Ashley,
You asked for my opinion, so: I still realize that abortion is in the province of each of the states not the federal government. It is very rarely appropriate for the federal government to dictate to the states what they must or must not do and there are already many laws which go above that truth. Your statements make a lot of sense but, in my opinion, are slightly misdirected. When the federal government overrules a state it is usually done through a court not a congressional mandate. This is how it should be in a free country. All that said, it pains my heart sometimes that it can not be different but originally it was the states which gathered together to form our nation and not the other way around. Letâs keep it that way.
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Abortion is in the province of both the states and the federal government.
ââŚto regulate inter-state commerceâŚâ are you referring to the selling of body parts and other tissue from murdered babies? Across state lines? Not sure how the 14th applies here, itâs more oriented towards guaranteeing due process, which of course is violated when a human is murdered in utero.
Dobbs doesnât need to say anything about abortion being a states rights issue. The 10th Amendment does. Abortion is not in the Constitution. Ipso facto, it is reserved to the states or to the people.
And please spare me âthe experts agreeâ nonsense. âLeadersâ in the pro-life and pro-baby killer movements ââŚagree on one thingâŚâ Just like experts agree the Vaxx is safe and effective? I donât need self proclaimed experts to do my thinking for me, thanks anyway.
Edit: BTW, its spelled Kavanaugh, not Cavanaugh. If you are going to talk about him so much, perhaps you should spell his name correctly.
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You Republicans were wrong when you claimed that Obamacare was unconstitutional; you were wrong when you claimed that EMTALA (an abortion-related law) violated states rights. Trumpâs Supreme Court affirmed that they were constitutional. And you are wrong to claim that federal legislators cannot pass laws related to abortion, healthcare, or regarding the lives of pregnant women and unborn babies.
I noticed you corrected my spelling of Kavanaugh, but you didnât correct my spelling for CONGRESS⌠an entity that he specifically said is capable of passing laws related to abortion. A conservative SUPREME COURT JUDGE who I trust more to interpret the law than you.
You admit that the 14th amendment does apply to the protection of unborn babies, as all PERSONS are guaranteed this âdue processâ when it comes to their âlife, liberty & property.â So that is enough to establish we can enact the federal protections for unborn babies and babies born alive.
Pregnant women are âPERSONSâ also, so we can enact federal legislation to protect them, too, to ensure that state or federal pro-life laws are not used against their lives and liberty as well. While the constitution does not guarantee a right to ELECTIVE abortion, women do have the right to not have laws that endanger their lives, and a right to not be endangered by medical malpractice or medical abuse. A right to informed consent for medical procedures.
I also read a few interesting comments by the following article, regarding regulating inter-state commerce. This article was speculating on the implications if Congress passed the Womenâs Health Protection Act (a law granting womenâs abortion rights and post-viability exceptions), versus potential Republican challenges to its constitutionality. Hereâs a LONG QUOTE:
<<Alternatively, the WHPA could also be sustained under Congressâs broad power to regulate the national economy. This power derives from two provisions of the Constitution, which permit Congress to â[regulate commerce ⌠among the several states]â and to âmake all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into executionâ this power to regulate commerceâŚ
As the Supreme Court explained in [Gonzales v. Raich] (2005), Congress may use its power over national commerce to regulate any âeconomic âclass of activitiesâ that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.â The Courtâs decisions permit federal laws regulating [landlords], [family farmers], and other businesses and professionals that primarily serve local consumers. They permit federal regulation of abortion.
Abortion is a medical procedure that is provided by professionals, who typically charge a fee. Some of these doctors travel across state lines to provide this service. They are trained at medical schools all over the country, perform their services in clinics funded by donors from other states, use medical equipment manufactured in other states â you get the idea.
Abortion, in other words, is an economic activity that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce. So, under Raich, [Congress could pass a law protecting abortion rights]
If the Supreme Court held that Congress may not regulate abortion, that decision could have a sweeping impact on American law.
For one thing, such a decision would strip abortion providers and their patients of rights they currently enjoy under federal law. The [Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act] (FACE) makes it a crime to use force, the threat of force, or âphysical obstructionâ to block access to an abortion clinic. If Congress loses its ability to regulate abortion, FACE could no longer be enforced â which could mean blockades in front of abortion clinics even in states where abortion is legal.
