Writes Karla Adam, in "France votes on adding abortion rights to constitution — a reaction to U.S." (WaPo).
Inference isn't what it used to be. As Elena Kagan famously put it years ago: "We're all textualists now." And "all" means all.
March 4, 2024
"While other countries have inferred abortion rights protections from their constitutions, as the U.S. Supreme Court did in Roe v. Wade..."
"France will be the first to explicitly codify in its constitution that abortion rights are protected. France is not interpreting its constitution; it is changing its constitution. Activists and politicians have been transparent that this is a response to what has been happening in the United States since the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022 and determined that the right to abortion has no constitutional stature — it could no longer be inferred from constitutional privacy protections."
Writes Karla Adam, in "France votes on adding abortion rights to constitution — a reaction to U.S." (WaPo).
Writes Karla Adam, in "France votes on adding abortion rights to constitution — a reaction to U.S." (WaPo).
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35 comments:
That sounds like people looking for something to do.
Well that will show us!
France is doing this because of what America did (which was undo a bad SC ruling). Boy I feel SO had!
They worried the courts of France will be "tainted" by the SC and also figure out that there is "another" life involved in a woman's "right" to choose?
Also, as most here know but some (here and elsewhere) refuse to acknowledge is that this "right" was only returned to the states to decide, as it should have remained from the start.
Ann Coulter on Dobbs and states and constitutions
I think you’re clearly right This – abortion is really hurting Republicans. I don’t think you can blame all Republicans for this. I’m glad it was overturned by the Supreme Court, I think. I’m a pro-life zealot, I think it was disgusting to call that a Constitutional right But it has been sent back to the states, that’s all we ever wanted, And guess what pro-lifers? We’re getting slaughtered. There have been seven direct to the people votes. And the tiniest restriction on abortion loses overwhelmingly. In Montana, in Kentucky, Kansas, states that Trump won by 20 points and it isn’t Republicans per se, I think pushing this, it is these pro-life zealots. who just – they don’t care, I’m going to be pure, and did you see my write-up in the Catholic Insight magazine? And you know, you guys, you’re like the corporate Republicans who will not give up on their cheap labor. We have to tell them, “We can give you some things, but we can’t give you everything or we’re just gonna lose.”
French lawmakers will vote in a special meeting at Versailles on whether to add abortion to the constitution as a “guaranteed freedom.” The bill needs the approval of three-fifths of lawmakers
interesting way to change their fundamental rules.. 60% of the legislature gets it done.
It's as easy to change France's constitution as it is to get a law pass the US Senate.
The amendment doesn’t change the status quo or the content of legislation as it stands today. For instance, it is not suddenly legal for any reason to terminate a pregnancy after the 15th week of pregnancy.
Maybe we should put THAT into the US Constitution?
not legal for any reason to terminate a pregnancy after the 15th week of pregnancy?
Displays of stupid are de rigeur maintement…
If this federal "right" is so important and so popular why, in 50+ years, has nobody tried to promote an amendment?
Perhaps because it is not as popular as the media would have us believe?
Perhaps because of the enormous amounts of money raised every year by both sides because of the controversy?
And...?
John Henry
People really really want to murder their own children. Humanity is lost.
People really really want to murder thier own children. Humanity is lost. However, Moloch/ Baal sure is happy! The more things change, the more they stay the same (especially true if you read the bible).
"...this is a response to what has been happening in the United States since the Supreme Court..."
Americans developed the Monte Cristo as a response to what was happening with a pan-fried sandwich the French called 'Croque Monsieur'. We 'beefed' it up with more ham, plus turkey and more cheese, because America. So there.
I wonder how many WaPo readers will be upset to find that the 'right' of abortion isn't really in the Constitution, and that it was an inference from an inference all along?
Or that there is actually a procedure for amending the Constitution.
Or that there is no 'right' to abortion in France.
So no matter what happens to France's demographics, the legislators will not have the option to restrict abortion. It's like having pacifism enshrined in the your constitution, and not being allowed to raise an army when attacked.
rhhardin said...
Ann Coulter on Dobbs and states and constitutions
"I think you’re clearly right This – abortion is really hurting Republicans."
Mmmm. Not as much as you'd think.
it will be interesting to see where this is at in another 20 years
(actually, i'm GLAD that i WON'T be around to see it)
between
plan B..
and birth control pills being sold at gas stations..
and most men NOT having sex, because women Don't Want them..
and MOST women not having children..
