https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/us/politics/supreme-court-idaho-abortion-ban.html The Supreme Court held emergency oral arguments over the Biden administration's challenge to Idaho's abortion ban except in instances of rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother. The arguments were a complete train wreck for the Biden administration. The background is that Biden signed an executive order saying abortion was a "stabilizing procedure" and then said the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requires states to provide stabilizing procedures and sued Idaho to force them to begin performing abortions again. EMTALA is a 1986 law designed primarily to prevent hospitals from turning away patients who needed life-saving treatments. The problem is that EMTALA specifically mentions that the "unborn child" is entitled to life-saving treatments as well. Yet, the Biden administration claims killing the fetus complies with this requirement because not all fetuses are viable. Yes really. After dodging repeatedly, it took being asked three times to come up with that reasoning. “It seems that the plain meaning is that the hospital has tried to eliminate any immediate threat to the child. But performing an abortion is antithetical to that and duty. You go so far as to say that the statute is clear in your favor. I don’t know how you can say that in light of those provisions that I’ve just read to you.” - Alito “The statute imposes on the hospital a duty to the woman, certainly, and also a duty to the child. It doesn’t tell the hospital how it is to adjudicate conflicts between those interests, and it leaves that to state law.” - Alito She then went on to claim that an individual is not an "unborn child." Much like in other threads where people laughably claim they need to use a specific dictionary definition of "otherwise" to defend reinterpreting a law to mean something it wasn't intended, the SCOTUS informed her that you only look to specific dictionary definitions if the word itself isn't defined by the law (which in this case it was) or if the word does not have a common statutory definition to draw from. She also claimed that EMTALA requires states to allow abortion if they receive taxpayer funding. Then Barrett hit her with the zinger that using federal funds to pay for abortion is against the Hyde Amendment and a violation of federal law. This case is dead in the water. It's just an election stunt via an illegal executive order and a frivolous lawsuit.
I hope women around the nation — and any male that respects the autonomy of their mother / daughter / sister or friend — take note of these cases and what Republicans are doing. They have moved from saying they just don’t want federal funds to pay for abortions to saying rape victims including young girls should be forced to have the rapists child to now saying the life of mother isn’t even a justification for an abortion. Note that many of the extreme right wing states are refusing to put these issue to or ignoring public referendums because they keep losing. Republicans keep telling you what they stand for — listen to them.
Voters in each state will decide abortion laws. Abortion extremism began with Democrats. I doubt the abortion issue will decide the election.
perhaps but right now its not costing them elections. and while Roe was a crappy decision, it was better than some of the almost complete bans
Glad to know that radical republicans are willing to let states decide what organs women get to keep or not.
The government did a much better job at the most recent oral arguments. They definitely retooled and came back stronger.
Gradually, the abortion laws will fall into synch and states will gradually morph into a reasonable gestation period where abortion can be generally acceptable. But like everything else, people want everything today. There are around 1.1 million abortions per year. As a percentage of the population and even with the divisive morality questions involved, it does not deserve all the national noise. Abortion "consumers" are a distinct minority. THE noise is being used as a ruse to draw attention away from the 335 million living Americans with bigger problems. It seems that the media thinks it should be national, but they refuse to address the national method to do it. I don't see any attempts to amend the constitution. Why? Because it is boring. I just can't see Hannity and Maddow pounding the table on it.
