Roberts. Unfortunately but as *expected*, the Senate just confirmed Roberts in a 78-22 vote. Now let’s wait for the shit-storm over Bush’s pick for O’Connor’s seat–that’s the biggie to be most concerned with now. No surprises really. And perhaps it’s time for NARAL Pro-Choice America to withdraw its endorsement of the alleged pro-choice Republican Chafee who voted yea? How about some of the pro-choice Dems who voted yea? Someone *may have* lost their seat in ’06.
UPDATE: NARAL Pro-Choice America’s statement on Roberts confirmation.
UPDATE II: Feminist Majority’s statement on Roberts confirmation.
O.K. Now it’s showtime, folks. O’Connor’s replacement is the real battleground, because that’s where the swing vote will change. If President Bush picks another Roberts type, he or she will probably get confirmed. If Bush picks someone more blatantly conservative, then there’ll be a fight. But unless there’s testimony involving underage sex partners or something of that nature, or unless the person loses it and gets combative at the hearings, Bush is going to find someone he can get confirmed, if only 51 – 49. And they’re not going to be liberal. Bush is being put on notice by his base that they want a change, and the GOP might be hurt if they don’t get someone in there that looks like a change.
It’s not too long before the first Monday in October. I do believe that Justice O’Connor said she’d serve until her replacement is confirmed. O’Connor may sit for most of this term….
Look for Bush to nominate a theocratic, misogynistic fascist next. I bet he’s itching for a fight, something to fire up and unite the base and prove he’s still the swaggering, tough guy cowboy. Anyone on the left hoping Bush is on his heels is in for a letdown. He may well be but it’ll do no good if he doesn’t know it to be true.
“The president has an obligation to nominate an individual who reflects O’Connor’s moderate philosophy …”
A nice sentiment, but I’m real curious as to where NARAL gets this. Where do they think such an obligation comes from? I sure don’t see it in the Constitution. Rhetoric won’t substitute for reason here. I bet a lot more people think that President Bush is obligated to follow his campaign platform where he promised to nominate people whose judicial philosophy was more conservative than the sitting justices.
How much does anyone think that the withdrawal of support by NARAL and other such groups will affect any Senator running for re-election? And do these groups have someone they intend to support to run against these incumbents?
“”I do not believe the vote would be the same if women made up half the Senate and African Americans and Latinos were represented in adequate numbers,” said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority.”
My guess is that Ms. Smeal is correct (except for the Latinos; there’s a lot more conservative Latinos than the Democrats seem to think). However, the question then becomes, what is Ms. Smeal doing to cause this change to happen? Not enough people will vote for a candidate based solely on their race or gender to get non-white males elected on that basis. You need attractive candidates (like Sen. Obama in Illinois) who can win in their own right.
And even there, Obama was helped by the fact that the Illinois Reflublicans can’t piss on the floor without hitting their shoes. Their candidate, Jim Ryan, lied to the Illinois Reflublican Party about his personal background and it came out during the campaign that he had taken his now-ex-wife (Geri Ryan, of Star Trek “Seven of Nine” fame) to sex clubs in Paris where he encouraged her to have sex in public view and with other men. It was in their divorce papers, which he tried to hide from the public by claiming that revealing the information woudl be harmful to their kids. If the Reflubs had put up a decent candidate, Obama might have lost.
Don’t think so, Steve. Oh, he’ll nominate someone that intense partisans might tie those labels to, but not one that the general public will see in that light. He’s more interested in leaving a legacy than getting into a huge fight, so above all he’ll pick someone that while conservative (the key word is “originalist”), he thinks he can get confirmed.
The problem for supporters of Roe vs. Wade and other such things is that the rights created or recognized under such actions was done by a vote of 5 out of 9 people. And regardless of stare decis, what the Supremes do they can undo. If you want to make a change that is hard to change back, you need to work through the legislative process, not the judicial one. Anyone depending on the Supreme Court to do this work can end up getting hoisted on their own petard when an administration they oppose has the opportunities this one is having.
A nice sentiment, but I’m real curious as to where NARAL gets this. Where do they think such an obligation comes from?
Yeah, I was wondering about that, too.
… Obama was helped by the fact that the Illinois Reflublicans can’t piss on the floor without hitting their shoes.
To be fair, it’s very difficult to piss on the floor without hitting ones own shoes. Especially if the room is a small one.
How much does anyone think that the withdrawal of support by NARAL and other such groups will affect any Senator running for re-election?
Well, I won’t be voting for either senator from WA. But that’s not because of NARAL, it is because of their votes.
Of the Democrats, who voted for him? Anybody know? I believe my state has a Democratic senator up for reelection next fall, and I want to know how to vote. And I’d like to know who to lobby NARAL to stop endorsing.
Did any Republicans vote against?
It might do to create a new line of defense for Roe, in case the right to privacy doesn’t hold water with the Reich. Bodily autonomy, gender equality, precedent regarding similar situations (i.e. the donation of blood, organs, & tissues are never forced), the idea that the state has to prove “life” begins at conception/implantation rather than viability/birth before it can claim a vested interest in protecting that life, the idea that the state has no right to negate bodily autonomy in the interest of protecting life, the idea that the state has a greater vested interest in protecting bodily autonomy, etc.
