US Supreme Court to overturn Roe vs Wade
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Join Date:Posts: 15173
Demographically speaking they have definitely hitched their wagon to the wrong horse in the longer term.
Evangelicals are a rapidly dwindling group and despite what you might think listening to GOP Politicians , religiosity in general is declining in the US across the board and its more rigid extreme forms are declining at an even faster rate.
Right now, White Evangelicals are a wealthy, organised and influential cohort , but they absolutely have a rapidly shortening shelf-life.
It's also why they are so rabidly focused on "Election integrity" as they know that the harder they make it to vote the longer the influence of middle aged White hyper religious people will be impactful.
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A thread I've noticed running through for years on a site I visit though which seems to have been shown to be wrong was the idea that the Republicans mostly pushed this crap without the intention of actually doing it, so they could always depend on evangelicals. I somewhat see the point the Republicans have always tried to portray themselves as the party who actually gets stuff done and this is a good one to prove it. For decades they've been ratfucking for this outcome and they finally got it.
I would love to see a survey in 3 months to see just how many votes change. For all the shouting, let's be honest 90%+ of the protestors were never voting Republicans. Are any of the states with trigger laws in danger of turning blue? I very much doubt it. Wait a couple of years, normalise, chip away in a few purplish states. Then in a decade when people run on a pro-choice platform shout them down with "What about jobs? The economy? Terrorism! Whatever country the army is in now!" and it'll work again because the few percent of votes that might actually have changed will whittle down again.
Obviously it wouldn't be great "messaging" right now but the democrats and their buddies need to cop. the. ****. on. and play the **** game. It's been going on 15 years that I can remember properly, the Democrats have the supports and even when they have the levers they never quite seem to do what a majority of, not just their voters, but the population overall support and voted them in to do. **** fund a few candidates even where they won't win. https://electoral-vote.com/#item-9 is a good example. The Democrats have given up on rural areas for a long time, basically told them their decline was inevitable and to get over it and guess what? The people told them to **** off. Get out there in all 50 states whether you'll win or lose. Come up with a 5-10 page easy to read and understand policy book that sticks for 10 years unless something massive changes and go from there. When it's a bit icky to gerrymander, get the **** over it. Delay everything the GoP want to do. The RBG replacement situation was hilarious, tragic, pathetic and worst of all 100% completely predictable. The "left" (because it's not the Dems and it's not even really the left) obsess about niceties and conventions and making points that don't actually achieve anything. Ginsberg held on because she wanted her replacement to be chosen by the first woman president. And now Row v Wade will be overturned. I've read bits and pieces about how the judges all claim to be above politics. Was RBG really that **** stupid to think that the fuckers sitting on the bench with her had any principles when it came to this nonsense? I dunno, maybe the Democrats will look at the Ukraine situation and finally realise or accept that when one party isn't behaving reasonably then there's usually little benefit to the other party to behave reasonably. And of course to harp on about what a great characteristic that is to have while a sect of religious and political extremists get to run the country.
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I've read articles from the 90s saying the same thing. Yet almost 3 decades later they're still getting their way. And in this case doing it in a way that likely won't be overturned for another 2-3 decades. By which time the support bases for both parties will have changed plenty. They're bastards, they're not stupid, by that point they'll have found another angle.
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Join Date:Posts: 15173
I'm reminded of the Michelle Obama quote - "When they go low , we go high".
That's great in debate club at University , but it's f%&k all use in the real world when the other side has no depth they won't plumb to get the win and no shame about it either.
The Democrats have repeatedly failed to show the necessary organisation and stomach for the fight that absolutely has to happen and sadly it might take the fall-out from this and the next few dominos that will fall as a result of this change to force them to step up appropriately.
I do genuinely believe that most of the GOP leadership (both visible and invisible) really don't want the religious extremism but they were absolutely happy to pander to them to get what they really wanted , which is money, power and influence.
How they deal with the outcome of their rabid dog finally catching up to the car will be interesting to say the least.
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Join Date:Posts: 15173
Sadly you are probably not massively wrong - They have the SCOTUS for at least the next decade if not more ..
The accelerated decline in the Evangelical population has been very significant in recent years but the impact and influence will take longer to fade away for sure.
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“If you really like Donald Trump, that’s great, but if you don’t, you have to vote for me anyway. You know why? Supreme Court judges, Supreme Court judges,” Trump said at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
{mosads}”Have no choice, sorry, sorry, sorry. You have no choice,” Trump continued, calling the late Justice Antonin Scalia a “great guy” and acknowledging tied decisions at the Supreme Court after his death.
