Posted on 07/22/2005 5:06:41 AM PDT by Molly Pitcher
Edited on 07/22/2005 5:19:39 AM PDT by Lead Moderator. [history]
Remember, if Roe were overturned tomorrow, the issue would be turned over to the States.
Some States, would prohibit it, Utah and the Southern states almost certainly.
Some states would keep a variation of the current law, California, and the Northeastern States.
And in other states there would be political or (state) constitutional fights with various results.
Reporting doesn't in itself kill industries but it opens up the light of day. The biggest reason we can't get rid of Roe is the success in keeping the light off the "industry." Including malpractice. You vastly under-estimate the malpractice costs. Furthermore, scope of practice laws allow non-physicians to do many things if there is a physician on premises and in many states I believe this is going on.
There is a huge stigma associated with abortion. The more public someone has to be about their profession as an abortionist, the fewer of them there will be.
The comparative stats on abortion are horrible. But they are not nearly as meaningful as you might think. How many industries have grown 10 fold in 50 years? Lots.
Demographics drive things like this. Also, once an industry develops the circumstances are different than before. People already cross state lines/ travel for a significant # of abortions. That would probably increase like the "state line" liquor stores. ALso, how much can you trust the numbers from an era when abortions were largely illegal?
Etc. Yes Roe must go but we may never get there without a more forceful ancillary strategy.
Dear dubyaismypresident,
"The house of Roe will be dismantled one room at a time the path is thus Stenberg, then Casey, then Doe, then Roe."
Maybe. I think it's more likely that we'll see some sort of historical discontinuity, and Roe will either be voided or in some way made entirely irrelevant. Looking forward, we always try to project what has happened into what will happen. And if we want the status quo to change, we think about reasonable ways and steps that it could change, and decide that's what will happen.
But history very often betrays our sense of reasonableness.
Lots of folks in the early 19th century thought that eventually slavery would fade away. It didn't. Rather, it was swept away by a discontinuous historical event - the Civil War.
It's an open question whether slavery, or when slavery might have ended without that discontinuous event, but history is clear that it certainly would not have been in the mid-1860s. I've seen some analyses that suggest it would have lasted until the early part of the 20th century, or even to the middle of the 20th century. I don't know.
Anyway, my own view is that with grave cultural and societal injustices like this, the dissonant energy created by the injustice makes it far more likely that some sort of singular event, some sort of dramatic, fast shift in the societal tectonic plates leads to a rapid change, rather than a slow, orderly, non-chaotic political process.
A clean overturning of Roe by the Supreme Morons would permit a path to a more orderly process of gradual change. The failure to overturn Roe by the Court will eventually lead to discontinuous, rapid, jarring, painful change.
sitetest
Well either way it will be very interesting to see how they rule next year on Partial Birth Abortion. In Stenberg you had 3 for undermining Casey (Renquist, Scalia, and Thomas) and one to uphold the PBA ban while uphold Casey (Kennedy) for a total of 4 votes. It will be interesting to see if Roberts joins his mentor, if so we are almost up to overturning Casey, just one away. And once the PBA is upheld I suspect the state legislatures start going to town on other abortion restrictions.
Dear Rippin,
I haven't missed any point you've made. I've just shown they aren't especially relevant or meaninful to actually bringing down the abortion industry in the United States.
First, although the abortion industry comprises more than one company, the fact is that there are only about 500 actual abortuaries in the US, and a large number of them are already under the control of large organizations. Last time I looked, Planned Parenthood performed, by itself, about 1/3 of all abortions in the US. Planned Parenthood is already a rather juicy lawsuit target, with hundreds of millions of dollars per year in abortion revenue. The fellow out in California owns a whole chain of abortuaries up and down California, and his locations perform a significant percentage of the abortions committed in the US.
Most industries haven't seen the number of players reduced to two or three or four because of government regulation. Indeed, government interference in the marketplace often props up some number of existing players (think: farms). Often, government interference retards the natural process within any industry of concentration of capital.
No, abortion generates the kind of revenues and gross profits that real, honest, decent businessmen can only dream of. That type of profit makes it very difficult to regulate it out of existence. The abortion industry could withstand every one of your seven "baby steps" with hardly a dent to it.
I don't think that reporting requirements will have much effect, at all, in terms of the availability of abortion, or the number of abortions committed. The killers may have to keep better records, they may have to pay more of their lucre in taxes, but again, there is so much profit in this business, you're not going to drive anyone out by forcing them to keep a few records, and turn 'em into the CDC or some state agency. Again, lots and lots of industries survive and thrive with much more burdensome regulation, even industries with lots of small players (think: drycleaners).
I don't underestimate the effects of malpractice. Heck, my own state is in the middle of a malpractice crisis. But abortion is a high-margin procedure. Malpractice rates will drive legitimate doctors out of business years and years before they have a truly significant effect on abortionists. Why? Because legitimate doctors just don't enjoy the gross profit margins that the paid killers enjoy, and galloping malpractice rates will eat up all their profits before the profits of the killers are badly effected.
