approach from the previous one.
Whether you like it or not, this Court is reading the Constitution
literally, and the literal truth is that there is no reference to abortion
or fetal viability or anything similar in the Constitution. Period. And
for that reason, the issue is back with the states.


--

[Barry Gold]

On 7/21/2022 11:09 AM, Rick wrote:
> You can call it naïve and simplistic if you want, but the cold, hard truth
> is that this Court is taking a different approach from the previous one.
> Whether you like it or not, this Court is reading the Constitution
> literally, and the literal truth is that there is no reference to abortion
> or fetal viability or anything similar in the Constitution.  Period.  And
> for that reason, the issue is back with the states.

What an... interesting... approach.

The Constitution doesn't say people have a right to have sex with
consenting partners. Just this little thing called "equal protection".
That surely doesn't cover the awful crime of sodomy. Away with Lawrence
v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges!

Similarly with Miranda v. Arizona. Just because you have a right not to
be "compelled" to be a witness against yourself doesn't mean that you
have a right to be warned about it before the cops question you.

And Gideon v. Wainwright. You have a right "to have the Assistance of
Counsel for [your] defence." But the government doesn't have to provide
you with one if you can't pay for it yourself.

[TheMightyAtlas]

And you think that at least four members of the current Court wouldn't think ALL of these (and a good many more) are judicial and federal overreach?

[Rick]

"Barry Gold" wrote in message news:tbcpio$2me86$1...@dont-email.me...

Those are valid points, but it obscures what I think is unique about the
abortion debate. It isn't just about equal protection or privacy rights -
it is about the fundamental issue of when does life begin.

I think we all agree that killing another human is generally wrong. Of
course there are exceptions for self-defense and whatever, but the basic
concept is well established that we don't allow people to kill other people.
So the issue is when does life begin? I think just about everyone would
agree that aborting a viable 9-month old fetus who is about to be born is
generally not okay since you have an actual person who can exist outside the
womb. Similarly, I think a majority of people (though not all, certainly)
would argue that aborting an embryo right after fertilization is reasonable
since you effectively only have the potential for life at that moment. So
the question is where between those two extremes do we start the clock on
life? Is it when major organs start to form? When the heart starts
beating? When brain activity begins? When actual thinking occurs? This is
not a Constitutional issue in the sense that this definitional question is
not even hinted at anywhere in the document. The Constitution talks about
equal protection for what we assume are human life forms, but it is silent
on the very fundamental question of when does life actually start?

So it's not so much a legal issue as a definitional issue. We agree that
life should be protected under the law, but when does life begin? Since
this issue is not addressed or even hinted at in the Constitution, it has to
be defined somewhere else in some other legal document. Now that could be
the Constitution through an amendment. Or it could perhaps be through some
federal legislation passed by Congress and signed by the President, though
that could raise 10th Amendment concerns. But in the absence of any such
explicitly defined federal law or the Constitution itself, the Court has
decided the issue is properly handled by the states. Now those who defend
abortion rights are attacking the ruling and those who oppose abortion
rights are defending the decision. But hardly anyone is addressing the
central problem which is that the definition of when life begins is clearly
not in the Constitution.

--

[Barry Gold]

That was exactly my point. If you're going to take an extreme literalist
viewpoint, then we the people have almost no rights.

[Barry Gold]

The moral issue is when life begins -- or more accurately, when the law
begins to protect it.

A zygote (newly fertilized egg) is alive. Left to itself in the right
environment (a uterus), it will divide and divide again and take form as
a blastocyst, an embryo, a fetus, and eventually a baby.

So if all human life is to be protected, the even the zygote should be
protected. Of course, nobody even notices a zygote. You'd need a
microscope to see it. Once it implants and forms a placenta and the
mother's hormonal balance starts to shift, the mother will notice it and
decide if she wants to keep it.