Trump said the next president “will probably have three, could be four, could even be five” appointments to make to the Supreme Court, alluding to the ages of senior justices.
Trump dismissed critics who speculate he may appoint liberal judges and said if Hillary Clinton appoints judges: “You’re going to end up with another Venezuela. You’re going to be Venezuela.”
Trump also pledged the agenda to appoint Justices exclusively to overturn Roe in the 2016 Debates.
Meyers touched on a lot of these pieces of evidence in his monolog
WALLACE: You just said you want to see the court protect the Second Amendment. Do you want to see the court overturn Roe v. Wade?
TRUMP: Well, if we put another two or perhaps three justices on, that's really what’s going to be — that will happen and that will happen automatically in my opinion because I am putting pro-life justices on the court.
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If you're going to plagiarize...
"Nearly 40% of all abortions in America since Roe v. Wade have been from Black Americans. This equates to more than 20 million Black pregnancies aborted. That would be the equivalent to either the populations of New York or Florida. Yet Black people make up just 14% of the U.S. White people account for 35% of all abortions as the majority population in the country."
Gary Franks doesn't offer any citations for this either.
Reportedly, he was for abortion, until very recently when he adopted this theory that abortion is a racist institution. But he also supported Clarence Thomas and opposed the Civil Rights Act (one of them, anyway)? I'm sure he has a very interesting newsletter but as a politician no less and someone with opinions which may not always have been rooted in fact, I don't think people should just take him at his word, IMHO. I'd like to see the sources.
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Tbf we touched on this subject disparity in secondary school ....its long time known......peoples motives/sudden concern around it can be questioned,but the disparity is still there and same across income catagories
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Personally I believe it should always be left up to individual states.
Because of its the difficulty of passing constitutional change there would never be a population wide referendum like in Ireland.
Thus leave it to individual states to decide rather than imposing something on them with all the difficulties that has caused.
Eventually population shifts or the decline of the republican party might bring change in individual states.
It's amazing the concern for the unborn in both Ireland and some states given the indifference to poor children in both jurisdiction.
Don't get me wrong abortion is a terrible thing and more should be done to prevent it but until we create a society that really values kids - it has to be an option for women
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But here's the thing again, it's all workable, but only one side will get their hands dirty. RBG wanted some silly personal legacy and finally gave the people she'd spent years with a chance to get their way again. And seriously, when it comes to courts anyone who has any faith in them shouldn't be taken seriously. Talking about the judges getting done for perjury, come on the ****. Lawyers, solicitors and barristers will tell a jury who just watched a 4K video of a defendant holding his drivers licence with a copy of the day's paper while shooting someone that their client is not guilty if that's what they're told to do. So I'm sure they can come up with some bullshit argument or simply say they've changed their views since. These fuckers set up the system for themselves remember. The legal system is for the benefit of the legal profession, not the people or the nation. That applies here as well as the states.
In 20 years things will have changed again. And the Democrats' hilariously naive assumption that a bunch of Mexicans crossing the border will finally make them dominant will either pan out or peter out. I think the split is currently roughly 2:1 in the Democrats' favour, and that won't take long to change when the Republicans feel they have to. At the same time the level of delusion among the left is alarming. The amount I saw cling to "Trump only won by like 70k votes in 3 states" but not entertaining the fact that 4 years later Biden won by 43k votes across 3 states (It's a silly argument but illustrative). They ran 2 elections against a **** clown and lost one and only just won the other one while gaining nothing in the other races. Democracy is a great system in principle but it requires engagement from the bottom up and while I'm sure the democrats feel like they need to make the most of the outrage right this moment I doubt it will help them that much in the medium term.
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You'll also find that the rate has been naturally dropping among all racial groups. And the thing is people such as yourself and members of the GOP don't give a crap about providing fiscal and social supports for those raising children. Things like that will reduce abortions. Making them illegal only makes women put their lives at risk to have an abortion without medical supports.
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The GOP have been making impressive inroads with the Hispanic community recently tbf.
The polling on abortion in the Hispanic community is soft and skewered by each side to get their desired outcome, but their is clearly support to be made when it comes to abortion restrictions.
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Look, my point is that in a nation like the US or the UK for that matter, countries with a long and stable constitutional system and tradition, for any attempted coup to be successful it must have widespread institutional support. Without that it always fails.