In another generation (just 20 years away..), will "abortion" even be a thing?
with rapidly falling populations.. and the United States being a latino 3rd world country..
will "abortion" even be a thing?
"We 'beefed' it up with more ham, plus turkey and more cheese"
So a Monte Cristo is a croque monsieur + a croque madame? It's a "croque 'the beast with two backs'"?
Keep women affordable, available, reusable, and taxable, and the "burden" h/t Obama of evidence sequestered in darkness h/t WaPo.
Human rites performed for social, clinical, political, criminal, and fair weather progress, in diverse liberal sects. #HateLovesAbortion
Six weeks. #NoJudgment #NoLabels
Generally, discourage the performance of human rites. Women, men, and our Posterity deserve better. Human deserves an opportunity to remain viable.
The abortion law in France is 14 weeks, a week less than the Mississippi law that was challenged and led to Dobbs.
I find it odd that a party that embraces individual rights and freedom should be so hard-nosed about abortion. Pregnancy is perhaps the most consequential event in a woman's life, one that will completely change the trajectory of her life. And we're willing to do that based on what amounts to religious beliefs. Medically speaking, a fertilized egg is not a human being. It is potential life. But maybe your religion is right, abortion is a sin, and the mother will go to hell for it. That's the chance she's taking, not you. Seems like to make that decision is the ultimate individual right. I'm all for splitting the difference, meeting in the middle at 15 weeks or 16 weeks, a compromise, partly because I think a society that treats abortion like a tonsillectomy becomes soulless. But still. To be so hard-headed about it, when so much else is on the line for the whole country, well it seems just plain dumb and antithetical to respecting individual rights and loving America.
I think all of the "constitutional privacy protections" have been inferred by some iteration of the Supreme Court, and are susceptible to be dis-inferred by another iteration. Same with other 'constitutional' rights and limitations that are extra-textual such as SCOTUS' prohibition against capital punishment for crimes committed before the age of 18.
Moloch is alive and well in the hearts of many in France and the US.
Polling has been rather consistent for a couple of decades, generally within margin of error.
a) Six percent want prohibition of nearly all abortion, except for saving the physical life of the mother, ectopics, profound deformation, and so on. It's a safe bet these people are Republicans, and they divide about 50-50 men and women.
b) Twenty-two percent want absolutely unrestricted abortion: any woman/female, any reason, any stage of gestation. It's an equally safe bet these people are Democrats, and they divide about 25-75 men and women, especially single and divorced women.
c) In other words, 70 to 75 percent of the electorate favor RESTRICTIONS on abortion, which is a crushing majority, but that's not how things work at present. Political choice and affiliation divides about 33-33-33 for Republicans, Democrats, and independents.
d) Six percent out of 33 percent is 18 percent of Republicans, which is definitely enough to influence the party, but it cannot possibly control it. In contrast, 22 percent out of 33 percent is 67 percent of Democrats, which is not only enough to control that party, but to dominate it completely.
However, any dreams of a Constitutional amendment on abortion come straight from the fever swamps. It must pass by two-thirds of each chamber of Congress. That will not happen. If by some fluke it did, the amendment would have to be ratified by 38 state legislatures. Republicans control 33 state senates, so there is no hope there, if you've got anamendment to ratify. In fact, 22 states have the trifecta of Republican control -- both houses, plus the governor.
The ultimate irony is this ... the proposed French constitutional abortion "enshrinement" is even more strict than the Mississippi law upheld by the SCOTUS Dobbs decision which so upset Democrats.
Moloch is alive and well in the hearts of many in France and the US.
I can see the movie posters now: "A Supreme Court decision so horrible, so devastating, so dangerous, that other countries are changing their own Constitution - just to make sure it never happens there ! ! ! " Complete with pointy-breasted women, their crimson-lipstick mouths wide open as they flee in terror.
Ann Coulter is not right about much, but she is pretty much right about this. To make the laws you want, you have to win elections first. Funny how the latter is somehow a secondary objective to some Republicans.
So, if I read this right, the French can assure the right to abortion ( before a deadline that would create the scream heard round the world in the US) through a 60% vote.
So this bedrock, sacred assurance can be reversed by a similar 60% vote?
