Roe v Wade Overturned

[Omegstrat6]

I'm always a little confused about different states in America having differing laws rather than one set of laws that governs the whole country and admit to being ignorant over why this happens as it would be a bit like different counties being able to have different laws here in the UK. That said, I appreciate that the US is a vastly larger country with a far greater range of cultural differences and understand Robus's point about people wanting to be governed by local representation (We the people) rather than by a central government many hundreds of miles away. I'm assuming that there also remain significant cultural differences between the old Southern and Northern states as an example?

As individual states are so vast, I guess the passing of some more controversial laws (such as an anti-abortion one) could still impact on a significant minority who did not vote for them. Democratic systems will never be perfect and I have often thought that proportional representation would be fairer for example in the UK but I assume that PR is not adopted in the states either?

Excuse my ignorance but maybe someone could explain to me how some laws govern the whole country whereas others are left to indivdual states to decide and what part the Constitution plays in this. Thanks in advance.

[mickd1961]

This is a subject that has long made me feel queasy.

My wife and I lost two babies during pregnancy and before our third child was born.

The first of these pregnancies was at somewhere around the four month stage and after the initial scans had looked good.

A few weeks later my wife suddenly stopped having morning sickness which was unusual because she had been sick from start to finish with the first two kids.

She just said to me one day that she didn’t feel pregnant anymore which seemed like an odd thing to say.

So she ended up going for a scan and the child was dead inside her!

So she had to go through something similar to an abortion to get rid of the child.

It was a devastating experience, I think only the death of my dad tops it in terms of emotion.

31 years have passed and it’s a subject we don’t revisit and in truth we hardly spoke about it back then.

At moments such as when I read this type of thread I suddenly find myself back at that time and I beat myself up mentally, I can’t believe we didn’t find out the *** of the child and name it and bury it properly.

It just wasn’t something that seemed to be offered back then, it was removed and binned, disgusting to be honest, I’m ashamed of myself I didn’t do more to respect that poor mite.

I believe that if a women feels she has to abort then this should be her right without interference but it should be limited to the least number of weeks possible.

At the stages it’s allowed to be done you’re basically murdering a child with a high % chance of living were it to be born.

Even though we didn’t want a fourth child we could never have got rid of a fourth or a fifth.

[Robus]

Here are a few passages from the Dobbs decision today. I find the logic flawless.

"Like the infamous decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, Roe was also egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided. Casey perpetuated its errors, calling both sides of the national controversy to resolve their debate, but in doing so, Casey necessarily declared a winning side. Those on the losing side—those who sought to advance the State’s interest in fetal life—could no longer seek to persuade their elected representatives to adopt policies consistent with their views. The Court short-circuited the democratic process by closing it to the large number of Americans who disagreed with Roe..."

"Without any grounding in the constitutional text, history, or precedent, Roe imposed on the entire country a detailed set of rules for pregnancy divided into trimesters much like those that one might expect to find in a statute or regulation..."

"We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Four****th Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty..."

[Robus]

I'm always a little confused about different states in America having differing laws rather than one set of laws that governs the whole country and admit to being ignorant over why this happens as it would be a bit like different counties being able to have different laws here in the UK. That said, I appreciate that the US is a vastly larger country with a far greater range of cultural differences and understand Robus's point about people wanting to be governed by local representation (We the people) rather than by a central government many hundreds of miles away. I'm assuming that there also remain significant cultural differences between the old Southern and Northern states as an example?

As individual states are so vast, I guess the passing of some more controversial laws (such as an anti-abortion one) could still impact on a significant minority who did not vote for them. Democratic systems will never be perfect and I have often thought that proportional representation would be fairer for example in the UK but I assume that PR is not adopted in the states either?

Excuse my ignorance but maybe someone could explain to me how some laws govern the whole country whereas others are left to indivdual states to decide and what part the Constitution plays in this. Thanks in advance.

As far as I know PR is not common in the US. We vote for individual candidates in individual seats. Does PR assume a party system where the voters choose the party, then the party receives some number of seats to allocate among its candidates?