From my viewpoint, the question isn't about "protecting life" but about
protecting a woman's bodily integrity. Is she be to be forced to carry
around something that makes her nauseous ("morning sickness"), to feed
it from her bloodstream, to provide waste disposal services to it, to
endure being kicked in various tender spots, so that the baby can be
born and assume its (presumably) rightful place in the society of human
beings?

Or is she allowed to evict this trespasser?

Ultimately the abortion question is the same as the rent control
question. Should somebody who will die without a suitable residence (the
womb or the apartment) be legally allowed to stay there until they move
out (get born)? Or does the landlord/mother have the right to evict
them, even if this means they will die in the winter snow/in the
non-nurturing environment outside the mother's body?

[Roy]

On 7/22/2022 10:41 AM, Barry Gold wrote:
> ...

>
> Or is she allowed to evict this trespasser?
>
> Ultimately the abortion question is the same as the rent control
> question. Should somebody who will die without a suitable residence (the
> womb or the apartment) be legally allowed to stay there until they move
> out (get born)?  Or does the landlord/mother have the right to evict
> them, even if this means they will die in the winter snow/in the
> non-nurturing environment outside the mother's body?
>
>

There is a difference A person evicted by a landlord has some chance of
continue to live. A fetus being aborted has a 100% chance of death.

[Stuart O. Bronstein]

"Rick" <ri...@nospam.com> wrote in news:tbeeeh$1goh$1...@gioia.aioe.org:

You clearly don't understand how courts work. When a case gets to
the Supreme Court, the facts (i.e. when life begins) have already
been determined by lower courts. Appellate courts aren't supposed to
tamper with those findings because they weren't there to see the
evidence.

So when the Supreme Court allows restriction on abortions it has
nothing to do with when life begins. The Court isn't allowed to
weigh in on that issue.


--
Stu
http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

[Barry Gold]

We can fix that. If the "right to life" crowd were truly interested in
that aim, they would finance research into fetal transplants (we can
already do that with cows) and, ultimately, an artificial uterus like
the heart-lung machines we use to keep people alive during open-heart
surgery and other situation when their own respiratory and circulatory
systems temporarily can't do the job.

[Stuart O. Bronstein]

Barry Gold <bg...@labcats.org> wrote:
> TheMightyAtlas wrote:

One thing that's not in the Constitution but has long been
interpreted to be its meaning, is that the restrictions there apply
to local and state governments as much as the federal government. If
you take a literalist approach, we have no rights under state laws,
and states are not required to follow the Constitution.


--
Stu
http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

[Barry Gold]

On 7/22/2022 1:19 PM, Stuart O. Bronstein wrote:
> One thing that's not in the Constitution but has long been
> interpreted to be its meaning, is that the restrictions there apply
> to local and state governments as much as the federal government. If
> you take a literalist approach, we have no rights under state laws,
> and states are not required to follow the Constitution.

That's based on the "due process" and "privileges and immunities"
clauses in the Fourteenth Amendment.

[Stuart O. Bronstein]

Barry Gold <bg...@labcats.org> wrote:

> On 7/22/2022 1:19 PM, Stuart O. Bronstein wrote:
>> One thing that's not in the Constitution but has long been
>> interpreted to be its meaning, is that the restrictions there
>> apply to local and state governments as much as the federal
>> government. If you take a literalist approach, we have no rights
>> under state laws, and states are not required to follow the
>> Constitution.
>
> That's based on the "due process" and "privileges and immunities"
> clauses in the Fourteenth Amendment.

Of course. But it doesn't mean the current court will keep it as is.


--
Stu
http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

[John Levine]

According to Stuart O. Bronstein <spam...@lexregia.com>:

>>> government. If you take a literalist approach, we have no rights
>>> under state laws, and states are not required to follow the
>>> Constitution.
>>
>> That's based on the "due process" and "privileges and immunities"
>> clauses in the Fourteenth Amendment.
>
>Of course. But it doesn't mean the current court will keep it as is.

