6th Circuit wisely separates abortion ‘right’ from public financing...

washingtonexaminer ^ | 3/12/2020 | Quin Hillyer

[caww]

The “pro-life” side won a major victory from the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals today, but the biggest victor was the Constitution.

Eleven of the 17 judges participating in the decision ruled that an Ohio law keeping state funds from organizations that perform nontherapeutic abortions does not run afoul of the constitutional abortion privilege created under the 1973 Roe v. Wade case and its progeny. The judges noted that the law still permits women to obtain abortions, but just not to force taxpayers to handle the bill.

For the majority, Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote that tax-funded state governments are under “no obligation to pay for a woman’s abortion. Case after case establishes that a government may refuse to subsidize abortion services.”

The point here is that the “right” to an abortion delineated by Roe belongs to the woman seeking one, not the clinic performing it. Flatly: “Medical centers do not have a constitutional right to offer abortions.” Denying tax-financing for the clinic does not place any legally recognized burden on women who might be seeking the operation.

Moreover: “The State may choose to subsidize what it wishes—whether abortion services or adoption services, whether stores that sell guns or stores that don’t.” That is what representative democracy is all about: the authority of the people, through their elected representatives, to choose what laws to implement and how their tax money will be spent.

[sparklite2]

what area does the sixth court’s jurisdiction cover?

[adorno]

The judges noted that the law still permits women to obtain abortions, but just not to force taxpayers to handle the bill.

By that same kind of logic, one could take that as a case-sample to go after government's funding of a lot of other programs that use the people's taxes to pay for those programs, such as welfare and medicaid and social security (yeah, there are people getting SS that didn't pay into the program), and housing and food stamps, etc. People are being 'forced to pay' for other people's needs and wants and wishes.

[Wuli]

The whole legal assualt against the right to life has been to morph the legal meaning of Roe V Wade from its constitutional limit - yes, states cannot outright ban abortion under every cicrumstance, to a totally different meaning - that abortion must be accepted and supported by everyone, including the government.

[MIchaelTArchangel]

The Sixth Circuit consists of the District Courts in Michigan (Eastern and Wester), Ohio (Northern and Southern), Kentucky (Eastern and Western), and Tennessee (Eastern, Middle, and Western).

[sparklite2]

Thanks

[Fungi]

Well said!!!

[Sacajaweau]

The court finally gets it right.

Obama is the one who said we gotta pay. It was NOT like that under Bush.

[TexasGator]

https://www.google.com/

[lurk]

If we’re going to commit genocide, the taxpayer shouldn’t have to pay for it.

[unlearner]

Imagine if not infringing upon the right to keep and bear arms meant the government had to insure that all non-criminal citizens had guns and proper training to use them.

[Joe Bfstplk]

—People are being ‘forced to pay’ for other people’s needs and wants and wishes.

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Including drugs...