Trump's hope for Jan 6th was that Republicans in the Senate would challenge votes from states where "dubious" voting practices had occurred. This had support from about half of Republicans in the House but had less support in the Senate where the process actually takes place. Yes, some Trumpy characters like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz supported it but a lot of Republican Senators opposed it too. Mike Lee, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham etc. all opposed it. We now know that Kevin McCarthy in the House was livid with Trump at the time.
7 out of 50 Republican Senators cast votes to overturn elections in certain states. With four of those reversing themselves after the riots. VP Mike Pence rejected the strategy completely. This strategy had nowhere near enough support among Republicans to be successful.
As for the riots, I don't believe for a second that Trump intended for the crowd to storm the Capitol. This does not excuse Trump for lying to them and letting them believe the election was stolen and not ardently condemning them when the riots started. The riots were put down within hours and the election was certified that day. As I said, this was the worst planned and executed insurrection in American history. It was dealt with at the time and people on both sides need to get over it.
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Sure.
I think for both parties is how do you get the balance right going forward?
Tim Ryan refused to say he supported any abortion restriction in a fox clip which has gone viral, it was a gotcha and while I sympathize with him, best of luck with that stance in Ohio.
Although if you are Glenn Youngkin who pulled off a very impressive win in Virginia,,,would he have won if this was an issue back then? Nope.
Anyway its a while until November, so looking closer , their is a Dem primary coming up soon between a Dem "pro life" candidate and pro choice one.
Clyburn has got involved and obviously has decided to back the candidate who is more likely to win in November. He gets a lot of slack online, but Clyburn is a winner.
https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1521989731629867008
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/04/jim-clyburn-henry-cuellar-democrats-abortion-election/
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Whatever about the principle, has that borne out anywhere? Because living in a shithole with zero supports tends to indicate far, far higher birthrates. Scandinavia with their excellent healthcare, childcare, all the usual lefty stuff has consistently had low birthrates. Same in most of the most-developed countries.
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And policies like that helped Finland have a 34 year old female Prime Minister.
Can't have that happening.
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All of your posts responding to me have proven that people on your side have no interest in debate or discussion at all.
This tiresome trend of using the term "misinformation" to label anything one disagrees with as not simply an honest difference of opinion, something that might be discussed and hashed out, but rather a malicious and cynical attempt to deceive people.
This term that was originally used to describe attempts by foreign governments to deceive us has now filtered down into every political issue and is being thrown around like a frisbee to shut down conversations. It spells the death of civil dialogue and you seem to be wholeheartedly embracing it.
Nonsense.
Prisoners, black people, and school children have heartbeats and feel pain but somehow the American right is more than happy with their being murdered.
It's about misogyny and control. Nothing else.
Really? Putting aside what a complete red herring this is since America had 45,000 gun deaths in 2020, 54% of which were suicides leaving about 20,000 homicides. As for black people, about 13 unarmed blacks were killed by police in 2019, the year before George Floyd was killed in a country with 42 million black people. Meanwhile 1 million unborn humans are aborted year on year in the US and you question which is of greater concern to the pro-life right?
That said do you actually think the right is happy with blacks and school children being murdered?
"misogyny and control"... Simple as that eh?
I guess the advantage of being as ideologically possessed as you are is that you always have a simple answer for everything.
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I'd love to see that data based simply on socio-economic and educational data which I suspect would have far greater correlation.
Generally speaking Back people in the US are much more likely to be living at or below the poverty line ,much less likely to have completed high-school or any kind of tertiary education etc.
The complete lack of Social supports and education absolutely leads to these scenarios.
The "racist" element is not Abortion but the lack of care and attention paid to the poorest and least educated elements of society long before it ever comes to someone having to make that kind of decision.
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They state:
"This much is true: In the United States, the abortion rate for black women is almost five times that for white women. Antiabortion activists, including some African-American pastors, have been waging a campaign around this fact, falsely asserting that the disparity is the result of aggressive marketing by abortion providers to minority communities."
This angle of attack seems to have pepped up in the last couple of days in the online zeitgeist. This is particularly the reason why if someone is going to quote someone who is doing that, that they at least get their numbers right..
https://triblive.com/opinion/gary-franks-black-babies-are-nearly-40-of-us-abortions/
So why is this happening? Is it a silent genocide within America? After all, abortions would amount to a 50% reduction of the Black population. Today, there are 46 million Black Americans.
I supported the so-called pro-choice position while in Congress. These are votes I regret today, and I pray for God’s forgiveness on so many levels.