It took quite a while for the court to apply the bill of rights to the
states under the incorporation doctrine. The double jeopardy clause of
the fifth amendment wasn't incorporated until 1969, the fourth
amendment not until 1961 and 1964. Under the new rule of clearly
established at some former time we will determine, those could easily
go away.

On the other hand, this court's selective amnesia works both ways. For
200 years it was clear that "A well regulated Militia, being necessary
to the security of a free State" meant that the 2nd amendment was
about state militias, which we now call the National Guard, and it was
so obvious that there was hardly any case law. But in 2008, somehow
that clause vanished and now we're stuck with a misreading that allows
18 year olds to carry semi-automatic assault rifles to the mall.

[Roy]

On 7/23/2022 12:30 PM, John Levine wrote:
...

> On the other hand, this court's selective amnesia works both ways. For
> 200 years it was clear that "A well regulated Militia, being necessary
> to the security of a free State" meant that the 2nd amendment was
> about state militias, which we now call the National Guard, and it was
> so obvious that there was hardly any case law. But in 2008, somehow
> that clause vanished and now we're stuck with a misreading that allows
> 18 year olds to carry semi-automatic assault rifles to the mall.
>

Under current definitions, there is no such thing as a semi-automatic
assault rifle to be carried to the mall.

An assault rifle is generally defined as having "selective fire". The
wiki says

"Selective fire is the capability of a weapon to be adjusted to fire in
semi-automatic, fully automatic, and/or burst mode."

The AR-5, -10, -15 rifles were designed as "battle rifles". I carried
an M1 and later an M14 during my ROTC days and they were definitely not
assault rifles. There were some variations of the M14 that had
selective fire which I never carried :-)

[RichD]

On July 12, Stuart O. Bronstein wrote:
> For almost 100 years the Supreme Court has held that the Constitution
> implies (but does not specifically state) that there is a right to
> privacy. In Roe v. Wade the Court said that medical treatments
> create a privacy issue, and are for the most part between a patient
> and his or her doctor.

If it's a privacy argument, then the Burger court should have struck down all
Drug War programs, in the next case involving illicit substances.

If it's all about a woman's right to control her own body, how can Big Brother
abrogate a person's sovereignty over his own skin, to decide for himself what
substances he may ingest? If there's any human right, that's it - talk about privacy -

--
Rich

[Barry Gold]

On 7/23/2022 12:30 PM, John Levine wrote:

> 200 years it was clear that "A well regulated Militia, being necessary
> to the security of a free State" meant that the 2nd amendment was
> about state militias, which we now call the National Guard, and it was
> so obvious that there was hardly any case law. But in 2008, somehow
> that clause vanished and now we're stuck with a misreading that allows
> 18 year olds to carry semi-automatic assault rifles to the mall.

I found a webpage that looked well-researched, and it claimed that this
misreading started with one person in the 1930s. He got a bunch of
essays published, other people picked it up, it grew and grew until now
the entire "Conservative" movement buys into it.

[Stuart O. Bronstein]

You really can't tell the difference between abortion and drug use?
Abortion really is a private affair and doesn't have a significant
effect on society at large. Drug use, however, does. By your
argument theft, burglary, perhaps even murder, may be private because
they don't involve other people at that specific moment, and so can't
be regulated by the law. That's just silly.

--
Stu
http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

[John Levine]

According to Roy <monta...@outlook.com>:

>On 7/23/2022 12:30 PM, John Levine wrote:
>...
>> On the other hand, this court's selective amnesia works both ways. For
>> 200 years it was clear that "A well regulated Militia, being necessary
>> to the security of a free State" meant that the 2nd amendment was
>> about state militias, which we now call the National Guard, and it was
>> so obvious that there was hardly any case law. But in 2008, somehow
>> that clause vanished and now we're stuck with a misreading that allows
>> 18 year olds to carry semi-automatic assault rifles to the mall.
>>
>
>Under current definitions, there is no such thing as a semi-automatic

>assault rifle to be carried to the mall. ...