Bad news in the morning. I hate that. And I really kind of liked Suicide Girls, too.
The obligation that the President has to nominate a moderate has to do with reflecting the wishes of the people. Most people in this country are not hardline theocratic wingnuts, nor are most people who voted for Bush. He should listen to the concerns of all these people, and see to it that his nominee is acceptable to them.
Considering that Bush clearly stated that he would appoint justices like Scalia and Thomas (or some such sentiment) and was subsequently elected, it seems to me that he is obligated to do what he said he would do.
Kyra,
Here is a list of how senators voted.
“even though he repeatedly refused to answer fair and direct questions, including whether the right to privacy extends to a woman’s right to choose.” (He fairly and directly refused to answer, as many believe is his responsibility.)
I understood that Roberts indicated that precedence had established this in the court? It is a very tenuous extension to base the right to abortion on the privacy clause in the first place. Wouldn’t it be better to have dialog, and pass laws pertaining to choice that protect it specifically; have the court fish out any weak spots and put the matter behind us?
“”I do not believe the vote would be the same if women made up half the Senate and African Americans and Latinos were represented in adequate numbers,” said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority.”
One understands the sentiment, however it is a bit of a generality that all Women, all Latinos, All African Americans etc. will want the same agenda. (There is a good chance the next nominee will be Latino… by that logic, no problem!) It is scary when appointees from underrepresented folks are dismissed as token for failing to espouse a certain philosophy, more than a tad prejudicial.
“As the Court’s swing vote,”
We need to set the record straight, O’Connor is an Arizona Republican, Conservative, and Reagan appointed Justice; I love all the trying to paint her as a moderate, she is not. None are able to see what most Jurists will do in their tenure. Eisenhower appointed Warren, “my biggest disappointment,” go figure. All this itching for a fight by many on the left seems to be disingenuous, and is a bit embarrassing. (I live in the left too.) I want to see qualified individuals (Unlike Burger) appointed to the bench. A replay of the Bork hearings is not a good thing, and may get us a qualified ideolog instead (Thomas/Scalia), rather we should be insisting on an intelligent, impartial, and compassionate person, like O’Connor, not
necessarily based on political orientation. Blessings
“…………he’ll nominate someone that intense partisans might tie those labels to, but not one that the general public will see in that light.” Ron, the general public cannot be depended on to see anything for what it is. Bush is a mentally deficient, military deserter, failed businessman, dry drunk sociopath. Either the public wasn’t able to discern all this despite numerous sources confirming all the above or they voted him in while knowing of but disregarding said deficiencies and faults. That same public can be depended on to acquiesce to his SCOTUS nominee, either through willful ignorance of any apparent extremism and judicial ineptitude or in knowing of such problems and not giving a damn.
That’s “Jeri Ryan,” not “Geri Ryan.” And Ron, your comparison of stare decisis and legislation is bass-ackwards. Legislation is — and should be — easy to change. Judicial precedent, on the other hand, is not — nor should it be.
Thanks for the correction on Ms. Ryan’s first name. As far as stare decis goes, judicial precedent is hard to change, generally – but the Supreme Court is a special case. And if it was easier to get the legislature to create protection for the righ to abortion rather than the judiciary, I suspect that that’s the way that abortion rights supporters would have gone.
Now, that’s not to say that the legislature cannot act capricously. It can. And the courts definitely have a role in protecting us from a “tyranny of the majority.” But then that’s why we have a system of “checks and balances”. Overall, I’d say that over the last 30 years, anyway, the method of choice for making changes in American law has been through the courts, not the legislature. It seems to me that this is the key factor in the polarization we see in American politics right now.
Ron, the general public cannot be depended on to see anything for what it is.
Well, it’s not an exact analogy, but “No one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
Bush is a mentally deficient, military deserter, failed businessman, dry drunk sociopath. Either the public wasn’t able to discern all this despite numerous sources confirming all the above or they voted him in while knowing of but disregarding said deficiencies and faults.
Or, they didn’t evaluate what the sources were saying in the same way that you did. The forged document alleging faults in Bush’s military service pretty much killed off any efforts to discredit Bush during the 2004 election. Lots of people know highly functional dry drunks, often in their families, so while the truth of that seems to be unassailable it’s not an impediment. Lots of people also know someone who failed as a businessman who became successful later, although in this case it was probably because of his dad’s connections (and that’s common enough, too). As far as mentally deficient and sociopath, that seems to be more of an opinion than something for which clinical evidence has been demonstrated. When you make assertions like that in public, people tend not only not to credit them, but to dismiss the people making them as extremists. It doesn’t really serve the cause.
That same public can be depended on to acquiesce to his SCOTUS nominee, either through willful ignorance of any apparent extremism and judicial ineptitude or in knowing of such problems and not giving a damn.
Yup. True ‘dat. Most people just don’t give a damn as long as they don’t see any direct links to it affecting their lives.
Kyra, your alternate line of defense for Roe vs. Wade might be to start trying to work through the legislative process. Work on your local state legislature to make sure that the state has an abortion rights law you favor, because you can bet your life that abortion rights opponents will be planning to do the same thing in a different direction. Another direction would be to encourage organizations such as the Feminist Majority and NARAL to start a drive for an abortion rights Constitutional Amendment.