I am not declaring Planned Parenthood during the early part of the 20th century a racist organization, and definitely not today. But you can judge for yourself based on the content of this column.
Which is a bit gaslighty, like if I said don't picture your mother having hot moaning sex with your dad, because hot moaning sex with your dad isn't the point I'm making, I'm just over here fanning rose perfume and slow jazz and it's not at all my intention to make you picture your parents having coitus even though I can't stop mentioning it in my article. If it makes you feel better I had to think about my own parents in the making of this post.
Post edited by Overheal on0 -
You don’t give any indication of whether or not you agree or disagree with the Senators comments being presented out of context in the headline, but for what it’s worth, this was the context in which she said what she said:
“Rape is a difficult issue,” Schmidt said. “But if a baby is created, it is a human life and whether that mother ends that pregnancy or not the scars will not go away, period. It is a shame that it happens, but there’s an opportunity for that woman – no matter how young or old she is – to make a determination about what she’s going to do to help that life be a productive human being … That child can grow up and be something magnificent, a wonderful family person, cure cancer, etc.”
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Schmidt’s remarks were delivered in reply to a Democratic colleague had specifically asked her if her bill would force a 13-year-old girl who is raped to have the baby.
It was a loaded question asked in bad faith, but apart from that, it also exposes another issue - the idea of the assumption that women and girls in the US who become pregnant as a result of being raped, should automatically want to have an abortion. It’s impossible to get reliable statistics on the numbers of women and girls in the US who become pregnant as a result of rape, who then choose of their own volition to have an abortion, but the number of women and girls who give pregnancy as the result of being raped as the reason they choose to have an abortion, is approximately 1% of the total figure of women and girls who have abortions, or 25,000 in 3 million -
On the other hand, smaller proportions of women in 2004 than in 1987 said that having a baby would interfere with their job or career (38% vs. 50%), that they were not mature enough (22% vs. 27%), that their husband or partner wanted them to have an abortion (14% vs. 24%), and that they and their partner could not or did not want to get married (12% vs. 30%). In both surveys, 1% indicated that they had been victims of rape, and less than half a percent said they became pregnant as a result of incest.
https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/psrh/full/3711005.pdf
In the most basic terms - abortion does nothing to address the issue of men who commit rape.
In Senate hearings, nominees to the Court are questioned more on political and social matters, than on legal ones.
Nominees are questioned on political and social matters rather than legal ones in order to assess their moral character and fitness to hold office. Questioning nominees for their legal opinion on legal matters would be over-politicising and would inevitably lead to accusations of political bias from all sides. Had it not been for McConnell acting the prick, Gorsuch would not have been appointed.
While initially there were cheers from those people who claim to hold conservative values - generally misanthropes, miscreants and outright spiteful sorts who are in favour of abortion when the outcome means that fathers would not have to pay child support if there is no child to support, let alone saving the State (or from their perspective, “taxpayers”) needing to provide financial support to unmarried mothers for their children, the kind of idiot who attempts to argue in favour of “paper abortions, cos equaliteeee”, they were actually very quick to criticise when Gorsuch did what Gorsuch was appointed to do -
https://newrepublic.com/amp/article/157418/neil-gorsuch-lgbtq-rights-conservatives
The decision in Dobbs v Jackson Womens Healh Organisation might well be the undoing of Roe v Wade, or it might not. It depends upon how the law is interpreted and applied, and to whom it applies -
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/roe-decision-constitution-wasnt-written-for-women.html
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Black women continue to have the highest abortion rate at 27.1 per 1,000 women compared with 10 per 1,000 for white women, according to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health.
According to which study? You have not cited.
You say it continues but my best guess is your elusive citation is an article that is a study from between 2008 to 2014. The thrust of the paper being that Abortions were going down overall fell by 25% across the time period.
Conclusions
Disparities in abortion rates correspond with disparities in unintended pregnancy.
Not only do women of color and those with family incomes less than 100% of the federal poverty level have higher rates of abortion than do White women and those with higher incomes, but they also have higher rates of unintended birth. Equitable access to widerange family planning and contraceptive services would better allow women in underserved populations to avoid unintended pregnancy, but these efforts alone will not eliminate these disparities. Efforts should also be devoted to making sure that women who want abortions are able to have them without having to overcome financial and logistical barriers.