I certainly do not claim to be an expert on the details of various kinds
of guns, but I would have thought my point is simple enough.

The interpretation of the second amendment that finds a personal right
to own and carry the kind of guns used to commit mass murder in Uvalde
and in Highland Park and in Buffalo and in 300 other places so far
this year is a highly selective and motivated one, not a literal one.

If anyone is wondering what the amendment is actually about, the
answer is the same as the answer to any question about early American
history: slavery. It was to keep northern abolitionists from banning
the state militias that the southern states used to fight slave
rebellions.

See "The Hidden History of the Second Amendment", a well written
paper by law professor Carl Bogus (yes that's his real name):

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1465114

[Barry Gold]

On 7/23/2022 11:18 PM, Stuart O. Bronstein wrote:
> You really can't tell the difference between abortion and drug use?
> Abortion really is a private affair and doesn't have a significant
> effect on society at large. Drug use, however, does. By your
> argument theft, burglary, perhaps even murder, may be private because
> they don't involve other people at that specific moment, and so can't
> be regulated by the law. That's just silly.

Most of the "significant effect on society at large" arises from drug
prohibition. Recreational drugs are illegal(*) so their price is high.
That means that addicts have to steal to get money to pay for their "fix".

None of the most popular illegal drugs (opioids, amphetamines, and
cocaine) is particularly difficult to manufacture. If they were legal,
they would probably sell for about the same prices as other OTC drugs --
less than $0.10 per dose.

There would be no need to steal or rob people to pay for the drugs, and
people could use the drugs in their homes or (in most cases) in public.
And the dosage would be reliable, which would mean many fewer overdose
deaths and hospital admissions.

Our current drugs laws result from the efforts of Harry J. Anslinger.
After prohibition was repealed, he needed something else to fight to
justify his salary as Assistant Comissioner in the Bureau of
Prohibition. So he worked up a panic over marijuana and morphine. (We
have a personal recipe book from my wife's great grandmother, which
includes "50 cents of morphine" as an ingredient in a pain-relief
concoction.) That's "50 cents" as in "half a dollar". You bought it in a
general store.

(*) Except for ethanol, nicotine, and caffeine

[Roy]

It is important that we have a common vocabulary.

Pollster asks two people "Should we ban assault rifles"

One says Yes but really means things like the AR-15 style rifles.

One who is an NRA member says Yes also. He knows that assault rifles
are ALREADY banned in the US. Because of the selective fire feature,
the ATF defines them as machine guns and they are strictly controlled.

The pollster then reports two people in charge of the assault rifle ban
but it is really two different things

[Bernie Cosell]

"Rick" <ri...@nospam.com> wrote:

} I think we all agree that killing another human is generally wrong. Of
} course there are exceptions for self-defense and whatever, but the basic
} concept is well established that we don't allow people to kill other people.
} So the issue is when does life begin? I think just about everyone would
} agree that aborting a viable 9-month old fetus who is about to be born is
} generally not okay since you have an actual person who can exist outside the
} womb. Similarly, I think a majority of people (though not all, certainly)
} would argue that aborting an embryo right after fertilization is reasonable
} since you effectively only have the potential for life at that moment. So
} the question is where between those two extremes do we start the clock on
} life? Is it when major organs start to form? When the heart starts
} beating? When brain activity begins? When actual thinking occurs?

Note that at the other end of the life cycle, lack of brain activity
{"brain death"} is considered [dunno how universally] as being "dead".
So it is possible to consistently extend that view to the other end: an
embryo isn't "alive" until its brain has started functioning.

/Bernie\
--
Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
ber...@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA
--> Too many people, too few sheep <--

[Stuart O. Bronstein]

Bernie Cosell <ber...@fantasyfarm.com> wrote:

> Note that at the other end of the life cycle, lack of brain
> activity {"brain death"} is considered [dunno how universally] as
> being "dead". So it is possible to consistently extend that view
> to the other end: an embryo isn't "alive" until its brain has
> started functioning.

