Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade?

Few things frighten righties and their unpopular views like the majority having their say!

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The Dems should really send a thank you fruit basket to Sam Alito after every special election…

Quote: AZDuffman

Yes, because if a constitution can be changed by simple majority it is a road to tyranny.

Ohio's Constitution has been this way for over 100 years!!! Until recently, the state seems to be doing fine. Ohio's original Constitution was ratified by less than 60% and would have been by a simple majority.

Just...what world am I living in where a staunch conservative is unironically arguing that the people should have less control over their Government? I'm probably going to have to bow out of these discussions sooner than later. I can't do this s*** anymore.

I mean, I know most Republicans couldn't spell, 'Principle,' if I spotted them eight letters, but this is a new low, even for you guys. This is truly unforgivable.

Quote: Mission146

Ohio's Constitution has been this way for over 100 years!!! Until recently, the state seems to be doing fine. Ohio's original Constitution was ratified by less than 60% and would have been by a simple majority.

Just...what world am I living in where a staunch conservative is unironically arguing that the people should have less control over their Government? I'm probably going to have to bow out of these discussions sooner than later. I can't do this s*** anymore.

Conservatives want change in government and laws to be not so easy and indirect. This is even more true when it comes to the governing document. This is because we see how a "mood" can get people to want crazy things. It is why the USA Constitution was set up to make it hard to change. Additionally, most changes lead to less freedom.

Quote: AZDuffman

Conservatives want change in government and laws to be not so easy and indirect. This is even more true when it comes to the governing document. This is because we see how a "mood" can get people to want crazy things. It is why the USA Constitution was set up to make it hard to change. Additionally, most changes lead to less freedom.

That's the U.S. Constitution; it impacts the entire country.

There is really no evidence that you can point to that would indicate that Ohioans have been irresponsible with their ability to amend the Constitution with a majority vote. In order to do so, 60% of both bodies of Congress have to vote to bring it to ballot, where greater than 50% of the public must agree with the Amendment; this two step process actually makes it more difficult to change the Constitution (obviously) than if you simply needed a 60% vote in both Congressional bodies, because it's an added step.

Alternatively, you must collect and verify 10% signatures of the number of people who voted in the most recent gubernatorial election, of which there must be at least one citizen signature from half of the counties. After about twenty other steps, then it goes to ballot. This has occurred 71 times (or something like that), of which, 19 of those (I'm sure of that number) have passed.

Despite what would appear to be the relative ease of getting something on the ballot, citizen-initiative Amendment proposals have a much higher fail rate than do Government-initiative Amendments. Overall, more than half of Amendments have succeeded.

Of course, many of these Amendments (if not all) do not dramatically transform the state. For example, that there exists a state Board of Education was a matter amended into the Ohio Constitution, that counties may have multiple probate judges and that there be casinos. If fewer than 50% had not wanted casinos, then there would not be casinos.

Of course, I'm sure that the Founding Fathers absolutely intended that the laws of a state become harder to change. I believe that you would argue in favor of totalitarian rule if it meant that Conservative social objectives were being met. Are you even in favor of the foundational principles of this country-yes or no?

Quote: Mission146

Of course, I'm sure that the Founding Fathers absolutely intended that the laws of a state become harder to change. I believe that you would argue in favor of totalitarian rule if it meant that Conservative social objectives were being met. Are you even in favor of the foundational principles of this country-yes or no?

I want laws to be hard to pass and I would prefer most to all laws have sunset provisions so they have to be reconsidered every 10 years or. That alone would keep more new laws from happening.

Quote: AZDuffman

I want laws to be hard to pass and I would prefer most to all laws have sunset provisions so they have to be reconsidered every 10 years or. That alone would keep more new laws from happening.

The matter on the ballot in November, which is very secondary to the implications of switching to 60% (in general), says the following:

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A "yes" vote supports amending the Ohio Constitution to:

establish a state constitutional right to "make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions," including decisions about abortion, contraception, fertility treatment, miscarriage care, and continuing pregnancy;
prohibit the state of Ohio from interfering with this constitutional right, except when the state demonstrates "that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individual's health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care;"
allow the state to restrict abortion after fetal viability, defined as "the point in a pregnancy when, in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient's treating physician, the fetus has a significant likelihood of survival outside the uterus with reasonable measures;" and
prohibit the state of Ohio from banning abortion when, in the professional judgment of a physician, an abortion "is necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health."

A "no" vote opposes amending the Ohio Constitution to establish the constitutional right to "make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions."

