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To: AntiGuv

Interesting.
Perhaps I just only get the idea from media outlets and rich right wing Americans.

On the other hand, when I look at such polls as there are on specific issues, such as abortion, for example, I see that the American people are much more in agreement with the French law of abortion than their own.

In France, abortion is quite limited, and there is nothing like the effective abortion on demand until birth. There is parental and spouse notification, a mandatory waiting period, and a government policy to discourage abortion. There cannot be abortion mills. Abortions must be performed at hospitals that do no more than 25% of their procedures as abortions. Now, as a Catholic person I oppose abortion at any point. But the French law of abortion is far, far more restrictive than the American law of abortion, and reflects about what the French populace thinks about it. It also seems to reflect quite closely what I gather, from polls, the American populace thinks about abortion.

Were abortion a purely political issue, of law, in the US, I gather (from the polls I have seen) that there would be abortion on demand for the first 10 weeks or so. Minors would require parental notification. Spouses would have to be notified and could object. There would be an active government policy of trying to discourage abortion and encourage adoption services, including counselling services, a week-long cooling off period and specific reference to the adoption option and to all of the family services available to women who carry babies to term. Abortion after the 10 weeks would only be for birth defects or if the mother's health was direly threatened, and it should be panels of doctors deciding this through appropriate medical review, not a single doctor deciding it. There would not be abortion mills.

That, it seems to me, would be the law in America, were Americans able to decide. It IS the law in France, because laws are made by a democratically elected Parliament.

In the US, there is abortion on demand until birth, effectively. Most people think this is a horror. Most people think spouses should have a say. Most people think that minors should need parental consent. But the Supreme Court makes all of the important laws in America, and so this law festers and nobody likes it.

That is just one example.
Today's ruling on taking houses is another one.
If Congress could vote, if the people could vote, would they come up with this law that the US Supreme Court has made?
I expect that, instead, they would say that government can take houses, in particular, only if it must for real government operations, like roads and public buildings, and not ever to transfer to some other wealthier private person.
That is the law in France, because that is the way the Parliament has made it. Parliament could not make a law like today's Supreme Court law, because the French people would throw them out. I suspect that Congress could not make a law like this either, for the same reason.
In America, all of the biggest decisions are taken away from the people.

Now, maybe Americans still express a 60% support for the Supreme Court in general, out of reverence for the institution and the almost religious devotion they express for the IDEAL of the US Constitution.

But the reality seems to be that they love the document, and they love the Court in the abstract, but they don't like most of the important laws that it passes.


834 posted on 06/23/2005 1:23:26 PM PDT by Vicomte13 (Et alors?)
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To: Vicomte13

A catholic in france? Really? You must kidding since all churches are now discoteks!


I thought the Michelins were the last Catholics in france.


892 posted on 06/23/2005 2:11:15 PM PDT by fooman (Get real with Kim Jung Mentally Ill about proliferation)
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To: Vicomte13
You are correct about how a majority of Americans would frame abortion law, but where your analysis breaks down is that a 63% majority of Americans DO NOT want Roe v Wade overturned, notwithstanding its dreadful legal reasoning. If a majority did want it overturned and voted accordingly, then the Constitution would get amended - or better yet the justices would get appointed to overturn the decision. In other words, the Court is not the ultimate arbiter; it is the Congress & the States via the Constitution.

You can blame it on ignorance if you want, but a majority of the people do not want Roe v Wade overturned even though in other polling they disagree with its application.

956 posted on 06/23/2005 3:26:29 PM PDT by AntiGuv (™)
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