Laws and policies that make abortion more difficult to access have a disproportionate impact on groups overrepresented among abortion patients, particularly those who are poor or low income. Future research and interventions focused on abortion and unintended pregnancy should seek to understand the underlying causes of disparities in these outcomes, because this information could inform a comprehensive set of policies and programs that benefit all women
The paper makes no attempt to suggest that certain groups of people are culturally or racially predisposed to seeking out pregnancy more often. The study's conclusion was that the disparity was chiefly explicable by disparities in wealth and healthcare access, not as is being eluded to, some conspiracy to target black fetuses for termination procedures.
Also from their abstract:
Results. Between 2008 and 2014, the abortion rate declined 25%, from 19.4 to 14.6 per 1000 women aged 15 to 44 years. The abortion rate for adolescents aged 15 to 19 years declined 46%, the largest of any group. Abortion rates declined for all racial and ethnic groups but were larger for non-White women than for non-Hispanic White women. Although the abortion rate decreased 26% for women with incomes less than 100% of the federal poverty level, this population had the highest abortion rate of all the groups examined: 36.6. If the 2014 age-specific abortion rates prevail, 24% of women aged 15 to 44 years in that year will have an abortion by age 45 years.
Conclusions. The decline in abortion was not uniform across all population groups.
Unless there has been some more recent study showing that the abortion rates have spiked in any or all of these groups I don't think we can assuredly say that it hasn't gotten better, reportedly the longitudinal trend is downward as wealth and access to proper facilities increases not just for abortions where necessary, but contraception and family planning education and access.
You'd have to elaborate, I have no awareness of your question as a fact. I'm up to the gills with Tim Scott's supporters in my State who blame Democrats for our poor education system, when this state is consistently ranked at the bottom, and has been perennially governed by Republicans at every level of local and state government. I think people who may pick up or repeat the line that 'Democrats Cities are where all the Blacks are' may not, exactly, have all of their ducks and a row, either.
I don't think the latter part of your question is pertinent to the thread, neither is it accurate, and that is a much larger discussion. I mentioned Tim Scott, he is just one example, of exemplification that not all purple voters are necessarily swayed by the same views as race as you or I. Republicans have made noteworthy political gains in appealing themselves to Black American voters in recent years, and so this false axiom that Democrats and Black Americans are culturally and institutionally one and the same or something, is getting increasingly obsolete...
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I'm not sure I agree with much of any of that take but I think we'd be getting off the rails; it's all debatable right now, perhaps I will see you in a thread in June when the insurrection public hearings happen. There will be much more known and less unknown then about the extent or lack thereof of institutional supports for keeping Trump in power.
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Republicans have made noteworthy political gains in appealing themselves to Black American voters in recent years, and so this false axiom that Democrats and Black Americans are culturally and institutionally one and the same or something, is getting increasingly obsolete...
It’s become obsolete as a result of Black Americans becoming increasingly disenchanted with Democratic politics though. Democrats have made it easy for Republicans to gain ground, not least in part due to their own gaffes - Hillary when she gaffed about referring to anyone outside of the Eastern seaboard as a basket of deplorables, doubled down, displaying egregious hubris.
Biden at least showed some humility when he gaffed that if black people voted for Trump, they ain’t black. ‘Twas an awful gaffe, and it would be uncharitable to put too much emphasis on it when the intent was obviously coming from a good place, but there is real hope for Biden if he manages to pull off his plan for American recovery with specific focus on issues which Black American voters actually care about, and not what Democrats argue Black American voters should care about, such as easier access to abortion, when what they really care more about easier access to education, healthcare and employment. It’ll be interesting to see does the plan live up to the hype -
https://prismreports.org/2021/10/27/to-build-back-better-we-must-build-back-black/
Because for all his talk of “Yes we can”, the fact is that Obama, didn’t -
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/13/barack-obama-legacy-racism-criminal-justice-system
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None of that shift has regarded abortion or a genocide conspiracy though. Obama overpromised what Article II cannot deliver on its own. He also got completely roped into several years of trying to "reach across the aisle" to a party that was never there in good faith to begin with; you have to understand, President Obama had to hear arguments from actual white nationalists in Congress on a regular basis, even if everyone was trying to gaslight him. You had the spin machine every day on Fox putting out propaganda that made POTUS wonder if intervention would be political ammunition for the whackadoodles who were already saying and doing things about him that made him sound like an autocratic clone of Adolf Hitler long, long before it became an outcry issue that Obama was not more political or vocal about the criminal incidents involving police brutality. Very effectively, stupidly, and frustratingly, the conservative movement bluffed Obama into a number of moves during his presidency that included scaring him out of taking a Trump-like vocal opinion on individual criminal cases even if they concerned members of law enforcement committing hate crimes. It was also seemingly that the GOP duped him into nominating Merrick Garland in the first place, as once Orrin Hatch name dropped Garland in this famous and viral quote, he was so-nominated within 24 hours:
“The president told me several times he’s going to name a moderate [to fill the court vacancy], but I don’t believe him. [Obama] could easily name Merrick Garland, who is a fine man. He probably won’t do that because this appointment is about the election. So I’m pretty sure he’ll name someone the [liberal Democratic base] wants.”