That's my opinion too. On the other side, though, they say at the
beginning, as opposed to the end, it's a "potential" life, and
shouldn't be eliminated for that reason. However with cloning
technology every time we cut our finger nails we are killing
"potential" lives. Why is that not the same?

--
Stu
http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

[Elle N]

On Tuesday, June 28, 2022 at 6:41:41 PM UTC-5, Rick wrote:
> Ginsburg actually didn’t think Roe was the best case for establishing
> abortion rights. She would have preferred a case she worked on as a lawyer
> for the American Civil Liberties Union in the early 1970s.
>
> In that case, Ginsburg represented an Air Force captain who became pregnant
> while serving as a nurse in Vietnam. In a twist, Ginsburg championed the
> woman’s right not to have an abortion; an Air Force rule at the time
> dictated that pregnant women had to terminate their pregnancies or be
> discharged.
>
> Ginsburg challenged the rule on behalf of the woman, Susan Struck, in a case
> called Struck v. Secretary of Defense and won a stay preventing Struck’s
> discharge while the courts reviewed the case. In December 1972, two years
> after Struck gave birth to a baby and shortly after the Supreme Court agreed
> to hear the suit, the military changed the policy and let Struck remain on
> active duty.

I am reading Jane Sherron DeHart's biography of Ginsburg. About Struck v.
Secretary of Defense, the biography says the Air Force regulation Struck (with
the ACLU's and Ginsburg's help) challenged was the one requiring discharge
"when it is established that she... [h]as given birth to a living child while in
a commissioned officer status."

The biography seems to assert that the abortion issue, while present, was not
nearly as prominent in the briefs Struck's attorneys submitted to the courts.

I am not convinced that Ginsburg wanted to use to strike down abortion laws.
My take is Ginsburg with the ACLU was a sort of brilliant, strategic,
brick-by-brick contractor when it came to gender discrimination. The ACLU
and Ginsburg time and again in the 1970s would take on men being
discriminated against by statute; win these cases; and then ask the courts
to apply these recent precedents to women's situations. The ACLU and
Ginsburg borrowed heavily from rulings saying discrimination on the
basis of race violated the equal protection clause.

In early 1973, Ginsburg was the director of the ACLU's Women's Rights
Project. According to the biography, right after the Court issued its Roe
v. Wade decision, the ACLU asked Ginsburg to take on the court cases
that were coming up, chiseling away at Roe v. Wade. Ginsburg declined.
Why? Because the ACLU Women's Rights Project was funded in large
part by the Ford Foundation, on condition that the Project did not take
on abortion-related litigation. Also the Project was understaffed. Ginsburg
herself had an unrelenting schedule already, the biography said. For
Ginsburg to become in any way a champion of abortion rights in the
courts, was, as a matter of practicality, not do-able.

I am only about halfway through the biography. It is long, detailed
and not my usual reading. But I am captivated. I believe the author
observed that Ginsburg sometime in the last 20 years has been
critical of Roe v. Wade in a way that exercises hindsight. In the context
of 1972, doing things the way the attorneys for the plaintiff in
Roe v. Wade made a lot more sense, jurisprudence-wise. So I think
I read.

I agree with others that Ginsburg did not like the privacy arguments.
Given her equal protection work before the Court for years, in the
name of eliminating all gender discrimination (as a strategy to
benefit women), and with that evidently incredible focus of hers,
perhaps privacy rights were simply not something to which she
had given nearly as much thought?

As I read the book, and as unhappy (stingy?) as I am that Ginsburg's
genius did not apply to her decision-making regarding stepping
down from the High Court during the Obama years of Democrat
-controlled Senate, I realize:

Chief Justice Roberts:
She was a goodly Justice.

Pelosi:
She was a woman. Take her for all in all,
I shall not look upon her like again.

> The court agreed to drop the case as moot. The following month, it issued
> its Roe v. Wade ruling.