“The obligation that the President has to nominate a moderate has to do with reflecting the wishes of the people. Most people in this country are not hardline theocratic wingnuts, nor are most people who voted for Bush. He should listen to the concerns of all these people, and see to it that his nominee is acceptable to them.”
Well, the problem there is that President Bush, who is making these nominations, would likely disagree that it takes a hardline theocratic wingnut to support the people that he’s considering nominating, or that his viewpoints on the various topics coming before the Supremes reflect a theocratic viewpoint.
I’m not trying to jerk your chain here. You are saying that Bush is not considering a nominee that represents the viewpoint of the people who voted for him, but I figure that he thinks that he is. I doubt that he thinks of either himself or the majority of his supporters as hardline theocrats.
Use of the term “theocracy” is tough to defend as a method of changing any minds, anyway. When you say “theocracy”, people tend to think of a regime like Iran, where priests are the ultimate authority and only one religion is allowed. That image doesn’t ring a bell when people look at a nomination of someone like John Roberts. I’m sure that Bush thinks that John Roberts is acceptable to the majority of the American public, and my guess is that he’s right.
I’d like to return to Pseudo-Adrienne’s comments on endorsements and the upcoming elections. What do people think the odds are that the votes of various senators on the Roberts confirmation and the presence or absence of endorsements by NARAL (or other such advocacy groups) will have on the re-election chances of such senators.
It would also be worth looking at which ones of these senators are up for re-election in 2006. Only 1/3 of the senators are up for re-election at any one time, after all. And people tend to have short memories.
RonF, I used to think that courts were the place where laws got changed, and then I became a lawyer and found out how completely misguided I was. Turns out that courts and judges are inherently conservative, in that they tend not to want to make wild new rules for anything. The truth is, with the exception of certain hallmark civil rights advances that apparently continue to chap the asses of some people, legislatures have been, and continue to be, the real motors of change in American law. Examples on the federal level include (but certainly are not limited to) vast bodies of federal law regulating everything from the abatement of toxic waste contamination (CERCLA), to the protection of employee benefits programs (ERISA), consumer protection (the FTC, the FDA, the Magnuson Moss Act, the Fair Debt Collection Act, to name a few federal areas of legislation), environmental protection (including the Endangered Species Protection Act), and major civil rights laws (including, but not limited to, the ADA, the ADEA, the Voting Rights Act, the VAWA, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964). Programs like Medicaid and Medicare are other obvious examples of major changes in the law being achieved through legislation. There’s other stuff too that’s not as sexy but still very big, like major ebbs and flows in federal regulation of the transportation industry (including, but not limited to, the Airline Deregulation Act, the General Aviation Revitalization Act, and the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act of 1995). There’s a lot more stuff out there, but this is just what comes to mind after a second or so of picking my brain.
I looked at that voting list. Based on what I can tell by reading the Senators’ first names, women seem to have voted for the confirmation by an 8 to 6 margin. Doesn’t forbode well for Ms. Smeal’s comment along the lines that if there were more women in the Senate, the nomination might have been defeated.
Nolo, you make a good point, and I made mine badly. Let me say this then
Cases such as Roe vs. Wade (at the federal level) and the finding by the Massachusetts Supreme Court that the Massachusetts Constitution encompasses the right to same-sex marriage tend to be very polarizing. It’s because a controversial subject is thereby decided before a consensus is reached in American society, and people feel that their right to be included in the decision making process has been improperly taken from them. When people have no say in a decision, they don’t own the result and will continue to fight it.
and major civil rights laws (including, but not limited to, the ADA, the ADEA, the Voting Rights Act, the VAWA, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964).
Equal rights regardless of race was once very controversial in this country. But as the various laws were passed to change that (as you point out, it was the legislative process, not the Supreme Court’s decisions, that really made racial discrimination illegal), people in general submitted to the general will. IMNSHO that’s because the legislative process, which is a representative one, was used.
But when the judicial process short-circuits the legislative one, people polarize over the issue. And that’s what’s happened with abortion and same-sex marriage and will happen over others. The use of the legislative process (female suffrage is another example) takes longer, but people are much more likely to be willing to live with the end result. Whenever any one side in American culture uses the courts over the legislature to gain their ends, they should expect that the opposition will never accept it and will do anything they can to overthrow the result.
What do people think the odds are that the votes of various senators on the Roberts confirmation and the presence or absence of endorsements by NARAL (or other such advocacy groups) will have on the re-election chances of such senators.
In Washington state it could be critical for both senators. IIRC, Cantwell won by such a small margin that there was a recount. Murray didn’t win in a landslide either. I suspect that when Rossi (lost gubernatorial election by a couple hundred votes after 2 recounts) runs that he will unseat the incumbent.
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RonF, your point has a surface appeal, but what are you really saying? Are you saying that it is not legitimate for courts to rule on controversial subjects? Are you saying that a popularly-enacted law cannot be unconstitutional? Or are you saying that individuals should not go to the courts to vindicate their rights if there is a chance that the result they seek — regardless of whether it is legally sound — may be unpalatable to their political rivals? If so, you’re pretty much throwing Marbury v. Madison out the window. You’re also pretty much pitching the Bill of Rights (not to mention the rationale behind it) out the window as well.
