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What happens if Roe is overturned?
The Boston Globe ^ | November 14, 2004 | Drake Bennett

Posted on 11/14/2004 6:37:38 AM PST by GaryL

Abortion didn't get much airtime in the 2004 presidential campaign, but after the votes were counted it didn't take long for the issue to bubble to the surface. The day after the election, Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) called down the wrath of the freshly emboldened right wing of his party, and endangered his ascension to the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee, by letting slip that he thought it "unlikely" that nominees to the federal judiciary "who would change the right of a woman to choose" would be approved by the Senate.

Meanwhile, over in the executive branch, President Bush nominated White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales to succeed John Ashcroft as attorney general -- in part, Republican insiders told reporters, as a stepping stone to a future Supreme Court appointment, a way to "burnish [Gonzales'] credentials with conservatives" who were leery of his insufficiently hard line on affirmative action and, in particular, abortion.

All of this has played out against the backdrop

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


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: abortion; bush; culture; moralvalues; prolife; roe; roevwade; supremecourt
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To: zoobee
What would stop everyone from going to say...California to get their abortions then? Doesn't seem like the 'states' approach would fix anything.

There would be nothing to stop it. There is no way to legislate morality. Before Roe, people used to go to Mexico. The thing is, it would make people stop and think a little harder, it would stop people from using abortion as a birth control devise. It would shift the national debate to a local level where it could be better addressed.

41 posted on 11/14/2004 8:13:58 AM PST by McGavin999 (George Soros just learned a very expensive lesson-America can't be bought.)
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To: GaryL

If Roe is overturned, nothing will be different, except the dims will probably win a lot more elections.


42 posted on 11/14/2004 8:15:54 AM PST by tkathy (There will be no world peace until all thuggocracies are gone from the earth.)
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To: tkathy

why?


43 posted on 11/14/2004 8:21:31 AM PST by WifeMotherDaughterSister ("I've never seen a bear with butterfly wings..."My five year old daughter)
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To: zoobee
What would stop everyone from going to say...California to get their abortions then? Doesn't seem like the 'states' approach would fix anything.

-----
No single step completely solves the problem, BUT...the last step to totally legalize abortion was ROE. Therefore, the first step to eliminating them would be the overturn of ROE. It is much easier to change a State Law than it is to change a Federal Law. Likewise it is easier to change a local law than a State Law. The closer you push a decision down the food chain, the more the individual becomes accountable. The more the individual becomes accountable, the less abortions we will have. Step-by-Step...Inch-by-Inch...The elephant is eaten one bite at a time.

Let's Roll.
44 posted on 11/14/2004 8:21:34 AM PST by gooleyman ((Half the Babies aborted would have grown up to be women. What about their "RIGHT TO CHOOSE"??????))
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To: GaryL

Absolutely nothing will change and nut jobs on both sides of the issue will still complain about it.


45 posted on 11/14/2004 8:24:15 AM PST by killjoy (I'm John Kerry and I'm relieved of duty.)
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To: GaryL
What happens if Roe is overturned?

Then the CHILD pictured below, which the LEFT calls "blob of cells" and wants to murder, is deemed to be a human being.

46 posted on 11/14/2004 8:34:37 AM PST by pyx (RULE #1 The LEFT lies. RULE #2 See RULE #1)
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Comment #47 Removed by Moderator

To: Eastbound

The "woman and her doctor" phrasing and the "generally legal" phrasing are rigged.

When people are asked, "should the abortion decision be between a woman and her doctor?" they think it's a reference to a medically necessary abortion. So big majorities always approve of leaving abortion to a "woman and her doctor". The question makes it sound like kindly old Dr. Williams has had to sadly inform Mrs. Smith that only an abortion will save her life, or something like that. In reality, of course, the "doctor" is usually an abortionist who kills babies for money and has a financial stake in the woman's "choice". But that's not how the poll question sounds to most people.

Likewise, when people say abortion should be "generally legal", or "legal in most circumstances", they aren't supporting Roe. They're saying, "Let's see, I think abortion should be legal for cases involving the life of the mother, rape, incest, and fetal malformation, but illegal for convenience." So that's legal in four circumstances, illegal in one, so they say abortion should be generally legal in most circumstances. But the reality is that 99% of abortions are for convenience.

