Texas towns make it illegal to use roads to travel out of state for an abortion.

This is pretty much the way I've been thinking about this issue. Of course, we did have the Terry Schiavo debate so there are strong feelings even when we're talking about adults.

 

Clueless response.

Countries that voted for the resolution: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua-Barbuda, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Burundi, Cambodia, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, East Timor, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Honduras, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, North Korea, North Macedonia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Congo, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad-Tobago, Tunisia, Tuvalu, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Countries that voted against the resolution: Austria, Czech Republic, Guatemala, Israel, Liberia, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, United States.

Countries that abstained: Argentina, Bulgaria, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Malawi, Marshall Islands, Netherlands, Palau, Panama, Romania, Slovakia, South Sudan, Togo, Tonga, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/13/un-vote-gaza-ceasefire-countries-against/

 

That we have less dumb asses.

 

No they matter, but you're using a dishonest tactic abortion advocates typically like to use by focusing on the most sympathetic circumstances which are statistical outliers to justify abortion policy as a whole.

 

Lead by example and get off Too Hot.

 

You have that backwards, too.

 

That speaks to the evil and/or stupidity of the world and the UN, more than it speaks to the legitimacy of a ceasefire.

 

Someone likely already posted this, but what is especially ironic in this episode and those like it is that among the sovereign citizens types, the so-called "right to travel" is sacrosanct - they routinely try to invoke it, unsuccessfully, to argue that the state cannot enforce traffic laws against them.

Here's a quick link I found via google from a cop site (ugh!):

5 responses to a sovereign citizen at a traffic stop
The sovereign citizen movement has become the bane of many police officers in the U.S

1. “I am not driving, I am traveling.”
Often the sovereign citizens don’t bother to pay for their licenses. They feel the right to free movement means they do not need a license. Travel is a right, which is true.

What the sovereigns fail to grasp is they are free to travel, by foot, by bike, even by horse. A car is a complex machine. To operate a complex machine requires training and some licensure to operate said machine. Heck, here in Wisconsin all our driving laws are worded with “operate a motor vehicle”; none say “drive.”


5 responses to a sovereign citizen at a traffic stop

 

Laws need to be applied to all--equal justice for all. This mean that we have to include the statistical outliers. Otherwise, justice isn't equal. And that's not how our system is designed to work.

So what it is? Are women pregnant due to rape who never wanted to be pregnant walking wombs who have no autonomy over their bodies? Or, even though the fetus isn't any less innocent, these women deserve to have an exception carved out just for them?

 

Interestingly enough, the basis of their "traveling" nonsense comes from a definition of "driver" in an earlier edition of Black's Law Dictionary:

DRIVER. One employed in conducting a coach, carriage, wagon, or other vehicle, with horses, mules, or other animals, or a bicycle, tricycle, or motor car, though not a street railroad car. See Davis v. Petrinovich, 112 Ala. 654, 21 South. 344. 36 L. R. A. 615: Gen. St. Conn. 1902. §2038; Isaacs v. Railroad Co., 47 N. Y. 122. 7 Am. Rep. 418. Black’s Law Dictionary, 2nd Ed. 1910, p. 398

They argue that they are not being paid, therefore, they are not driving, but traveling.

They struggle with the part that Black's Law Dictionary is not the law....anywhere. It's a tool to prevent 1LWs from looking stupid in class. I still have mine.

 

What they are actually doing is focusing on the consequences of overly broad and poorly drafted legislation and similarly the consequences of legislation drafted by or motivated by religious fanatics willing to sacrifice the lives or health of others to impose their version of morality on the population as a whole. Seems rather incongruous the same "conservatives" who rail against Sharia law support a version of their own based on their interpretation of Christianity rather Islam.

 

No, you implement exceptions for statistical outliers, you don't frame the whole policy conversation around them. That would be stupid.

No, they have plenty of autonomy over their bodies. They can do pretty much anything but kill their unborn child, and that's assuming we don't even apply an exception there.

 

I would argue the 6 week line doesn't grant enough time for the following argument, but let's say a line for abortion is 15 weeks. That itself is a policy exception broad enough to include victims of rape or incest.

My issue with the 6 week line is that a lot of mothers don't know they're pregnant within 6 weeks. So you can't treat that as a catch-all compromise to difficult cases. You'd have to actually craft the necessary exceptions into policy. But if the line is 15 weeks, I don't see why rape or incest victims require more time than your typical person considering abortion unless something else is at play like being detained against their will or something along those lines.

 

Personally I would have no problem with a 15-week cutoff for elective abortions provided that the decision of whether or not an abortion is medically necessary would be left the doctor. A physician should not have to worry about prosecution and/or losing his or her license on the whim of an overly aggressive prosecutor or bureaucrat. If the State still wants to prosecute a doctor for performing an abortion after the 15th week the burden would be on the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was no medical necessity and that the abortion was completely elective. Some proposed statutes providing for a 15-week cutoff have been drafted so vaguely that Kate Cox the Texas woman could still be denied access to an abortion considering that her condition and that of her fetus were not diagnosed until the 20th week of her pregnancy.

 

Rape and incest abortions should be legal until the 3rd trimester, at least, maybe longer under some circumstances…

 

Our law is majority rule, but with minority rights. If the minority don't retain their rights, then we don't have equal justice under the law, which is a big part of our Constitution. It's why we have protected classes in many laws--to protect the rights of the minority. It doesn't matter what percentage the minority is. If the law isn't equally applied, it's Unconstitutional. We can frame policies around the majority, but only if the minority remains protected.

And sorry, but forcing a woman to remain pregnant against their will means they do not have full autonomy over their body. Especially later in the pregnancy. They often can't fly, and if there are complications, may be bed ridden. There is also time spent in the hospital for delivery, where again, if there are complications, could mean up to a week. How can you say they have full autonomy if these are distinct possibilities?

As for restrictions, 15 weeks is fine as long as we get rid of the Hyde Amendment. The majority of abortions are 1st trimester anyway, and the #1 reason a woman waits is money. Remove that issue, and somewhere around 98% of all abortions would be 1st trimester. The 2% would be the more rare cases surrounding complications.

 

Okay. On principle I disagree with it, but it's not a crazy compromise considering that I don't think abortion is a winning issue for Republicans.

Absolutely not. A medical exception should be treated as an affirmative defense, not a requisite element of a crime.

I don't know what to tell you. Any policy you have is always going to have sympathetic cases. Hard cases make bad law.

Cox's case is truly a rare exception even when compared to "rape, incest, and life of the mother."

 

15 weeks is closer to 13 weeks. They start counting on the first day of the last known menstrual period.