There are a lot more things that can be said about whether courts should feel compelled to make popular rulings (or whether unpopular people should feel compelled to stay away from the courts), but I’d rather quit hogging Amp’s bandwidth. Let me just finish this off with a few questions, and a couple of quick points.
First, tell me what your real beef is with Roe v. Wade and the Massachussetts Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage. Do you feel they are legally unsound, or do you just dislike the ultimate holding of each case?
Second, does the fact that the Massachussetts legislature could not get a majority vote in favor of a constitutional amendment to “correct” the Massachussetts Supreme Court’s recent ruling affect your assessment of the legitimacy (or illegitimacy) of the court’s actions? What about the fact that no constitutional amendment intended to abrogate Roe v. Wade has ever gotten out of Congress?
On to the quick points: With respect to federal civil rights legislation in the ’60s, you have to keep in mind that it only came after decades of hard-fought courtroom battles (and a whole lot of street-level direct action). NAACP lawyers (among others) fought discriminatory laws in the courtrooms throughout the 1940s and 1950s (do you think Brown v. Board of Ed. came out of a vacuum?). In fact, it was back in 1944 that the Supreme Court heard a challenge to whites-only primaries (much to the bitter consternation of southern whites). This was well before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ever got enacted — let alone dreamt of.
Jake Squid—Thanks. Democrat from my state would get my vote, but he’s retiring. Now to figure out how the dozen or so potential replacements would have voted.
FormerlyLarry—I was speaking from the point of fairness to (all) the people of this country, not from the point of what he said he’d do, which I was not aware of. True, preserving the previous makeup of the court is not required, but he promised when he took the oath of office to uphold the rights of all citizens, and a Supreme Court full of theocrats is not going to do that. Although I imagine in his mind it will, as I’m sure in his mind it’s not a violation of bodily autonomy to force someone to do something with their body (because that something is their body’s natural purpose), and in his mind it’s not discrimination to outlaw gay marriage, (’cause gays don’t really love each other like heterosexual couples do), and in his mind it’s not religious discrimination to put Christianity on a pedestal (’cause some of the others aren’t “real” religions, so the first amendment doesn’t apply to them, and the rest are false religions, and why should they have the same status as the True Faith), and so on.
In any case, he sort of has an obligation to appoint a moderate judge, and he sort of doesn’t. (I’d say I sound like John Kerry, except he made up his mind and voted “nay” on Roberts.) In any case, considering that one could argue that Bush has an obligation to be competent, an obligation to be fair, and an obligation to NOT run the country six feet underground pushing Iraq ahead of it, and he hasn’t managed to live up to those, it’s probably not going to make much difference whether he has an obligation to select a moderate or not.
I just remembered a magazine article I read just before the 2000 elections, which had a satirical timeline of predictions for the next four years. In addition to some amusing alcohol-related incidents and a campaign against Hillary Clinton in which neither of them leave Florida, there was an attempted Supreme Court nomination: Bush selected a hardline wingnut and the Senate overturned it. And Bush REFUSED TO NOMINATE ANOTHER CANDIDATE until all the Democratic senators who voted against the guy personally apologized to Bush for making him spend any more time on the matter.
Wish the REAL Bush would throw a tantrum like that. Very useful.
No, it’s perfectly legitimate for the courts to declare that a given law is against the Constitution. Otherwise the legislature could create any law they want and to hell with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Nbody wants that, as far as I can tell. What seems to me that has been happening is that in some cases, such as Roe vs. Wade, the courts have been reading things into the Constitution that are not there and were never there. I’ve not been too happy with calling myself either liberal or conservative, but “originalist” is starting to look attractive.
I definitely believe that there should be a right to privacy. I personally would start with the use of my personal information by marketers, etc. But privacy rights in the Constitution are strictly limited; I don’t see where “prenumbras” allow the court to make new law.
Yes, I oppose Roe vs. Wade. I am of the opinion that a right to privacy doesn’t necessarily extend to having the right to do what you want to something growing in your body that, if left alone, would likely become an independent person. A lot of that gets into philosophical and religious discussion, but it seems to me that the law on the matter should be just that; law, not a court dictate. Justices should rule on the basis of law, not their sense of justice.
The example I’ve been looking at lately has been the right of women to vote. It was unconscionable for women to not have the right to vote. But the situation was set right by the legislative process, though amending the Constitution, not by an arbitrary decision by the Supreme Court.
If a law is at variance with the Constitution as determined by either reading the plain sense of it or by consulting the explanatory writings of it’s authors (such as the Federalist Papers, then fine. But the courts should not be in the business of trying to extend the Constitution into areas where it is silent. The framers of the Constitution itself tried to guard against that with the 10th Amendment. If the Constitution is not clear on a subject, then the courts should leave it to the legislatures and the executive to take care of, as they are accountable to the people.
RonF—Theocracy can also be defined as when the government forces the people to live by the rules of the dominant religion. While it is government and not priests in power, it has the same effect on the lives of the people.