Color me unimpressed.
The way we understand our earliest days affects what we think we are doing in an abortion. Women tend to think that "it's jelly"; "It's formless"; "it's not human." But science would say that from the earliest moment we existed each of us was shaping our own human body, the only one we'll ever have.
What is the "earliest moment we existed?" The chromosomes from the sperm and egg each double as they approach each other inside the egg. This doubled group of chromosomes is lined up by the spindle along the pole to pole line of the egg and then divided into two cells each with the same chromosome set. This, in my view, is the "moment of conception" - the formation of two cells each with the unique chromosomal composition characteristic of that individual from then on.
This individual is located by the upper end of the Fallopian tube and it sets out along the tube to find the womb at the other end, doubling and redoubling its cells in a patterned way as it goes. After five days this little individual has 512 cells, shaped into a small ball with two compartments. One compartment is solid and the other has an open interior. The individual rolls off the edge of the tube and lands on a small alp, as it were, on the side of the womb. The individual has a construction on the part of the ball with an open interior which allows it to attach to cells of the womb. Through this this child sends a signal to its mother: "I am here." And the mother changes her body to connect with and to nourish her child. Meanwhile the little individual constructs a tube from the womb cells to its inside by which to send nourishment. Directly on the other side of this tube attachment inside the little ball there are 8 cells pressed against the side. The tube attaches to the center of these cells, a moment immortalized in each of us in our belly button, and the cells push away from the wall back in the interior space. All the rest of the ball except these eight cells becomes the amniotic sac enclosing the forming child.
So this little individual has taken a journey, has found food and has constructed a shelter for itself.
And on the seventh day it rests.
No. The eight cells, while dividing and increasing in number, now form themselves into a rod with protrusions or "buds," some what like a shoot on a plant with buds. These "buds" develop into a head, and arms and legs. The rod has an interior in which, after six weeks, there is a beating heart. Then, as it approaches 18 weeks, the individual is differentiating as male or female. A female develops Fallopian tubes and eggs and the eggs undergo one mitotic division and then suspend their action till the individual reaches puberty; a male develops testes without sperm until he reaches puberty.
All this - arms, legs, head, heart, sex differentiation - has happened or is beginning or is actually happening as this individual approaches and passes 15 weeks of life. This is why prolifers, who know these facts, wish human life to be protected from the moment of conception. How can this period in an individual's life be rationally separated from any other period in the sense that this human life has no human rights? This period is just a period of development in this life like any other. If this time in one's life has no rights, why does any other?
It is such a burden to have to codify things rather than create them out of thin air. I am loathe to point out that the right to privacy could be applied to activities other than abortion, but generally aren't.
Some receive their moral guidance from God, while others infer their ethical instruction from the twilight fringe... and so it progresses.
Conservatives also opposed slavery, diversity, political congruence, redistributive change, labor arbitrage, ethnic Springs, and NOW (pun intended) human rites. Oh, the humanity! Where will it end?
This is the way to do it.
If you want constitutional protection, put it in the constitution.
No more penumbras and emanations.
As it is now, SCOTUS made the correct call...it's a state issue.
In the mean time, let Bill Maher and Barbra Streisand pay for them.
Why infer rites? South Africa codifies human rites, among other transcivil practices, in its progressive constitution. Does the PRC still reserve the right of State's Choice?
The Euronews article on the same topic includes this detail:
"Abortion has been authorised in France since 1975 when legislation led by then health minister Simone Veil decriminalised the practice in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
The time limit has since been extended to 14 weeks, with the cost of the procedure covered by the national health insurance system."
(Maybe the WaPo article included it too, but I couldn't get behind the paywall.)
14 weeks is less than most states in the US so I'm not sure this is the pro-abortion victory it's being portrayed as.
When is a human being not considered a "person" in the context of it being unlawful for one human to intentionally kill a "person"?
Simone Veil decriminalised the practice in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
That's close to the period of six weeks following conception where the legal criterion in all 50 states recognizes viability in bubbie et al and presumably personhood of baby, too. Vive la France!
Roe was used by abortionists to frame a handmade tale with empathetic appeal to sell Roe, Roe, Roe your baby... fetus down the River Styx. Today, women and girls have also been sold by the Democratic party for CAIR, trans/sims, trans/socials, social progress, etc.
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