Essentially, even a 'yes' vote enables the state to restrict abortion after fetal viability, so this doesn't result in an abortion free-for-all.

Furthermore, the Amendment, in effect, would partially overturn a law that was passed, in 2019, on party lines, by the GOP. It seems that the GOP managed to pass that law easily enough, despite the fact that such law clearly does not have majority state support.

In any event, by your own standard, the 2019 law was, "A new law," which was put into effect by Ohio Republicans on the (correct) assumption that the SCOTUS would overturn Roe v. Wade.

It's time for some nuance:

1.) I think that the SCOTUS should NOT have overturned Roe v. Wade as it was politically devastating for them in 2022. That makes the overturn a very bad idea.

At the same time, technically, SCOTUS should absolutely not care about Electoral prospects when making their decision as, ideally, they would be apolitical.


2.) I think that the Constitutional arguments outlined in the SCOTUS overturn of Roe v. Wade have merit, and despite the fact that I am personally pro-choice, I agree with the SCOTUS reasoning that abortion is a Tenth Amendment matter as there are no hard Federal laws to preserve abortion, this despite the fact that there were multiple opportunities that the Democrats could have created such laws, essentially, without meaningful opposition.

3.) Even if the Democrats had created such Federal laws, which I suspect they didn't because NOT creating them enabled them to retain their politically winning talking point, that being pro-life v. pro-choice, in theory, the SCOTUS could have also overturned those laws on the same grounds...but it would have been even more polarizing for them to have done so...and a tougher Constitutional argument...because now they are actually overturning something codified into law.

4.) Generally, I am in favor of the people of individual states deciding the abortion matter as I fundamentally agree with SCOTUS that it is a states-rights issue, and was made even more so, given the absence of Federal laws actually created on the matter.

5.) However, when you have a state in which nearly 60% of individuals support some level of abortion access:

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4115739-almost-60-percent-of-ohio-voters-back-abortion-rights-amendment-poll/

Then the GOP using its supermajority to prevent that...as well as attempting to Amend the state Constitution such that a clear majority cannot have the laws that they want...and which...prior to 2019...were already the case, I see that as a problem.

6.) The biggest problem that I see, as mentioned, is that the GOP (and some 43% of voters) would be willing to relinquish their own control over their own Government in order to achieve this, and other, ends---despite a clear lack of majority support. Quite frankly, I think contraception would have been the next target.

7.) In short, we see that, in Ohio, the people are the only remaining check on a totalitarian Government that would turn the state into a de facto Theocracy. I believe that the people should continue to be able to check the Government in this way, and fortunately, so do a majority of the state's people.

Ironically, you're arguing in favor of a law making it tougher to pass laws that only had any remote chance of succeeding because laws are relatively easy for the voters to pass in the first place.

ADDED:

8.) And, if more than 50% of Ohioans were in favor of the heartbeat law, per my states rights position, then I would have no objection to that being the law of the state.

Pretty much the concept I was talking about defining human beings at conception as in a minor accident could turn into manslaughter charge because a woman miscarries after a minor fender bender.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/pregnancyparenting/texas-says-a-fetus-is-a-child-except-when-a-parent-sues-a-negligent-doctor-or-state-official/ar-AA1fJAuF?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=4b320d73ed854f1abf78215580db98cc&ei=12

Texas Says a Fetus Is a Child, Except When a Parent Sues a Negligent Doctor or State Official

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Indiana, Kentucky, Arizona, and Idaho criminalize abortion from the moment of conception to protect prenatal life. But these states deny grieving parents any cause of action for the wrongful death of their unborn child until the point of fetal viability at around 24 weeks. Mississippi, too, makes abortion a crime from conception, while also denying a legal claim for pregnancy loss until “quickening,” as early as 16 weeks. Ohio bans abortion at six weeks, but denies grieving parents a claim for the death of their unborn child until viability.

Things get even stranger when the embryos people created using in vitro fertilization are contaminated or destroyed. When fertility freezers failed at two clinics in the summer of 2018, some victims sued for the wrongful death of their unborn child, leaving courts to decide between malfunction and murder. The laws in Arkansas illustrate the tension. Its abortion ban says there’s an “unborn child” at “the fusion of a human spermatozoon with a human ovum,” which would also seem to include frozen embryos in a lab. Yet the state law denies relief for lost embryos as life if the death is before the embryo is transferred to the woman’s body. Similarly, ever since the first-ever IVF suit in Rhode Island, courts have treated people’s lost embryos as “irreplaceable property.”