More broadly, a Supreme Court decision invalidating a law like the WHPA could endanger all federal regulation of health providers. If Congress canât regulate abortion, it canât regulate pap smears, colonoscopies, and open-heart surgeries either. It also may not be able to regulate the insurers who pay for such services. Laws like Obamacare, with its [web of regulations governing health insurance] and protecting people with preexisting conditions, could potentially be in trouble." >>
(Another reason why abortion is an inter-state economic activity is because post-Dobbs, doctors are regularly having their high risk patients travel to other states for abortion. Abortion sanctuary states like California welcome out-of-state residents, disregard other statesâ laws, and can cover the abortion with Medi-Caid - another federal program. Mail-order abortion pills can be shipped anywhere in the U.S. Those two Georgia women who died, were killed by abortion pills that they had sought from a different state⌠So if abortion wasnât part of âinter-state commerceâ before, it sure is now.)
Ultimately, it is not up to you to decide on whether or not any regulations related to maternal or fetal healthcare can be passed or whether itâs constitutional or not. According to the exact words of the Supreme Court justices, for example, it is up to âLAWMAKERSâ from the âSTATESâ and âCONGRESSâ to decide if they can and will make these laws. And ultimately, if challenged, itâs up to the Supreme Court, to rule on itsâ constitutionality. Your personal opinion on its constitutionality is irrelevant.
The Womenâs Health Protection Act seeks to codify Roe v. Wadeâs abortion rights | Vox
Can we force the âfatherâ to have a vasectomy then? It can be undone once he proves he is responsible. Thats just ridiculous.
Wow, you put a lot of energy into criticizing somebody who in his very first comment to you said that he agrees with much of what you proposed.
Iâm not going to spend an hour of my life that Iâll never get back by replying to your comment point by pointâŚespecially because democrats always cling to their ideas as if they are religious principles, So its not like Iâm going to persuade you that some part of your proposals might be better if it were fine-tuned to the smallest degree.
You throw around the Constitution a lot. You might want to try reading the document. It is not a âliving document.â It says what it says. The fact that we have a federal judiciary that can âfindâ secret rights hidden in the Constitution for hundreds of years doesnât change that. In fact, it highlights the problem.
The left believes in Big Government. Heart and soul. Any problem can and should be solved the a new federal bureaucracy throwing money at it. Sounds so idyllic. Tax payers pay and the federal agency redistributes the funds to solve the problem. âFrom each according to his ability, to each according to his needsâ would be another way of saying it.
Except that it never works. Ever.
P.S. You lied when you claimed I admitted the 14th does not apply to human beings in utero. All American citizens, including those in utero, are protected by the provisions of the 14th Amendment. Unfortunately, our government fails in its duty to protect the rights of its citizens in utero.
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I never âcriticizedâ you. I just said that you are factually wrong to assert that the constitution prevents federal abortion-related laws to pass legitimately. I have noticed that âstates rightsâ people are quite touchy when someone tells them that their âstates rightsâ opinion is not fact.
Secondly, you very clearly said:
âNot sure how the 14th applies here, itâs more oriented towards guaranteeing due process, which of course is violated when a human is murdered in utero.â
The 14th amendment protects the âlife, liberty & propertyâ of every âPERSON.â It did not say just âcitizensâ for that particular part.
It therefore can be interpreted to apply to: unborn babies, aborted babies born alive, and pregnant women.
And you are factually wrong to claim that your personal opinion of the constitution matters more than the more informed opinions of congressmen and court justices, as well as human rights advocates and leaders who are much more invested and researched on this matter than you.
Republican credibility about the constitutionality of federal legislation, went out the door, when your claims about constitutionality and states rights violations were proven wrong multiple times.
Iâm not here as a representative of the Republican party. I despise the Republican PartyâŚslightly less than I despise the Democrat Party (there really is only the Uniparty, but that is a different discussion).
Iâm here as a free citizen of the United States of America.
âLegitimately.â Interesting word to choose. The fact is, unfortunately, the government has the power to do whatever it can get away with. For example, the FBI was created by an executive order. There is nothing in the Constitution authorizing that, but it was done and now they are legitimate law enforcement. With the potential ability to harass the political opposition of whatever regime happens to be in power. Yet the informed opinions of congressmen and court justices, as well as humans rights advocates and leaders who are much more invested and researched on this matter than me would say Iâm factually wrong to question the wisdom of such an agency existing.
I did change my language from person to citizen, because I disagree that any person who sneaks into the United States should automatically earn all of the protections of the U.S. Constitution. Donât bother with all of the cites you are dying to throw at me, IDC.
Regarding opinionsâŚyou say I am âfactually wrong.â I say I am factually right. You are factually wrong to ignore the 10th Amendment. I seem to remember liking some of your ideas, implemented at the state level. By now I donât remember what they were, and have no interest at going back and rereading them, because I donât trust you. Based on your various comments, it appears your real motivation is nothing more than to cede increasing amounts of power to an authoritarian central government. Do you want to know what is not in the U.S. Constitution? Anarcho-tyranny.