Liberal pollsters have found ways to produce an imaginary "pro-choice majority", but no such majority actually exists. If you ask people whether abortion should be always legal, always illegal, or legal ONLY in very hard cases (life of mother, rape, etc.) the combined totals for banning all abortions or only allowing the very hard cases is always a majority.


48 posted on 11/14/2004 8:36:07 AM PST by puroresu
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To: itiswhatitis
In most states, this vast middle leans somewhere between 51% - 60% in favor of the precept that the abortion decision is between a woman and her doctor.

More HORSESH!T spewed verbatim from the LEFT.

The problem as you call it, is LEFTIST @$$-$mear newbies who infect FR and attempt to use 1970's feminist rhetoric to rationalize MURDER.

See #46, newbie.
49 posted on 11/14/2004 8:44:54 AM PST by pyx (RULE #1 The LEFT lies. RULE #2 See RULE #1)
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To: itiswhatitis

I don't believe a majority favor gay civil unions. The referendum in Ohio, which passed by a margin greater than Bush's win in Ohio over Kerry, banned civil unions as well as gay marriage. It even banned private companies in Ohio from giving benefits to gay couples.

A lot of people tell pollsters they favor civil unions, usually because the pollster presents it to them as a "compromise" between the two alleged "extremes" (as if supporting the traditional definition of marriage as it has existed for 5000 years is "extreme"), but when people truly think about it and get into the privacy of the polling place they vote no on both gay marriage and gay civil unions.

I'm old enough to remember 1975, when polls showed that voters in New York and New Jersey would overwhelmingly support adding the Equal Rights Amendment to their state constitutions. The voters ended up rejecting them in both states by wide margins.


50 posted on 11/14/2004 8:49:13 AM PST by puroresu
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To: GaryL

If Roe is repealed, I think we'd quickly see abortion prohibited or sharply restricted everywhere but the northeast. California and other West Coast states all have initiatives, which would permit the moderate pro-life majority (and it is a moderate pro-life majority, everywhere) quickly to put restrictions on the books.

New York, New Jersey, and New Englad don't have the initiative system, which would enable Democratic legislative majorities to bottle up restrictions indefinitely ... and I don't see abortion as an issue which would let Republicans get a majority in the New York Assembly or the Massachusetts State House.


51 posted on 11/14/2004 8:50:30 AM PST by only1percent
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To: Gingersnap
I don't know if the actual numbers of abortions would drop significantly or not.

-----
If it drops by only 1...that's significant to me. Not enough, but significant nonetheless. For me, this issue trumps all others, including tax-cuts. This is right up there even with the War on Terror. This is a matter of LIFE. If you don't have that, nothing else matters.

In fact, for me, this is part of the War on Terror. This terrorism has gone on now for far too long. 50 million lives too long. It's probably what made us tolerate the Islamic "nuisance" this long. WE have killed TWICE the population of Iraq...TWICE. It's time to end it. We've got capital and it's time to spend it, to quote a wise man recently.
52 posted on 11/14/2004 8:51:06 AM PST by gooleyman ((Half the Babies aborted would have grown up to be women. What about their "RIGHT TO CHOOSE"??????))
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To: pyx
Don't want it=embryo,blob of cell,etc.
Do want-baby.
.
53 posted on 11/14/2004 8:52:28 AM PST by WifeMotherDaughterSister ("I've never seen a bear with butterfly wings..."My five year old daughter)
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To: GaryL

The women of MA will be free to abort all the children they want to abort. I'm sure the legislature will even enact partial birth abortion laws. The blue states will continue to shrink in population relative to red states, so politcal power will ebb in the blue states.


54 posted on 11/14/2004 8:56:29 AM PST by Paleo Conservative (Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Arlen Specter's got to go!)
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To: Gingersnap

Having worked with post-abortion women in group - many who had an abortion as teens - they said that if they had known the inner turmoil that they have experienced after having an abortion - they could never again support abortion rights.

Other older women in group told about having gone into self-destructive lifestyles after having an abortion - drugs, promiscuity, alcohol, overweight, binge eating, etc. They, too, said they do not support abortion anymore because they know from first hand the damaging results on their phyche.

