What's Long Range in Abortion Battles?

 Kevin Drum questions whether a national 15 week ban on abortion with exception for the woman's health would be acceptable to his audience. Many of the comments don't reply, instead insisting it will never happen.

I wonder what happens if and when liberals gain a majority on SCOTUS. I assume that will happen at some point in our history, and before anything medically has changed the landscape. So SCOTUS changes, and liberals bring a test case asking the court to reverse Dobbs. Seems as if they'd have some choices--push for the landscape after Casey using Casey's arguments, come up with different arguments (as RBG had thought), go for different rules (maybe a national position). But I wouldn't see any new arguments or positions as changing the logic of the pro-life camp.  

So if Dobbs is reversed then the pro-lifers revert to their simple position and we're fated to continue the argument and possible SCOTUS flip-flopping into the future?

Tradition, Tradition...

 Says Justice Alito (who apparently loves Fiddler on the Roof) 

I write that after reading this New Yorker interview with Neal Katyal, who describes Alito's draft decision as rooting our rights in tradition.

A separate point--lots of speculation about who leaked the opinion and why.  It seems to me everyone is making up a story to fit their preconceptions--like Ginni Thomas being the leaker, because she's the woman we liberals love to hate.

The Value of Consistency: Civilian Lawsuits

 Reading "Public Citizens: The Attack on Big Government and the Remaking of American Liberalism". 

I may write more about it, but I want to note that "civilian lawsuits" were proposed by Ralph Nader and his followers to enforce stronger standards for clean air and water.

Can we see this delegation of authority to sue as paving the way for the Texas SB 8 legislation on abortion?  Is there a difference in them? 

Individual Rights and Society

This is a good point: 

Evidently we're going to have a debate about vaccine mandates and abortion at the same time--that is, both culture war tribes are simultaneously going to take both positions on the rights to medical privacy and "my body my choice" autonomy

— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 9, 2021

I support the idea of mandating vaccines, with minimal exemptions, and with permitting abortion before viability (and after in very limited cases).  So how do I reconcile the positions?

Vaccines. People who aren't vaccinated can be infected by the virus, possibly permitting its evolution into variants, and definitely enabling its continued existence. Its existence is a danger to me and others.  Being vaccinated carries a very low risk, so in my view the danger outweighs the risk, which warrants overriding an individual's preference and the vaccine mandate.

Abortion. Every thing equal, I'm in favor of humans. Birth of an infant is, on balance, good for me and the rest of humanity.  It's one more mind and body who can improve life.  But I'm also in favor of individual freedom, of autonomy.  Strong protection of such freedoms is part of my vision of the best society.  So if the prospective mother decides that her interests and sometimes her perception of the interest of the embryo are best served by an abortion, I have to take that seriously.  

And what of the embryo?  We say "life is sacred" but in fact we recognize that's not an absolute, not something which can be applied everywhere. Notably, we don't apply it to members of other species.  (I'm not a vegan.) So I'm comfortable drawing the line at viability.

Fixing the Court

 A lot of discussion among Democrats over what to do about a Supreme Court with a 6-3 conservative majority.

I'd suggest one strategy not much discussed, which assumes Biden/Harris win and the Democrats gain a Senate majority:

• end the filibuster in the Senate (might be problematic, given their moderates who might be reluctant).
• spend time fixing the vulnerabilities in important legislation, like ACA and Clean Air, etc. 

My theory is this: over the last 4 years and more, conservatives have filed enough court cases and the Trump administration has changed enough administrative rules that good lawyers can identify the weak points.  Rather than rely on defending rules in the court, preempt the challenges by fixing them.  If the challenge is that the agency, EPA, etc., has exceeded its authority under the law, change the law to provide the authority.  If the challenge is that Congress has exceeded its authority under the Constitution, change the law to rest on a firmer basis.

What's iffy about this strategy is, of course: Roe v Wade. Although polls suggest a majority support its general outline, trying to legislate it would be like gun control.  The fierce minority would prevail over the majority.  I could suggest a compromise which appears reasonable to me, but it's a matter of principle for the opponents.  What would my hopeless compromise be?  Clinton used to say "legal, safe, and rare".  I'd think a compromise which added "early" to the formula should work, except it won't. If you had taxpayer funded abortions in the first trimester with over-the-counter of the "day-after" pill , then court-approved abortions for the next two with the basis being restricted (health and safety, rape, unusual circumstances), perhaps with a prescribed role for a voice for an advocate for the fetus, and taxpayer funding of pre-natal care for those who lose their case for abortion.

The details don't matter, because for people on both sides it's too basic an issue of rights to agree to a compromise.

Google Shows: Self-Induced Abortions Up?

From a Vox interview with a researcher who's studied Google Trends:

I'm pretty convinced that the United States has a self-induced abortion crisis right now based on the volume of search inquiries. I was blown away by how frequently people are searching for ways to do abortions themselves now. These searches are concentrated in parts of the country where it's hard to get an abortion and they rose substantially when it became harder to get an abortion. They're also, I calculate, missing pregnancies in these states that aren't showing up in either abortion or birth rates.

 That's factoid which fits a liberal preconception: pro-lifers are successfully restricting the operation of abortion clinics, so it seems likely good old American self-reliance would combine with the Internet to research how to do it oneself. Fitting a preconception doesn't make it wrong.  Indeed, in this case the availability of a story which fits the data being reported makes me tentatively a believer.