By alternate line of defense I meant another way of arguing the matter in court—right now abortion rights are (mostly) upheld because they are seen to be covered under the right to privacy, but if the Supreme Court were to change its mind on that, in order to keep them judicially protected, we’d have to come up with another reason why abortion rights are rights that need to be upheld by the state. I fully agree on the legislative-route suggestion, but that does not work well in the states that would outlaw abortions in a heartbeat if Roe v Wade didn’t prevent them from doing so. I live in a state that’s halfway decent on the matter, but Ohio has legislation pending that would outlaw all abortions, with no exceptions even to save the mother’s life, and a fifteen-year felony charge for driving someone out of state for an abortion. Roe is, for many states, the only thing upholding the right to choose.
Legislation is generally the preferred method of changing laws. But with issues that affect health, life, and important personal freedoms, where having your rights upheld is more pressing than gaining popular support, the judicial route is much more acceptable. If, for example, people were dying because of an abortion law that had no life-saving exemption for the mother, a judicial ruling that allowed them to get what they needed to live would be a better solution than many people dying while popular opinion caught up with their need. Also, it bears pointing out that while unpopular court rulings create hostility, they also provide a way for people to find out whether the thing they’re so hostile to is really all that bad. After Massachusettes started allowing gay marriages, support for them climbed as people who had been against them found out that they really weren’t hurt by it.
“Bush is a mentally deficient, military deserter, failed businessman, dry drunk sociopath.”
Grammar correction rears its ugly head: that should be something like “Bush is a mentally deficient, military-deserting, business-inept, dry drunk sociopath.”
Hilarious, either way.
RonF—At the risk of opening a huge can of worms, specifically the morality-of-abortion debate, your “I am of the opinion that a right to privacy doesn’t necessarily extend to having the right to do what you want to something growing in your body that, if left alone, would likely become an independent person” comment is why I am pushing for alternate lines of defense for abortion rights. The right to privacy may not legitimately cover that; the right to abortion stems more from the idea that the fetus does not have a right to the body it’s living in, which belongs to the woman, and that the woman therefore has the right to get the fetus out of her body. A defense of abortion rights along this line, or perhaps along the line that the state does not have the power to force someone to use their body in this manner, slavery having been outlawed, would be a much stronger argument and more likely to win over a moderate-to-conservative court. Not trying to jerk your chain, either, Ron, and let me say I’ve never heard a criticism of Roe that even came close to yours in terms of both politeness and logic. (Note to any lurking trolls: see, this is dialogue.)
Yeah, we could go back and forth on the morality of abortion, but not here and now. As far as my tone goes, it has been my observation that, paradoxically, the louder you yell at people the less likely they are to hear you. People also tend not to listen to you if you seem more interested in justifying yourself than your position.
While I don’t agree with your position on abortion, I do agree with your main point; that an alternative basis for abortion rights is necessary if the proponents thereof want to keep them and make them more resistant to the make up of the Supreme Court.
On to the quick points: With respect to federal civil rights legislation in the ’60s, you have to keep in mind that it only came after decades of hard-fought courtroom battles (and a whole lot of street-level direct action). NAACP lawyers (among others) fought discriminatory laws in the courtrooms throughout the 1940s and 1950s (do you think Brown v. Board of Ed. came out of a vacuum?).
Of course, one could argue that Brown v. Board of Education is a perfect example of the courts making a decision against the popular will and thus polarizing people and creating a backlash.
The fact of the matter is, a major effect of desegregation was that white families fled the innercity to the suburbs, so their kids would be in a different school district, and when courts tried to use forced busing to undo that, would either flee farther away or put their kids in private school.
Glaivester, do you think Brown v. Board of Ed. was wrongly decided? I’m curious to hear your views. I’m also curious, as a native resident of a city that is somewhat famous in the annals of busing history, to know why I should blame white flight on anything but white racism.
Glaivester, do you think Brown v. Board of Ed. was wrongly decided?
As a matter of interpreting the constitution, I don’t think it was warranted. As an issue of cosmic justice, I think you could argue that the justices were right, at least in what they envisioned would be the result of their decision.
But my point is that as a practical matter it was ineffective, because whites facing forced integration tended to flee rather than accept integration.
“I’m also curious, as a native resident of a city that is somewhat famous in the annals of busing history, to know why I should blame white flight on anything but white racism.”
Blame the flight on what you like, the point is that trying to force the integration of the schools did not cure the racism, it simply caused the whites to flee, which had a negative effect on the tax base, thus hurting the schools. In other words, as a practical matter, Brown was a failure because of unintended consequences that none of the people supporting the decision seemed to consider.
It seems to me that from a practical standpoint, it would have been better to have forced more spending on the black schools; if you did that, you would have achieved the actual goal, which was educational parity, without, I think, quite as many unintended consequences.
Glaveister, white flight began in the 1950s and 1960s, well before busing was ever mandated anywhere. To some extent it was merely a reflection of racism as it was reflected in the disparities in economic opportunities available to inner city blacks and whites. It also arose, however, from the practice of “blockbusting,” in which real estate speculators would profit from white racism by selling property selectively to blacks in order to take advantage of predictable flight of their white neighbors.
As for saying Brown v. Board of Ed. wasn’t warranted, I have to ask you whether you’re actually acquainted with its holding. In Brown, which you can find in its entirety here here, the Court held (and unanimously, I might add), that state laws requiring the segregation of children by race in the public schools violate the Fourteenth Amendment and are unconstitutional. Nothing less, but certainly nothing more. Do you think the Court should have ruled otherwise? And if so, what do you think the Court should have done?