I used to volunteer with Special Olympics. I met a lot of folks with Downs. Not one of them thought it would have been better if they were murdered in utero.
Are you even listening to yourself? What is this place, Berlin in 1933?
This is not a bad proposal. It has some good points but still puts us right back where we were for so many yearsâhung up on the exceptions. Kamala Harris has admitted that she âdid everything she could for âthe movementââ (which was actually the Transgender movement) so what in this proposal will prevent doctors who feel about abortion the way Ms. Harris feels about Transgenders and use these âexceptionsâ to maintain the status quo by simply declaring that ALL of their patients seeking abortions fall into one or more of these exceptions? The AMA, many doctors and even most state Licensing Boards are far more Liberal in their political views today than in 1974 and more willing to use their positions to advance âradical agendasâ than ever before.
I know that teen and other âunwantedâ and âunplannedâ pregnancies have been going on since the dawn of time and that sex (and the practice thereof) is almost irresistible, especially to teens and young adults who are exposed to a culture that is saturated with sexual references and images in ways we had not even dreamed of in 1974. However, the problem was not as bad in the 1940âs as it is today because entertainment is different than it was then, as are our cultureâs moral values. If we really want to reduce or eliminate abortions then we need to attack the problem culturally. We need to focus more effort on getting porn (soft as well as hard-core) out of entertainment and return to teaching what are now considered âold-fashionedâ VALUES to our children so they wonât see the sex act as just another recreational activity as harmless as hanging out at the mall and therefore wonât grow up to believe that itâs OK to through away their unborn children because itâs âinconvenient.â Since most teachers seem to be on the wrong side of this issue (as is the Entertainment industry) this is very likely not achievable without changing even more laws (many of which would likely be struck down by activist judges (and even some Strict Constructionists)) as being unconstitutional unconstitutional.
So whatâs the answer? This proposal is good but I still see âwiggle roomâ for the Radical Left (who seem determined to NOT stop until you are free to kill your children WEEKS or even YEARS after their birth and call it âabortionâ)! What we need is FEDERAL FUNDING for PRO-LIFE pregnancy centers that MATCHES DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR what PLANNED PARENTHOOD and other abortion providers get from the Federal Government. Put both sides on equal footing financially so they have an equal chance to get their message out and let people make informed choices. Maybe even force the states and Planned Parenthood to offer the TRUTH about abortion and adoption options to their clients. We also need to make it easier for Single Mothers to survive financially so that women arenât choosing to abort because itâs cheaper, but not make motherhood so attractive that those same women become âbaby factoriesâ just to get the financial benefits.
Thanks for your feedback. I agree that fighting for cultural change is a crucial part of this battle. We canât just throw money at the situation. We must be strategic. I feel that the high school awareness class idea included in my proposal would teach young people the importance of responsibility, value of life and respect for women.
Also, while this proposal wonât end the debate, it will take away the most polarizing aspects of it and will make it difficult for either side, to stake their campaign all on abortion, as opposed to simply ALL issues impacting Americans.
Re: exceptions, yes Iâm fully aware that abortionists have repeatedly abused exceptions, but thatâs because the exceptions and viability definitions were written too vaguely. This proposal calls for legislators to work with doctors & lawyers from BOTH pro-life and pro-choice backgrounds, to ensure these exceptions are clear and workable, and also to ensure they are specific enough to exclude elective abortions.
In addition, it calls for doctors to maintain documentation and that anyone who falsifies the documentation to qualify for an exception would be prosecutorial for fraud.
Donât forget, too, that no law is permanent. If thereâs a problem, legislators can always vote on changes again in the near future. At least this proposal moves our country in the right direction and gives Republicans the edge on the issue, instead of ceding ground to the democrats.
Please provide the stats on incest abortions.
Ad the request of Ms. Luna, via a DM, I responded to the DM and I am responding in public messaging as well.
/snip
I can not agree to your post or vote on it. The RvWade was passed with Roe admitting she lied on the stand. 18 days in, those hearts start beating in those children.
I can not in any way agree with a Federal law on this as it violates the 10th amendment. That is WHY Rvwade was overturned, and pushed back to the states. You may not like that decision, but that IS THE correct decision. WHY? Because if I make a federal ban of this issue, and say California, wants to allow the practice, the PEOPLE of CA have to vote to approve. I robbed the people of their chose in the matter. Also, IF a woman wants to move to a state that allows that, she can not, we have removed her freedom. It is PROPER to push this issue back to the people of the States to decide in each State.
