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Shadow of Roe v. Wade Looms Over Ruling on Gay Marriage
The New York Times ^ | March 23, 2013 | Adam Liptak

Posted on 03/24/2013 9:16:37 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

When the Supreme Court hears a pair of cases on same-sex marriage on Tuesday and Wednesday, the justices will be working in the shadow of a 40-year-old decision on another subject entirely: Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion.

Judges, lawyers and scholars have drawn varying lessons from that decision, with some saying that it was needlessly rash and created a culture war.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal and a champion of women’s rights, has long harbored doubts about the ruling.

“It’s not that the judgment was wrong, but it moved too far, too fast,” she said last year at Columbia Law School.

Briefs from opponents of same-sex marriage, including one from 17 states, are studded with references to the aftermath of the abortion decision and to Justice Ginsburg’s critiques of it. They say the lesson from the Roe decision is that states should be allowed to work out delicate matters like abortion and same-sex marriage for themselves.....

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: abortion; homosexualagenda; homosexualmarriage; roevwade; scotus; ssm; supremecourt
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To: Notary Sojac
19 posted on 3/25/2013 7:02:59 AM by Notary Sojac: “Should the woman who presents herself for an abortion be tried as an accessory to murder?”

The short answer is that it depends on circumstances, as with any other murder.

The longer answer is that I can see situations where a plea bargain or even a grant of immunity from prosecution in return for testimony would be entirely appropriate. It's a lot easier to prosecute an abortionist with testimony from a mother who paid the abortionist to kill her child. More broadly, in the pre-Roe v. Wade environment, prosecutors usually targeted abortionists rather than the mothers on the quite legitimate grounds that abortionists were usually multiple murderers committing murder for hire, whereas women getting abortions were usually first-time offenders who viewed themselves as being in desperate straits.

An added factor is that in a fair number of cases, women getting abortions in a pre-Roe v. Wade environment were being pushed into abortions by boyfriends or married men with whom they were carrying on affairs. There are reasons why early feminists like Susan B. Anthony were strong opponents of abortion, regarding it as yet another method by which men abused women. I'd be more inclined to prosecute those men as accessories to murder than I would be to prosecute the women involved.

Laws by their nature must be impersonal. Applying the laws depends on the circumstances of each case.

21 posted on 03/25/2013 5:30:51 AM PDT by darrellmaurina
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Briefs from opponents of same-sex marriage, including one from 17 states, are studded with references to the aftermath of the abortion decision and to Justice Ginsburg’s critiques of it.

Hopefully more than a few of them also point out the fact that two people of the same sex cannot be husband and wife, that this is an assault on the concept of language and the Court has no authority to disregard language, marriage existed before there were any marriage statutes and no same sex "marriages" existed then either because the word had and has a specific meaning, etc.

22 posted on 03/25/2013 6:13:33 AM PDT by Republican Wildcat
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To: Republican Wildcat
Have you checked out your radical and politically incorrect opinions with Reggie Love?

To locate him, find out where Barry is playing golf this weekend.

23 posted on 03/25/2013 7:13:42 AM PDT by Kenny Bunk (The Obama Molecule: Teflon binds with Melanin = No Criminal Charges Stick)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Regarding the gay “marriage” issue —

I’d like to see one of the Supreme Court conservatives declare, quite simply, “As per the Tenth Amendment, this is not an enumerated power and therefore this issue belongs entirely to the states.”

Then let the other side try to justify federal interference. There are all manner of Tenth Amendment violations on the federal law books, so it would be nice to see somebody openly try to twist the Constitution’s wording in an attempt to justify them.

The same argument could be applied to Roe v. Wade, I do believe.


24 posted on 03/25/2013 8:59:27 AM PDT by DNME (Without the Constitution, there is no legitimate U.S. government. Period.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
(Article) Briefs from opponents of same-sex marriage, including one from 17 states, are studded with references to the aftermath of the abortion decision and to Justice Ginsburg’s critiques of it.

That's all very nice, but what does the law say?

Is this a matter for the federal government?

Can the 3% game the legal system to impose government-by-decree on the People, using the Supreme Court as a mouthpiece and hammer?

Can someone invent a conceptual nullity, and use it in spite, in a cause at law, to destroy a conceptual reality relied on by hundreds of millions of other people?

What kind of country do we live in, where openly, exuberantly evil Sodomites can coerce honest people using the Law itself as if it were a rubber truncheon?

We've seen this coming for a long time. Our problem is ..... RiNO's, who are faithless and feckless and totally selfish, and have no concern for the people whose votes they demand as their Election-Day droit du seigneur.

25 posted on 03/25/2013 4:37:28 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: Kenny Bunk
To locate him, find out where Barry is playing golf this weekend.

Or more to the point, the Nineteenth Hole where Barry's playing golf. There'll he'll be, plumping up the pillows and lighting a few candles.

26 posted on 03/25/2013 4:39:20 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: Notary Sojac

>> Should the woman who presents herself for an abortion be tried as an accessory to murder?

Only if you think killing nascent human life is murder.


27 posted on 03/25/2013 6:22:14 PM PDT by Gene Eric (The Palin Doctrine.)
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To: Gene Eric
I think that killing an unborn child should be prosecuted as homicide rather than murder, if you appreciate the distinction.

I do not want the government to be faced with the choice of whether to prosecute the mother and her family and friends as accessories.

28 posted on 03/26/2013 6:42:21 AM PDT by Notary Sojac ('Institutions will try to preserve the problems to which they are a solution.' - Clay Shirky)
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