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(D) Brianna Titone
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(D) Jerry DiTullio
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CO-01 (Denver)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
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(R) Jeff Crank*
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
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DEMOCRATS
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November 04, 2011 07:00 PM UTC
25 Comments
I’m not sure the south can get over his
cultMormon affiliation. But I’m pretty sure the R’s in general don’t mind a guy who loves him some personhood amending.I mean, who wouldn’t want the 14th Amendment to mean exactly what it says – that anyone conceived in the USA is a citizen.
Or that the unborn can file law suits and make political donations.
I don’t see how it helps in the general*. Perhaps I lack imagination.
*
– outlaws most popular forms of birth control
– outlaws abortion
– doesn’t help the real legal immigration argument
– It creates no jobs, nor increases national security, nor improves foreign relations with the non-Muslim extremist nations
– doesn’t stop gays from …well you know, being gay
– doesn’t cut any poor people off gov’t funded assistance
with a parent’s god-given right to beat that kid
The pro-choice crowd is in a dilemma.
If they do nothing, then all that MADCO outlines happens in Mississippi and maybe becomes the model for other states.
If the pro-choice crowd does the right thing and challenges the constitutionality of such a law in federal courts, it goes right to the Supremes, who may use it as the reason to overturn Roe. Overturning Roe does NOT automatically make abortion illegal all over the country, rather it returns the issue to the states. Each individual state gets to decide who is a person. Dred Scott lives.
Why wouldn’t the usual pro-choice advocates appeal?
The dilemma is that if the pro-choice advocates appeal on the basis that the personhood state amendment is in direct conflict with the federal constitution (Roe V. Wade), the issue would go through the federal courts to the Supreme Court. Given the 5-4 conservative majority, the fear is that the Supreme Court would use the case as the basis to overturn Roe.
The argument that the conservatives have been making is that abortion is a state issue and not one for the feds to be involved with.
The fear is that the states right’s position would prevail in the Supreme Court, abortion would no longer be a civil right, guaranteed by the federal government, but rather an issue to be determined by the individual states. Abortion would automatically be outlawed in any of the states that had passed the personhood amendment to their state constitution. Whatever other laws states have or had on the books when Roe was determined once again would become the law in that state.
From a Constitutional point of view, it would allow each state to define a person, which is exactly what the pre-civil war Supreme Court decided in the Dred Scott decision.
I am no an attorney, but I am very concerned about the continued assault on civil rights by the conservatives.
These personhood amendments are part of that overall strategy. Who knows the final result if they prevail.
Outside of Utah and the deep south do you think any state’s voters will approve of outlawing abortion? I don’t think so. For the great majority of families they may be uncomfortable with abortion, but they do want it as an option if they need it.
You presume that it would be up to the voters in the state. If conservatives control the state government, then laws could be passed without a popular referendum. Look what has happened with voter ID laws in 29 states where the repubs are in power….or even in this state where the S of S is Republican.
As I keep saying, David, it is not about abortion, it is about taking power away from the federal government and making civil rights that are now a matter of constitutional protection guaranteed by the federal government into a states’ rights issue in which citizens would have no appeal to the federal government and constitutional rights would be diminished.
Don’t you think people in the deep south are entitled to civil rights? My god, that was precisely the issue back in the fifties. The majority of voters in the South believed in segregation and Jim Crow and denying equal access and opportunity to everyone, regardless of race, creed or color. Is that what you support?
Do you believe that Civil rights are a matter for the majority to vote on and if the “voters” want to , they can deny civil rights to individuals. For example, the “voters” might allow cancer survivors to be discriminated against in employment and housing and medical care. Is that okay with you?
Or, the voters might decide that white women could not get abortions because the white race is declining.
Voters might decide to make abortion mandatory for Hispanic, blacks and Orientals because the first two categories are increasing too fast and the latter are too smart.
I also think it should be created legislatively. The anti-abortion candidates have gotten a free ride from it being mandated by the court so they can pose with laws they know will be found unconstitutional. Feeds their base and the majority doesn’t get too upset.
If it suddenly matters, then I think you’ll see a lot of those anti-abortion politicians out of office in the next election.
First of all, the right to an abortion in the first trimester is a civil right. It is a civil right guaranteed by the
federal constitution based on a Supreme Court decision, not a legislative one.
Legislation does not create a federal civil right unless it is part of the Constitutional Amendment process. To amend the Constitution of the United States, 2/3s of the House and the Senate must approve the Amendment then it goes to the states and 3/4s of the state legislatures must approve the amendment.