FACTCHECK: A federal law would NOT violate the 10th amendment.
The Supreme Court did not defeat a federal law. It said that elective abortion was not guaranteed by the constitution, and the supreme court justices specifically said that it was now up to âLAWMAKERSâ from both the âSTATESâ and âCONGRESSâ to create laws for.
Just like how Idaho didnât get to vote to approve of EMTALA (a federal abortion-related law for medical emergencies) and just like no individual state didnât get to vote to approve for ACA (Obamacare), individual states do NOT have to vote to approve a federal law.
Once again, you are merely stating your personal opinion and you do not speak for Congressmen, or for the Supreme Court, on itsâ constitutionality.
I have further discussed the applications of the 14th amendment, in a string of responses to another person making âstates-rights-onlyâ arguments:
Thank you for allowing your vitriol and emotion to come out in your post. It is clear that you think I lack enough intelligence to have a discussion, therefore you lecture me as if I am a child. You contacted me over DM and I gave you my response. Have a great day.
FACTCHECK AGAIN: There was no vitriol or emotion expressed in my post. You gave me a response, and I have also given you a response. You, in fact, stated your opinion, as well as a few unsubstantiated remarks. You also have not backed up your statements with links or quotes. Instead, you made another false claim, this time about my âemotionality.â
I could agree with some points here. Right to Maternal Healthcare - protection for the motherâs life yup, nonviable pregnancies yup, abnormalities yup, under age of 14 yup, incest/rape with police report &/or medical record yup, leaving out mental health, financial health and threats of self harm yup. I like the accountability parts in here I just hope thereâs measures that you can implement to ensure that it works though. Asking the government to hold itself accountable is a hard feat. Iâm fine with accountability for care providers as long as a doctor can never be criminally charged or fired for declining to perform an abortion based on their own personal values/morals and I donât see that in here so thatâs good. I donât believe there should be a law where someone is entitled to someone elseâs services and if they refuse itâs punishable by law/death etc. I want to get behind banning criminalization of it because in the end I think this decision should be between the patient, their medical care provider, and theyâre god if they believe in one. I however will say Iâm ok with criminal charges against someone who gets an abortion if they committed fraud against the taxpayers. You do say Guarantee this narrow scope for funding and that no collective funds are used for an elective procedure, and as long as that part is stuck to then I donât see an issue here.
The educational portion with high schoolers can be tough because Iâm not sure thereâs a lot of people that will teach about this topic and not have bias and bias is what distorts the facts, especially for young impressionable people.
Overall pretty good post and well thought it. Itâs a great starting point to get the ball rolling and hopefully we can finally come to an agreement on the abortion topic for both sides and put it to rest.
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I believe this issue is simply too divisive for anyone to pass anything about it at the federal level. The US Congress is not intended to be used as the scepter of power to lay down the law of the land like an authoritarian state to force people to accept whatever we happen to be able to get enough votes to pass.
We did that with slavery and it just about ended us. There is a reason Congress is designed to make gridlock so easy easy to create. I see that any law regardless of what it is enacted at the federal level will be twisted into a wedge issue no matter how good it is at this time.
I believe we need to hold the line at keeping this as a stateâs issue so neither side gets what they want at the federal level right now; we need to keep discussing this as a country, and âvictoryâ over each other isnât going to get us there. And yes, I realize I am sacrificing hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, in the same way our country destroyed the lives of slaves for almost 100 years after its founding and the additional 100 years before that.
What if instead of fighting to get this passed at the federal level (which is bringing up a lot of constitutional debate that is a bit beside the main point) we focus first to get this (or something like it) enacted at a state level by a state, any state. Then we can point at that state say âlook at that one!â Other states can adopt slightly tweaked versions, pundits can comment, idealogues on both sides can scream about whatâs not in it, we can see the effects in the states where it gets passed and collect data on those results, educate the country as we go along, then eventually, in probably a decade or so, we can get enough consensus around what a federal bill should look like that it wonât instantly tear the country apart again. Maybe along the way we can also heal up our broken foster care and adoption systems and turn them into more functional things that would-be mothers, and functional homes, would feel happier about participating in.
This issue is our generations âslaveryâ, and it has all the same moral underpinnings with ten times the complications. I personally see this issue as a continuation of the slavery debate/war we never fully quite got over in practice even if we were able to get people to stop defending it openly.
The abortion issue isnât even really a womenâs health issue as far as I can tell, itâs an economics issue regarding the lifestyle of the mother.
