supreme rulers

The issue of the moment is a little beyond my wheelhouse, and I don't normally comment on this sort of thing, but I have some thoughts on the overturning of Roe v. Wade. First, I just want to go over the ruling itself, as there seems to be a lot of basic ignorance of what happened exactly. 

We had a Supreme Court ruling half a century ago, giving women the constitutional right to have an abortion. This prohibits legislators from legislating otherwise, at any level, state, local, or federal. Now with it overturned, states can legislate against abortion as they see fit. Every state will be different, covering the whole gamut, depending on how religiously conservative the people in the state tend to be, etc. In most of the country, the law probably won't change.

This ruling was based on our constitutional right to privacy, the idea being that familiar slogan, "my body, my choice" - a pregnant woman should have final say over her own body, free of any government regulation. We've been treating this as settled law for decades, despite the fact that this rationale has to allow for exceptions. Once you allow for exceptions, the federal supremacy of the ruling falls apart. If there are times when our bodies can be regulated by law, every state will decide their own exceptions.

This has already been the case, to a great extent. Every state placing different restrictions, such that it was nearly impossible to get an abortion in some states already. This ruling has been a much more incremental change than people on either side want to admit. This has a whole lot to do with the specific nature of the ruling. It has always rested on precarious reasoning.

Calling abortion a privacy issue never adequately addresses abortion itself, except to create the exception for a fetus being "viable." This is a complex medical issue. We need laws that get very specific, based on modern science. The constitution doesn't say anything about it, and SCOTUS is supposed to be ruling on constitutionality. 

There needs to be a constitutional basis for SCOTUS to take up a case, and while there's risk of over-reach, laws could also be carefully crafted to avoid it. The problem is that there isn't enough support in congress to pass any such federal laws. Democrats need to win more elections, but wait, they already control both houses of congress and the presidency. They vote blue no matter who, but it turns out, it does matter who.

As always, they need to win more before they can do anything. Republicans can always dismantle progress, even while they're the minority party, and Democrats are always helpless to do anything. So they're historically unpopular these days, and unlikely to gain any seats, let alone enough to matter. Thanks to the pandemic, they've briefly taken control of government, under the brilliant leadership of a racist old clown with dementia. They've already squandered the only chance they'll get. They'll be lucky not to lose big in both 2022 and 2024.

What's surprising has been watching the shift in public opinion. More support for the overruling than I'd expected. Public opinion may turn out to be an additional obstacle. Defining fetal viability can be problematic. If an abortion is done carefully enough to protect the fetus, and then measures are immediately taken to keep it alive, viability shoots way up. Instead, it's almost necessary to do the opposite. You can't have aborted fetuses surviving, often with severe birth defects, but occasionally entirely healthy. Holy shit would that complicate the issue. No worries, though. They never survive..?

Lots of countries have settled around limits of 12-16 weeks, because it does become a much more complicated issue shortly thereafter. Many US states put the limit at 22 weeks, but some go to 27 and beyond. Roe v. Wade was never really an adequate basis for abortion law. Striking it down is unfortunate, but a relatively incremental change to an existing controversy in this country. 

Public opinion may not be on Democrats' side anymore. They can't win elections anyhow. Even when they do, they can't legislate anything but corporate tax cuts, bailouts, and ever increasing funds for war. They haven't held a majority in the Supreme Court ever, in my entire life. They certainly won't be turning that around any time soon.

Like everything else in US politics, sorry, but it's not going to be getting better. All evidence seems to suggest it's only getting worse. China's doing pretty well though. Abortions are safe and legal there. Russia, too. While suicide rates in the US have doubled in the last two decades, suicide rates in Russia have fallen by half in the same time frame. The yuan may replace the dollar as standard global currency, soon. I hear the ruble is also doing pretty well. 

All is not hopeless, just the west and the corrupt imbeciles ruling over us here.