There are strong cultural differences between states but I wouldn't choose the Mason-Dixon line as the divider. Former Confederate states like Virginia were moving to a radical pro-abortion position. The Democrat former governor of that state, a physician himself, suggested it might be appropriate to deliver a child and THEN decide whether to kill or spare it. That got national attention and helped contribute to his defeat by a Republican candidate, Younkin. Tennessee is run by the most lukewarm RINO (Republicans in Name Only) Republicans you can imagine by has a trigger law that gave legislators the option to ban abortion in the event that Roe would be repealed. I'd be surprised if anything of the kind happens there. Florida was on the verge of flipping from Republican to Democrat-majority a few years ago. Thanks to Ron DeSantis, his refusal to lock the state down during COVID, and his willingness to stand up to the trans lobby, Florida has swung back in a conservative direction.

[Dubbag]

In Ireland we use PR.
It's a fairer system then first past the post.
If you have 10 candidates standing in an election.....in theory you can vote for all in order of your first, second preferences votes etcetera....down to 10.
Each area up for grabs will have a quota result based on the total eligible voters in an area.

If say after the first count candidate "A" received 6,000 and the winning quota for that area is 7,000 then who ever came last on the first count is eliminated and their first preference vote are then distributed among candidates left.

If candidate "A" received an extra 400 votes transferred from the elimanted candidate then he moves closer to been elected.

[Omegstrat6]

Although the Reform Act of 1832 corrected much of the unfairness in early political representation in Britain it is still the case that the current Representation of the People Act is a "majoritarian" system that could be bettered in order to produce a fairer result. Currently the First Past the Post method means that a party who actually get 1/3 of the votes cast may, indeed, get 1/3 of the seats but it could also get them as much as 1/2 or as little as none. Some constituencies obviously have higher populations (and therefore voters) than others, yet still only have one elected MP.

PR is a system where parties gain seats in parliament in proportion to the number of votes cast for them and, as such, can e said to be more truly representative of the voting public.

[Omegstrat6]

Still a little shaky on this but maybe Robus can help clarify for me?

From what I understand, Constitutional Law in the US is based on the original Constitution of 1789. These laws are the only ones that embody the rights and regulations that govern the whole country and so regulate Federal , State and local governments. Various amendments have been added over time. Constitutional rights include:
freedom of speech 1
Freedom of religion 1
Right to bear arms 2
Freedom from unreasonable search or seizure 4
Protection from self incrimination 5
Due process of law and the right to trial by jury
Freedom from discrimination on basis of race, ***, religion 14

States can introduce additional laws but they cannot violate any of those passed under Constitutional law. The Supreme Court oversees Constitutional Law but any decision made by this court can still be ovet-ridden if 3/4 of the states disagree.

Have I got this right?

[Robus]

Omegstrat6, your reading of the separation of powers under the Constitution accords with my own. The Founders assumed that states would govern their internal affairs while delegating specific, enumerated powers such as national defense, tariffs, regulation of interstate commerce, etc.

Historians like to mention that after the Civil War, Americans began to speak of THE United States rather than THESE United States. There has been a steady erosion of state powers in favor of federal ever since.

The floodgate opened during the Roosevelt Administration, when the federal government arrogated unheard-of powers. The chink in the armor of federalism has been the Commerce Clause in the Constitution, which grants the federal government power to pass laws regulating foreign trade and trade between the states. Courts have interpreted that clause to be absurdly broad. By pretending some tangential impact on trade between states, the federal government has passed laws regulating every aspect of life within the states.

We do actually have an Amendment, the Tenth, that allows to states ALL powers not specifically delegated the federal government. Courts have refused to take that seriously, even as they have distorted the Commerce Clause.

At this point, there is no stable dividing line between state and federal powers that I can see. It is a battleground over which we fight. This decision is a case in point. The SCOTUS decision in the abortion case yesterday found that there is NO constitutional protection for a right to abortion, and hence returned the power to the states. If the Democrats had the votes (which they don't, but someday might), they would immediately enact a federal abortion law that would be imposed on the states--via in the Commerce Clause.

[Omegstrat6]

Thanks for the response Robus. I take it then that if a potential right or law ( such as the right to abortion) is not already enshrined in the Constitution as an amendment or otherwise this then allows individual States to decide whether or not to implement it because they cannot be in violation of a right/law that isn't there?

If a majority of 3/4 of the states can override an amendment in the Constitution though and remove/change it, does the same principle apply to adding rights/laws to Constitution? So, if 3/4 of states wanted to add an amendment to the Constitution (e.g. rights to abortion or degree of gun control) would this mean the Supreme Court would have to allow it?

Sorry to be a pain, just trying to get my head around it!

[Robus]

SCOTUS would have to defer to a constitutional amendment.