Consider it this way, if we guaranteed pregnant women that we as a society/country would provide her a âno questions askedâ decent middle class lifestyle with educational and care giving support to ensure she could succeed at raising the child and that she would be set up to derive some kind of joy from the opportunity to be this childâs mother, I believe elective abortions would probably decrease around 80 - 90 percent and thousands if not millions of women would immediately go get pregnant without changing a single abortion law. They arenât fighting for their health, they are fighting against an imagined lifestyle of hardship and suffering that they donât feel prepared to handle.
This proposal is separating elective/choice abortions from a standard of medically required or morally acceptable exceptions to move the ball forward. I think it strikes a really good balance to forward the conversation. I also think trying get this passed at a federal level is a non-starter. Thereâs got to be some state (probably a swing state or more moderate electorate) that would be interested in a bill like this.
Thanks for your feedback. However, I do believe that we could find a bipartisan majority willing to pass many of these things and itâs worth a shot.
Also, leaving abortion regulations completely up to the state has led to extreme atrocities:
- Most people support a restriction against late term elective abortion, yet many states allow abortion-until-birth. Abortion is the number one cause of death for children in the U.S. Even when you only look at late term abortion (10,000 per year), that still causes more child killings than car accidents and gun violence COMBINED.
- For most second trimester abortions, these fully formed babies are NOT given the digoxin shot or fetal pain relief/fetal anesthesia, and are therefore being dismembered ALIVE and AWAKE to feel the whole thing.
- Many babies, from 15 weeks gestation and older, are born alive, only to be left to die. Sometimes abortionists use violence to kill babies born alive, to stop them from alerting others with their cries, that the baby is still alive.
- The advent of mail order abortion pills and abortion sanctuary states, allows women from pro-life states to still access abortion, which weakens the strength of âstateâs rightsâ and state pro-life laws.
- Women are traumatized after âseeing their babyâ after an abortion pill, because of widespread misinformation that embryoâs just look like balls of tissue or arenât visible to the naked eye.
- Women like the two Georgia women who died are suffering painful complications of the abortion pill, and sometimes death, and theyâre delaying seeking help in the ER, because they are falsely told that the abortion pill is âsafer than tylenol,â the pro-life laws will stop the doctor from treating her (false) and that she will be prosecuted for an illegal abortion (false).
We have already seen what the abortion industry is capable of, and what Democrat states are willing to support, and celebrate. It is fetal genocide and infanticide happening, tucked away in abortion clinics where you canât see it and it is routine violation of the womanâs informed consent.
Thank you for agreeing that my proposal âstrikes a really good balance to forward the conversation.â But itâs also an absolutely crucial set of measures to put our foot down somewhere, and keep a pathway open where the lives and medically necessary healthcare of mothers and our babies are prioritized simultaneously. It would also end much of the âdivisivenessâ of the abortion debate. Imagine an abortion debate where Democrats can no longer falsely accuse pro-lifers of killing women, or where pro-lifers canât use the line âabortion until birthâ anymore.
I also do hope that republican legislators down the line will support more restrictions (like 15 weeks) but I know that such a restriction is off-the-table for the next four years because of Trumpâs âstates-onlyâ stance. This proposal offers the bare minimum. I also believe that if Trump continues to ignore these issues, and the misleading abortion narratives (falsely blaming pro-lifers for womenâs deaths/treatment delays) continue to dominate the headlines, expect a blue wave/blowblack in 2-4 years. Democrats will cash in on the missed opportunity and will viciously fight for abortion-until-birth until it passes for all U.S. states, whether if thatâs via state ballot measures, state legislatures, or the federal âWomenâs Health Protection Act.â
It comes down to your beliefs. An undeveloped fetus less than the size of a peanut is not contemplating itâs existence. Some religions believe and I think itâs stated in the Bible that the soul doesnât enter the body until the body takes itâs first breath. Until that time, its merely a vehicle without a driver. It takes a lot of funds to take care of severely mentally disabled people. We are seeing this happening with autism which is consuming vast amounts of tax dollars from special schooling to housing and the labor of many others to care for these special needs people. Of course, Iâm not asking that they be killed once they have entered the world as fully developed(physically at least) humans. As autism rates continue to climb, eventually the countryâs medical systems will be over-burdened to the point that we bankrupt the country housing and caring for all those that canât care for themselves. Itâs coming. Studies have shown this to be the case. Many of these autistic children become adults unable to care for themselves. Iâm not calling autistic the same as Downs but just pointing out that it is a financial burden to care for these special needs folk. As I said, if you know that your child will be severely mentally disabled with a test and you still want to take on that challenge, have at it. Some potential parents are not capable of that challenge and then those children become wards of the state. I hear myself. Iâm a pragmatist, but not a Nazi as you are implying.