Many of these women thought that if they got an abortion like their boyfriend, husband, or even parents pressed them to have - that they would have peace in their lives. But instead of drawing closer to that person(s) - the women found the people (person) either abandoned them anyway - or they were given a cold shoulder after the abortion. And then - they are the ones left to struggle with the turmoil in their soul.

The studies on women (and men) who have gone through an abortion decision show that it usually takes around 10 years for those inner struggles to be revealed - even to themselves. Once the person can no longer stand themselves for what happened - they reach out for abortion recovery groups. Many Crisis Pregnancy Centers know where those groups meet regularly and you can direct anyone seeking abortion recovery help to call them locally.

There is a lot more to this issue than meets the eye. It is not a solution for a short term problem because it will effect a person for a long time!



55 posted on 11/14/2004 8:58:20 AM PST by Anita1
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To: puroresu
Interesting. Thanks for the parsing. Do you think the people should have any input on whether or not abortion shoud be criminalized? If not, how would you word the law?

If so, how would you word unambiguous and narrowly-defined poll questions that would reveal a truer sense of what the people think?

In either case, there has to be unanimity in the legal definition of the word, 'abortion' before it could be applied in laws.

But then, that is the real crux of the matter, isn't it? I don't think there will be agreement on when life starts, and I don't think any law that stipulates when life starts will find easy passage.

Apart from that, do you think more lives will be saved overall if Roe is reversed and states take control again? Thanks.

56 posted on 11/14/2004 9:00:06 AM PST by Eastbound ("Neither a Scrooge nor a Patsy be")
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To: itiswhatitis
And, anyone who thinks a woman in Colorado who wants an abortion can't come up with bus fare to California, is delusional Your comments before this one I think have been addressed. However,to be quite practical and the least delusional that I can be, bus ticket 'ain't' all that's involved. You've got: bus fare, gas money (if you take your car or rent one, whick would involved the rental fee, insurance and other add on costs)taxi fare to and from the abortion clinic, prescription medication for pain and infection control, possible others for closing the cervix?, pads (NO Tampons which means more frequent use and purchases, food, parking if in a car, lost wages , possible additional medical costs due to complications ranging from mild to perforation of uterus and infections, more lost wages from these complications. I'm sure this is not an exhaustive list...but advocating that the the cost will not be a factor in 'traveling' any distance to obtain an abortion is...well,suspiciously ignoring the hard facts of obtaining an abortion. And those women who are seeking out those back alley abortions I wager are not doing it because their life is in danger from a medical cause...maybe because a personal accounting of their sexual activities is imminent.
57 posted on 11/14/2004 9:15:22 AM PST by WifeMotherDaughterSister ("I've never seen a bear with butterfly wings..."My five year old daughter)
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To: GaryL

I know you are being serious but I have to say it. We Wade!


58 posted on 11/14/2004 9:18:48 AM PST by mad_as_he$$ (Off to the store for Marlboro Red's and Miller Beer, NSDQ)
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To: Anita1
"...they said that if they had known the inner turmoil that they have experienced after having an abortion - they could never again support abortion rights."

It's funny you mention this. I have friend whose daughter got drunk and had sex the first week she was away at college. She had an abortion. She continued to have sex with the guy and subsequently had a daughter which they are raising.

She has dropped out of school 3 times now. They were essentially kicked out his parents home for being disruptive. They break up often and she admits that she strikes him in anger and he pushes her back. They argue a lot. She only recently admitting to having the abortion.

She is in counseling now but I fear that a huge amount of damage has been done. She was accepted into the Catholic Church but rejects most the doctrine, particularly the behavioral stuff.

Far being a efficient "solution", her experience is continuing to wreck her life.

59 posted on 11/14/2004 9:19:39 AM PST by Gingersnap
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To: WifeMotherDaughterSister

Me Bad: no paragraphs and did not include the COST of the Abortion.
Apologies for the eye strain.


60 posted on 11/14/2004 9:27:06 AM PST by WifeMotherDaughterSister ("I've never seen a bear with butterfly wings..."My five year old daughter)
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