The GOP, famously, spent months then refusing to hold so much as a hearing for Garland, saying Garland was a radical, extremely left socialist plant etc. etc. and leaving the seat vacant and advancing us to the stage we now find ourselves in with the imminent overthrow of Roe.
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I don't feel like I made that loud enough in my last post,
The GOP kept Scalia's seat vacant, to overthrow Roe
The GOP appointed Gorsuch, to overthrow Roe
The GOP appointed Kavanaugh, to overthrow Roe
The GOP appointed Barrett, to overthrow Roe (and to satisfy Trump's stipulation the nominee would be a Woman)
We know this, because Trump told us this when he was running for office as the leader of the Republican Party, whose own charter now basically just reads "whatever Trump says" (Compare, prima facie, to the 2012 RNC Platform: https://ballotpedia.org/The_Republican_Party_Platform,_2012)
The Republican voter would ordinarily be cheering something like this as a campaign promise spectacularly delivered, but they aren't, because of the political backlash of actually getting rid of abortions.
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Wtf are you on about?
Yous asked about details/sources surronding the 40%/disparity in numbers,someone highlight it long term known and yous start talking about me mother having sex,whats wrong with you
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I'm responding to the source of the claim. I apologize if the example I used was upsetting to criticize their blatant attempt at manipulating their readers into subscribing to an opinion that the author all but winks and nudges at them being urged to take.
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USA: If you can't afford kids, don't have them
Same USA: We're forcing you to have this kid
USA: Spend millions to fight for unborn
Same USA: Once born the child is on their own, no matter the poverty
These "conservatives" are not pro-life, just pro-birth. Or have I missed where they are accepting of higher taxes to fund true welfare state?
Accessible healthcare, employment protections, accessible education etc?
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The democrats could codify Roe tonight. Why won't they?
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They cannot. The votes do not exist, even if you were to assume that the filibuster wasn't in the way or that Republicans would agree to a floor vote.
Q So, the President spoke pretty passionately on the tarmac about the Alito draft being an affront to basic rights. But he also said he was not ready to commit to ending the filibuster to codify Roe. Why?
And is there a disconnect here between the passion and what needs — what he believes needs to be done?
MS. PSAKI: Well, first, let me say the President’s position is that we need to codify Roe, and that is what he has long called on Congress to act on.
What is also true is that there has been a vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act which would do exactly that, and there were not even enough votes, even if there was no filibuster, to get that done.
So, I would note, in his written statement that we released this morning — I’m just going to reiterate what he said in this statement. He said, “…if the Court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose” — to do exactly that. “It will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November. At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation.” And that was speaking to exactly where we are with the votes.
I would note that while we’ve been in the air, Leader Schumer noted that he had plans to bring this up for a vote.
In actual point of fact then the Democrats have already been trying for months in the 117th Congress to get the WHPA passed through the Senate.
It passed the House in September by a slim majority of votes, staunchly along the party line.
Effectively, the issue boils down to Democratic Senators who oppose ending the filibuster.
Two Senate Republicans – Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – have introduced their own legislation earlier this year to codify Roe v. Wade into law. But it adds in exceptions, including a “conscience” measure that would keep in place laws protecting health care providers who object to performing the procedure on religious or moral grounds. Collins, at least, has indicated she won’t get on board with the bill Schumer plans to bring up next week.
With the threat of another filibuster, Democrats acknowledge they can’t advance such legislation with it in place. That reality has sparked another round of calls to gut the filibuster, or at least do so to specifically strengthen abortion rights.
But Democrats still don’t have the votes to make a rules change and reform the filibuster, and they’d need all 50 to agree. Democrats tried the approach earlier this year when they sought a one-time talking filibuster to help them break the logjam on voting rights legislation, but two of their own – Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona – opposed the effort.
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