In the almost forty years since Roe, no Amendment guaranteeing the right to abortion has been introduced in Congress. There was one vote for a Human Life Amendment in the Senate (I think it was the Senate) back in the earlier 80s, but it failed to make it through the other House of Congress. This fact, in and of itself, is very interesting.
Welcome to America Gov 101.
That’s one of the reasons why I think having the court make the decision is so bad. What’s to stop a conservative court from vacating Row and finding that at 1 month a fetus is a person?
The Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is.
We have come full circle with this thread. The danger with the Court revisiting Roe is that it may choose to over turn it. That is the dilemma that the pro-choice forces face.
However you opinion doesn’t matter. The way our system is set up, the Court makes the call. Absent a constitutional amendment, that is just how things are.
If you don’t like it, then work for a Constitutional Amendment.
See, for example, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlaws discrimination based on race, creed, color, sex, etc. See, for example, the Americans with Disabilities Acts. Not constitutional, but still federal civil rights.
Please do not think I am suggesting a federal statute concerning abortion. I’m just saying you misspoke (miswrote?) when you said “[l]egislation does not create a federal civil right unless it is part of the Constitutional Amendment process.”
– South Carolina
– Nebraska
– Kansas
– Virginia
– Arizona
– Dakotas
– Iowa
– Missouri
– Kentucky
– Tennesee
– Orange County
And others. I’m reluctant to say it (partly because he/she is from Denver and therefore not really in a position to comment) but Dwyer is right. You have no idea how this would shake down in the various states. And women would die needlessly to prove the point.
David –
What happens when your daughter moves to one of these states and for whatever reason needs an abortion? Abortion needs to be protected as a civil right.
My point is that I think it’s possible it would not be made illegal anywhere and definitely not outside the bible belt. It’s easy for Republicans to pass legislation they know the supreme court will strike down because no one gets too worried. But if it’s suddenly for real, then I think you’ll see a big change in what can be passed.
Yesterday, Chris Matthews referred to Mitt Romney as a switch-hitter, i.e., someone who hits from both sides of the plate.
I think we may have stumbled upon our new “Buckpedal”: Switch-Hit Mitt.
“Now hitting for the MA Governor’s position, hitting left-handed Mitt Romney.”
“Now hitting for the GOP presidential nomination, hitting right-handed Mitt Romney.”
This is especially true regarding Switch-Hit’s positions on abortion.
Sound like something Mike Huttner would come up with. Aren’t these tired cliches a little 2006?
That’s why “Buckpedal” was so effective.
Switch-Hit Mitt. Say it three times.
BTW- How can something I just thought up be a “tired cliche”?
Ding, dong.
That was a classic, and it was a Republican who came up with it.
Flip-Flopney works in the case of Mitt, too.
because it gets in the way of taking everything
If you make the leap to “hating American democracy,” I think there is a term for that form of psychosis.
2 + 2 = 4.
I hate that 1+1 = 2 and wish it were 3.
It’s the way it works.
Just because your guy is a MittFlopper – get over it.
I think it was Rachel Maddow who showed a video of a young Iowa woman explaining to Mittens how personhood could ban the pill.
While the pill mainly inhibits ovulation and sperm entering the upper genital tract, it certainly can have a post-conception effect and prevent implantation. This has led to the “Pill Kills” movement which claims that oral contraceptives and IUDs cause early abortions. (I would argue that abortion terminates a pregnancy, which doesn’t start until implantation, but the antis aren’t concerned about pregnancy, they’re concerned about the “human being” the zygote represents.)
Lifenews.com is complaining that Planned Parenthood is being disingenuous about the personhood movement’s ability to ban common contraception (Planned Parenthood Caught Misleading on Birth Control Pills), while elsewhere on their website the same author acknowledges that their movement hates the pill for exactly that reason.
They are basically lying that fears about banning contraceptives are a scare tactic against the initiative, when it’s a plus in their eyes.
Whether they hate the pill because of its potential post-fertilization effect, or because it empowers women to be independent beings with liberated sexuality is unclear. It’s probably both.
Regardless, this is a powerful issue to slam Mittens on once he gets the nomination. Regardless of Pollyannas who don’t want Dems to talk about social issues, this will be a great weapon against Willard. It’s an extreme position which will alienate a large number of unaffiliated women; just ask Ken Buck It also fuels the inevitable flip-flopper image he will be stuck with considering his 2002 Massachusetts stand:
No