“The obligation that the President has to nominate a moderate has to do with reflecting the wishes of the people. Most people in this country are not hardline theocratic wingnuts, nor are most people who voted for Bush. He should listen to the concerns of all these people, and see to it that his nominee is acceptable to them.”
It would be quite impossible for Bush to nominate a candidate acceptable to all people, even all of his constituents- the handful that remain. The President has the prerogative of nominating whomever he/she feels is competent and supportive of his/her views. That’s all. The Senate has the right to advise and consent. That’s all. All Chafee said when Bush pushed Boltan through(paraphrase)- we exercised out prerogative under the law. He exercised his.” Bush is under no *obligation* to leave the court in the same idealogical balance as it was when he took office. In fact, his role as President( as someone of assumed wisdom…quit snickering), allows him to seat judges for whom he feels the court will most benefit. Presidents have always done this. After all, Clinton certainly felt no compunction to maintain the “balance” of the court when he replaced conservative Byron White with Ruth Bader-Ginsburg.
What goes around comes around.
It’s hard for me to understand why a police officer (or a court) claiming the right to decide what I should or shouldn’t do with my uterus is not an invasion of my right to privacy. My uterus is not a public space. I’m just saying…
Sorry, pressed Post too soon.
What I mean is: It is perfectly logical that a right to choose abortion in the US shall be based on a right to privacy. Enforcing a law that makes abortion illegal is only possible if you allow that women have no right to privacy of the uterus and no right to medical confidentiality with any regard to any part of their reproductive system.
Nevertheless, it might well have been better for women in the US had the legislation been based, as it was in my country, squarely on the pro-life stance – that abortions must be made legal, because saving lives is more important than taking a hifalutin’ moral stance that means women suffer and die.
Anyone who is arguing that abortion ought to be made illegal is arguing for women suffering and dying (or else has simply never thought through the consequences and is living in a happy fantasyland where making abortion illegal does not lead to illegal abortions). That is an effective argument.
But then, to my mind, so is the point that my uterus is not a public space, and that I have a right to basic medical confidentiality. The argument that women don’t have such a right seems to strongly violate the US Constitution in itself.
Jesurgislac,
We are in agreement with the privacy issue where it relates to piercing etc. and as you so aptly put it, it is your uterus. The conundrum arises when the issue of the life that is in the uterus comes into play, which we all are aware of. There is plenty of Jurisprudence dealing with legally controlling what happens in private. (One cannot legally use heroin, kill themselves, etc. even in private.) In many places one cannot alter what they legally own such as felling adult trees etc. The right to individual privacy is regularly impinged upon when it affects an interested third party or is dangerous to the individual or society. The privacy clause is a weak one to hang this issue on, and it makes it an either or thing that is subject to the composition of the court. Creating laws that protect the right as well as framing it within acceptable contexts would insure safer, less emotional and a more civil basis to deal with the issue. Blessings.
Rock: The conundrum arises when the issue of the life that is in the uterus comes into play, which we all are aware of.
Nope: this is only a “conundrum” if you think I have no right to privacy. If you acknowledge my right to privacy, my uterus, and its contents, are mine to make decisions about.
As Jeanne at Body and Soul points out (somewhere) the whole principle behind the anti-choice movement is that the woman who is pregnant is not the best person to make decisions about her pregnancy: someone else ought to make decisions on her behalf with the legal power to override her decisions. The whole principle is one of disrespect for women.
The right to individual privacy is regularly impinged upon when it affects an interested third party or is dangerous to the individual or society
The argument that anyone but the woman who is pregnant is “an interested third party” is really, really shaky. (With the arguable exception of the man who provided the sperm: but, if they have a good relationship, he’ll be involved in the decision anyway: if they have a bad relationship, the law has no business empowering him to make decisions for her.)
Making abortion unsafe and illegal is provably dangerous for the individual women: and forcing women to become criminals in order to end an unwanted pregnancy is bad for society.
Creating laws that protect the right as well as framing it within acceptable contexts would insure safer, less emotional and a more civil basis to deal with the issue.
I agree that women in the US would be safer if a federal pro-choice legislation was passed that cast the debate strictly in pro-life terms: making abortion illegal/unsafe is wrong, and the anti-lifers who want to see women suffer and die ought not to be tolerated in public debate, no more than pro-torture people ought to be tolerated. Unfortunately, there are a large proportion of men in power who see disrespect for women as a useful campaigning tool, and so support anti-choice laws. It would be better, finally, if the US had a system of government that allowed people to vote for politicians who would actually represent their views in government. Given that the political system in the US is unlikely to change any time soon, I would hang on to the respect implied in the decision that women do have a right to privacy, if I lived in the US.
Where I support the right for women to have a safe and legal means for abortion, I do not arrive at that opinion from the same reasoning as you do. Your apparent refusal to see that there might be a reasonable doubt in your premise is disconcerting, just as the extreme positions of some of the anti abortion folks is also.
As far as NARAL and all, it would be great to pressure our reps into doing something that looked more like representative Government. I do not believe they have much power as those who are pro-choice are not going to be voted out over a Supreme Court position. It may be counter productive to undermine a sitting Dem. Over this, (if that is who you support) to where they could be replaced by the opposition. Blessings.