Right, as far as I can tell. Of note is that the Solicitor General in 1972 was
Erwin Griswold. Griswold was the dean at Harvard Law School when Ginsburg
completed her first two years of law school there. Solicitor General
Griswold advised the Air Force to change its regulations and grant Captain
Struck a waiver. The Air Force did so. The biography attests that this was
a smart move on Griswold's part.

Going forward, Captain Struck's military career was restored.

On January 22, 1973, the Court announced its Roe v. Wade decision.

[micky]

In misc.legal.moderated, on Thu, 21 Jul 2022 11:09:51 -0700 (PDT),
"Rick" <ri...@nospam.com> wrote:
......

>You can call it naïve and simplistic if you want, but the cold, hard truth
>is that this Court is taking a different approach from the previous one.
>Whether you like it or not, this Court is reading the Constitution
>literally, and the literal truth is that there is no reference to abortion
>or fetal viability or anything similar in the Constitution. Period. And
>for that reason, the issue is back with the states.

The Constitution doesn't mention dinner either. Can the states pass
laws that prevent people from eating dinner?

Or maybe that's vague so: No eating between 4PM and 6AM.

Not just dinner but eating isn't in the Constitution either.

>
>--


--
I think you can tell, but just to be sure:
I am not a lawyer.

[micky]

In misc.legal.moderated, on Tue, 12 Jul 2022 08:04:38 -0700 (PDT), Barry

Gold <bg...@labcats.org> wrote:

>On 7/12/2022 6:00 AM, Stuart O. Bronstein wrote:
>> That is not the common law approach to the law. That is the civil
>> law approach, but that is not the legal system we have. Under the
>> common law, laws are often written in an imprecise way. And courts
>> look at the principles stated in the law, the specific factors
>> involved in any court case, and come up with a decision based on
>> common sense and prior court cases - it's important that people be
>> able to predict what is proper and what is not.
>>
>> This court wants to upend all of that.
>>
>> And you think it's just about what is specifically mentioned in the
>> Constitution? Ha!
>
>"This court wants to upend all of that."
>
>I think that pretty much describes justice Thomas. But based on the
>comments of the other four justices who made up the majority, they ONLY
>want to overturn Roe. They have explicitly said(*) that they would keep
>Loving, Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. In short, they want to
>overturn the one ruling that the Republican "base" objects to, while
>keeping the other "substantive due process" rulings intact.
>
>The fact that this makes no logical sense doesn't seem to bother them in
>the least.

Didn't one of them say the difference was that abortion is about life
and death, or something like that, and the others are not?

That's a big difference, but maybe you're saying wrt the logical
argument, there is no differnce. Even if you're right, that it makes
no logical sense, since issues of life and death seem different, surely
there is some valid legal way to express the difference?

>
>(*) Of course, can we trust what they say? All five of them lied under
>oath at their confirmation hearings.

They will, I presume, say that the did respect Roe vs. Wade, but they
also respected the claims in the current case. IIRC they were asked if
they respect precedent, or if they respect Roe as a precedent, but they
were not asked if they considered it totally binding precedent.

And wersn't Dred Scott and Plessy vs. Ferguson binding precedent until
they weren't?


This kind of linguistic gymnatics reminds me of what I would tell trump
if I worked for him. Yes, I will be loyal to you. Then later, when he
complained about something I did, I"d say, I have been loyal to you.
I've never said a bad word about you to the press, or in public, but I'm
sure you didn't mean I should break the law or refuse a subpoena.
Obeying the law or answering questiosn before a committee or grand jury
doesn't mean I'm not loyal to you. I'm still loyal to you. I haven't
said anything bad about you in any interview or to anyone.

This also reminds me of asking Clinton if there is a special
relationship between him and Monica Lewinsky. He said no, and I see his
point. There used to be one but now there isn't. It's not Clinton's
fault that they don't ask their questions broadly enough. I'm serious.
It didn't work the way he hoped it would but that doesn't mean he didn't
answer truthfully.