The only way to use malpractice insurance against abortionists is to destroy the practice of every real doctor in the United States. I don't think that's a viable solution.
"There is a huge stigma associated with abortion. The more public someone has to be about their profession as an abortionist, the fewer of them there will be."
That's true, but we're pretty much down to the hardcore few who care neither about the opinions of man or God. The fact is, there is little that the government can do to abortionists that is worse than what they already experience at the hands of their fellow citizens.
There are perhaps around 500 clinics nationwide. I doubt that there are more than 1500 individuals in the US who commit abortion on a regular basis.
These folks have sold their souls to Satan. Satan takes care of his prize possessions.
Most abortionists are well-known in their local communities as abortionists. Many of them routinely have their clinics and homes picketed. Some have had their children's schools leafletted. Most have very sophisticated security systems in their multi-million dollar estates and bullet-proof Mercedes (yes, you can order your Mercedes "armored" from the factory). These folks are already villified by the majority of folks who realize that abortionists are serial mass murderers.
I doubt having to file some government reports is going to make any of these flee their chosen vocation.
But these folks don't usually hang out with good and decent folks. They typically hang out with other well-educated, moneyed folks who are completely blase about the deaths of millions, and, in fact, are quite glad that a disproportionate number of the children killed would have been born into poor or minority families. Among their number was a former boss of mine. Stanford MBA, church-going Presbyterian, pillar of his community, registered Republican, a proud member of his country club, driving his late-model S Class Mercedes.
Who voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 because getting rid of abortion would mean more black and brown babies to feed off of welfare.
There are enough of these pigs in our society to provide islands of calm and acceptance for the murdering abortionists.
"The comparative stats on abortion are horrible."
Not sure what you're getting at. That there isn't much room for growth in the abortion industry? Thank God! Nonetheless, it's a highly profitable, mature industry with few financial barriers to entry. Thus, it's like honey to flies. Although the financial barriers to entry aren't signficant (and no matter what you do in terms of regulatory regimes, they will never be so significant as to outweigh the money to be made committing abortions), there is one significant, non-financial barrier to entry: you must forfeit your soul to Satan. Thus, perversely, as long as it is legal, it will always attract a small, hardy band of damned persons who are indifferent to their eternal fate.
"Also, once an industry develops the circumstances are different than before. People already cross state lines/ travel for a significant # of abortions. That would probably increase like the 'state line' liquor stores."
That's true. Rome wasn't built in a day. I didn't say that overturning Roe will automatically lead back to 100,000 abortions per year. But give it a bit of time after the overturning of Roe, and we'll be down to a few hundred thousand per year. Is that good enough? No. But it's a darn good start.
"ALso, how much can you trust the numbers from an era when abortions were largely illegal?"
Well, 100,000 per year is actually a high estimate. I've seen estimate that were made before 1973 that were lower. Even that rate required legalization in NY and CA.
But these were the numbers actually promoted by the pushers of abortion to justify permitting abortion on demand. This is a number the Guttmacher Institute (the abortion research arm of Planned Parenthood) used before Roe to say, "Look at how many abortions are being performed already! You can't stop it with a law!"
So, I suspect the number may be on the high side.
However, there are also hundreds of thousands of violent crimes committed each year in the US, all of them against the law. That we seem unable to prevent hundreds of thousands of rapes, murders, armed robberies, etc., does that suggest we shouldn't have laws against these things?
" Etc. Yes Roe must go..."
Glad you see the light!
"...but we may never get there without a more forceful ancillary strategy."
No, we don't. We need five votes on the Supreme Court.
Without those five votes, Roe will not go. At least, not in a way without some historical discontinuity. With those five votes, Roe is dead.
And then, we begin.
Roe must go.
sitetest
Instead we get a guy that Charles Krauthammer believe won't vote to overturn Roe, meaning he would be NOT originalist:
It is almost impossible to imagine Roberts doing something as grand as that. He would not have the audacity. My guess? He upholds Roe, purely for reasons of precedent. And very quietly.
Dear Ol' Sparky,
I'm with you.
sitetest
Dear dubyaismypresident,
Yes, and if Mr. Roberts turns out to be on the side of the Constitution, we might get back to just after post-Casey. And if Ginsburg or Stevens retires well before the 2008 election, and we get a human being as their replacement, then we could see Roe ultimately overturned in a decade, or even a bit less.
Nonetheless, we can only get to the starting point that is a post-Roe world by getting rid of Roe. Until then, we're pretty much frozen in place, in terms of taking more than symbolic action to eradicate abortion.
sitetest
They are all a risk.
We aren't ever going to see anything change in this nation as long as we let those we elected compromise to this extent for political expediency.
Roberts is a good jurist, well-qualified, and is (as promised by this prez) in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. I'm satisfied, even if there are some who never will be.
It will be very interesting indeed. Will Roberts join his mentor or Kennedy? If he joins Kennedy next June there's going to be alot of angry conservatives and this could have a huge effect on turnout for Republicans in the 2006 mid-terms... It's going to be a very interesting next 10 months...
Of course not. But neither am I blinded by hatred for this prez.
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