Rock: Your apparent refusal to see that there might be a reasonable doubt in your premise is disconcerting
You find it “disconcerting” that I do not see any reason for my uterus to be declared public property? Believe me, what I feel about that line of thinking is rather more intense than just “disconcerting”. My uterus is private. Any concept of “reasonable doubt” that it’s not private is, frankly, obscene. This is not an extreme position to take: to argue that a woman’s right to privacy is “extreme” is just… bizarre.
just as the extreme positions of some of the anti abortion folks is also.
Oh, for god’s sake. The “extreme position” of an anti-choice anti-privacy campaigner is that doctors who carry out abortions deserve to die for it. If you’re seriously comparing a women’s right to privacy with an anti-lifer commiting murder, that goes beyond bizarre into the deeply offensive.
Ones uterus is not the point in question; it is the life within it that gives one rational pause. As much as a civil person can recognize the right to govern ones body, and recognize that women have been marginalized for too long: one can also see that few are as marginalized as a voiceless child in the womb. Hysterionics aside, with something as precious as life, questioning ones premises is simply prudent.
Your leap to suggesting murder as a position is ludicrous and rude. Homicide is not an extreme position, it is pathological behavior. To be able to at least see how someone could come to the conclusion that a baby in the womb is a person and as such would have rights, even if one does not agree with that premise, is not a difficult concept. What would anyone loose by getting to respect that there is gray in the discussion? What would folks have to gain? Respect for each other for one, isn’t that the best place to start to find a solution to most issues? There are few things as dangerous as a true believer, assured that their belief is the only way. (There are few things in life I am that assured of which I would cease to question; as a matter of fact, when I think of one, I will let you know.) Blessings.
A friend was reading Alas last night on my machine, and apparently changed the address to respond or something. “Pennywort” should be “Rock.” Sorry for the any confusion. (Heck, I am confused.)
Pennywort: These things happen! not to worry about it.
Rock: As much as a civil person can recognize the right to govern ones body, and recognize that women have been marginalized for too long: one can also see that few are as marginalized as a voiceless child in the womb.
Oh, please. This kind of language is used by people who don’t give a damn about marginalizing these “voiceless children” once they’re born – it’s rhetoric that’s made use of, not out of care for children, but in order to marginalize women by turning us into incubators.
Your leap to suggesting murder as a position is ludicrous and rude. Homicide is not an extreme position, it is pathological behavior.
You are using language such as “a voiceless child in the womb” that strongly suggests you think of abortion as homicide. Certainly that kind of language is used by the anti-choice extremists who support the murder of doctors who carry out abortions.
To be able to at least see how someone could come to the conclusion that a baby in the womb is a person and as such would have rights, even if one does not agree with that premise, is not a difficult concept
It is a difficult concept when it’s my uterus, Rock. (At a guess, you’re male, at a guess, you’ve never been pregnant, and no guess needed, you lack the human empathy necessary to think what it would be like to be pregnant and not want to be.)
Fetuses do not have legal rights, because by definition they cannot have legal rights without subtracting legal rights from a woman who is pregnant. To argue that women deserve lesser or less secure legal rights than men – which is the basis of the argument that fetuses are “people” with “rights” – is not a grey area: it’s fundamentally wrong.
There are few things in life I am that assured of which I would cease to question; as a matter of fact, when I think of one, I will let you know.
Do you ever question the idea that you have no right to control your own body? That, for example, should someone need one of your kidneys to survive, you feel have no right to make the decision whether or not to let them have it: their need is sufficient to permit a court to order you to be taken in hospital, anesthetized, one of your kidneys removed, and transplanted to someone else – and if you refuse or resist, you should be prosecuted or jailed and your kidney taken from you anyway? That is your argument – writ large – when you argue that I have no right to control my body.
Hm. Well, Bush’s personal lawyer may be a theocratic fascist, but I’ll bet she’s not a misogynist. If confirmed, she’d join Ruth Bader Ginsburg as having not been a judge before becoming a Supreme Court Justice. I wonder what she’s done besides being Bush’s lawyer.
I wonder what she’s done besides being Bush’s lawyer.
Apparently everyone’s wondering that.
Jesurgislac,
You are correct that I am a guy and have no intimate knowledge of what it is to be pregnant myself. (Not much we can do to change that, however we do what we can to understand how it might be.) I do not believe that one who aborts a child or has an abortion is guilty of murder. (Though ones motives could conceivably make that a possibility.)
You are also correct that I am very much pro life, in the broadest sense. All life it seems to me is treated too cheaply. It is IMO hopeless to try and increase the respect for humanity (women’s rights, gay rights, rights for the poor etc.) while reducing the value of it on other fronts, (war, racism, religious intolerance, abortion, etc).
I do try and understand what it is like to face the specter of being pregnant and being scared from it, especially if one considers the baby a person; how awful that choice would be. I would not consider judging one who makes a decision in either sense. The analogy to forcibly taking an organ does not compare though. It is my belief that granting the unborn with a higher status than benign tissue would give greater value to all personhood. That greater care would be taken in all relationships. By raising the care we show for the weakest of those in our society can’t help but to increase the compassion that we extend to the rest of creation.
I would hope that one needing a kidney, bone marrow, blood, platelets, a lobe of lung tissue etc. would be granted that from those of us that have them to give. It is by God’s incredible design that we have excess of many tissues to contribute to our brothers and sisters in need. This is not a burden, but a Blessing.
The analogy to forcibly taking an organ does not compare though.
Actually, it does. A fetus requires a uterus in order to grow into a possible person. The anti-choice view seems to be that a potential person, a person that doesn’t exist, but might later on, has more rights to the organ than the woman whose body the uterus is in. So it does sound like they are saying that taking and using an organ is OK. As long as it is only women that it happens to. After all, it’s not like a pregnant woman is a person herself: she is simply an organ, an incubator, a whole body support system for a potential person that doesn’t yet exist. Simply by becoming pregnant, a woman loses any recognition as a person in her own right. And other people feel they have the right to decide how her organs are used.
Mousehounde,
“After all, it’s not like a pregnant woman is a person herself: she is simply an organ, an incubator, a whole body support system for a potential person that doesn’t yet exist.”
I do not see what the need is to hurt with words like this. If anything, I would think by now you would understand that this is not my feeling or belief in the least. Were it so would I remain strongly in the right to choose camp? Were it so, would I have taken very open and un-PC (in my arena) stands for the promotion of women in the workplace and the Church? Were it so, would I have been an advocate for women’s shelters and healthcare for the homeless? I have ministered in AIDS homes for families, long term homes for single moms, and shelters for the battered. The desire to marginalize me and my beliefs to a dehumanizing and marginalization of women is wrong. Affording recognition to the personhood of the unborn child does not have to come at the expense of the recognition of the humanity or the rights of the woman. Isn’t that the very fear and argument used by the anti SSM folks? That by recognition it will reduce the value of the rest of marriage? What nonsense. All I am saying is that we recognize that the new life, the unborn do have a stake in the discussion. That they are there and by their presence demand some recognition as stake holders, and by seeing humanity as such we enrich all of us. (I have to go, my depression is really harsh right now, I will address the kidney thing when I feel better. I am glad you spoke to me mousehounde) Blessings.
To continue,
A kidney or any other organ is of the substance of the person endowed with it. It is genetically speaking of the same substance. To loose an organ is to have it be gone from one for ever in most cases. In many cases there is a redundancy so as to give one the option or the safety of loosing one. Organs in and of themselves do not posses souls. (If one understands a person to posses one.)
An infant in the womb is not of the same substance as the mother, is not genetically identical, is not an organ, posses a soul, and is only very temporarily physically associated with her. The uterus is not removed, damaged, or compromised in most cases, and is occupied as a result of human behavior. In either case the individuals involved, the stakeholders have final control especially in the case of pregnancy. (It is interesting; in ancient Hebrew there is no word for ownership of anything, the words used mean, “it is to me.” That is we belong to God and all we have belongs to God as nothing can be taken away or added to. Ashes to ashes dust to dust; we are simply caretakers and stewards. I like that very much. When what we have we share with God, how much greater the value of the things we are entrusted with?)
It is not for the Government to dictate whether a person has control of their bodies unless the person is a danger to themselves, others or because of pathology. Granting a person is a person from the time they are conceived will broaden the discussion and raise human worth and hopefully motivate our society to have greater regard for all the weaker ones amongst us. Will give rise to greater respect for the cause and care of women in general; will hopefully move people to show greater care in providing healthcare and prenatal care for all women and children; will acknowledge the sacred responsibility to care for those that have the responsibility of caring for the new life that God blesses us with through them; will provide the momentum to support greater education and greater care in relationships and lower unplanned pregnancy. And hopefully will raise the consciousness of men as to be more mindful of how vulnerable many women are and to be responsible for themselves and accountable for their actions.
The recognition of rights that have been historically withheld has broadened and increased compassion in each situation that has experienced liberation. Are we better off as a result of lifting the restrictions from people of color? Are we better off for granting greater recognition to the equality of women? Will we be better off for granting that GLB folks are entitled to the same status as the rest of humanity? Compassion is a tide that raises all of our horizons. Acknowledging the sanctity and value of life increases humanity and grace every time. Sharing in the suffering and care for one another binds us all together in ways that is stronger than can be explained solely by the cost of sacrifice itself. We are not a bunch of individuals looking out for number one, but parts of a much larger body that is affected by each others actions. Love for one another and respect for life is a good thing. Blessings.
Wow, Rock, you have exceeded your usual standard of eloquence. That was one of the best defenses of the personhood of a fetus I have seen in a long, long time.
I think one of the main problems with the abortion debate is that it has become excessively all-one-not-at-all-the-other, pitting the owners of the uterus against the users of it. The bottom line to me (as I have stated elsewhere on this blog) is that abortion is a type of justifiable homicide. But unlike most other kinds of homicide, the sole role of the government should be making sure it is carried out safely and by qualified people.
Lee, thank you for the encouragement.
The idea of justifiable homicide does not sit well with me. I would hope that by raising the bar with regards to the value of life, the need for abortions would go down dramatically, especially those that are caused by rape and incest, both of which are intolerable. (It is a mystery to me that they do not garner as much interest as pro-life/choice debate…) A healthy dose of respect for others certainly would go a long way to achieving both ends. Blessings.