quote:I don't really get it though, how can a law undermine a Supreme Court decision?
Well, if my first post on this is accurate, a potential affect would be to make abortion more horrifying to some by creating situations where some failed abortions lead to forcing the doctors and nurses to do preserve the doomed agony that the infants would be in.
Not all eroding would necesarily be legal, although there certainly could be legal angles as well.
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quote: I don't really get it though, how can a law undermine a Supreme Court decision?
It can't.
quote:My participation is trying to refute the attacks (see Darknight's post) on Senator Obama.
If that was all your participation was, I wouldn't have replied. But it went well beyond that, into an area that interests me and in which I have a view that you claimed could not be logical.
quote: My original point was that viable fetuses already had legal protection even before the abortion procedure was started.
Well, no. Your original point was that, because the legal protection already existed, there was no logical reason to support the new bill other than to undermine Roe. You have continued to assert that this undermines Roe. I'm still interested in an explanation of how it undermines Roe.
quote:I get that you like a law that grants legal standing to all living homo sapiens who are outside the mother. I am asking why.
Because I like the law to more closely reflect reality.
quote:Now, taken with the Induced Birth Infant Liability Act*, also sponsored by Senator Winkler, it would have made the doctors and hospitals liable civilly liable for damages including punitive damages. Is that the benefit? To make it easier to financially punish doctors who perform abortions?
The Birth Infant Liability Act does this whether the law we've been talking about exists or not - as you should know, since you've repeated many times that there's no difference in the care received under the old law and the new law.
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quote:Um, if the law Obama opposed doesn't affect Roe v. Wade (as alleged), then why should it be mentioned in regard to Obama's record on abortion?
Because one of the aftereffects of some abortions is a living, damaged infant. And Roe v. Wade says NOTHING about the state's right to protect such people. So it's relevant to abortion, but does not undermine Roe v. Wade.
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But, again, there was a law dealing with any infants that had a reasonable chance of surviving. By my understanding, the effect of this law wasn't going to be saving any infants, but rather prolonging the agony of ones that didn't have a chance at life.
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Isn't an infant already protected under law, whether the new law came into effect or not? Or is it still not considered an infant because of its viability status?
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quote:Isn't an infant already protected under law, whether the new law came into affect or not? Or is it still not considered an infant because of its viability status?
It was not clear under existing non-criminal Illinois law whether it was considered a person or not.
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"...credible source...", and based on research they're giving it a 50% chance.
The convention starts in five days, but I think there's a decent chance that you'll actually hear who it is before the actual convention. I think it's possible he's waiting for Olympics mania to die down a bit, which makes me think he'll announce this weekend.
As for the buzz? Blah blah blah. CNN has a different story on their ticket every day about how so and so has the inside track at the moment. The same six or seven names keep floating around in some endless cycle. Most of what I've been hearing lately revolves around Biden, Bayh and Kaine. But who knows? It could still be someone out of the blue like Tom Dashle, though I really really hope not. Or heck it could be Clinton, though again, I really hope not.
I think we'll find out this weekend, but at the very least we'll know this time next week for sure. Kind of sucks that he has to pick first, allowing McCain to pick his in response, but, at the same time I'd be very, very surprised if Obama's choice had any effect on McCain's. McCain has totally different problems than Obama to address with his VP pick. And speculation isn't nearly so rampant.
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quote:Isn't an infant already protected under law, whether the new law came into affect or not? Or is it still not considered an infant because of its viability status?
It was not clear under existing non-criminal Illinois law whether it was considered a person or not.
But it was under the Illinois Abortion Law. Specifically.
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quote:But it was under the Illinois Abortion Law. Specifically.
No it wasn't. You took me to task about that just a few posts ago.
Edit: here it is:
quote:I would think that, from a legal standpoint, shall not be construed to imply that any living individual organism of the species homo sapiens who has been born alive is not an individual" is different from "Defines "born-alive infant" to include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development."
posted
No. I was pointing out that there was a difference in the two statements. The Illinois Law (unless it has been changed which is possible) states:
quote: Without in any way restricting the right of privacy of a woman or the right of a woman to an abortion under those decisions, the General Assembly of the State of Illinois do solemnly declare and find in reaffirmation of the longstanding policy of this State, that the unborn child is a human being from the time of conception and is, therefore, a legal person for purposes of the unborn child's right to life and is entitled to the right to life from conception under the laws and Constitution of this State.
But, unlike the new proposal, the Illinois Abortion Law includes specific language regarding Roe v. Wade.
Should we move this to a different thread?
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Sigh. Okay. I still don't understand what you think the purpose of the new proposal was. It still seems to me that viable fetuses would have gained nothing under the new proposal. I wish you could/would explain why you think a new bill was necessary.
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I have explained it. My explanation has nothing to do with the viability of the fetus. Perhaps your insistence that an explanation have such a connection is blocking you from seeing my explanation.
Once more: Because I like the law to more closely reflect reality. To expand: I consider a human being to exist from the moment of conception. Roe prevents state legislatures from saying that. The new law pushes the operative, general legal definition to the
The old law did not have such a general legal, operative definition. It had an inoperative definition "for purposes of the unborn child's right to life" and an operative "unimplying" construct that applied only in the context of criminal laws.
I wish you would explain how this law undermines Roe.
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It undermines Roe v Wade by enacting laws that do not have that "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language. I suspect that, if that language was unnecessary, it wouldn't have been included in the existing Illinois law. Or that it would have been included in the new proposal - in which case, Senator Obama said he would have supported it.
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quote:It undermines Roe v Wade by enacting laws that do not have that "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language.
How? A state law can't limit the scope of the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court.
quote:I suspect that, if that language was unnecessary, it wouldn't have been included in the existing Illinois law.
The existing Illinois law spoke about the fetus from the time of conception. It was necessary to carve out the Roe exception because of that. And, even so, it wasn't an operational law.
quote:Or that it would have been included in the new proposal - in which case, Senator Obama said he would have supported it.
According to the NYSUN article, he voted against at least one version of the bill that had the limiting language in it.
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Does anyone have a link that has the language of the bills, his actual votes (yes, no or present) and his explanations (at the time and now) for why he voted the way he did?
All the articles I've seen thus far have been sorely lacking in the kind of information I would need to form an opinion on this matter.
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I haven't actually been following this thing all that closely, and I'm not 100% familiar with the issue at hand, but I can easily surmise where, if I were to become more informed, my opinion would likely lie.
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AUDIENCE MEMBER: Senator McCain I truly hope you get the opportunity to chase Bin Laden right to the gates of hell and push him in as you stated on your forum. I do have a question though. Disabled veterans, especially in this state, have horrible conditions [...] My son is an officer in the Air Force, and I am a vet and I was raised in a military family. I think it is a sad state of affairs when we have illegal aliens having a Medicaid card that can access specialist top physicians, the best of medical and our vets can't even get to a doctor. These are the people that we tied yellow ribbons for and Bush patted on the back. If we don't reenact the draft I don't think we will have anyone to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell.
JOHN MCCAIN: Ma'am let me say that I don't disagree with anything you said and thank you and I am grateful for your support of all of our veterans.
quote:How? A state law can't limit the scope of the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court.
And a moment of silence is not school prayer nor is teaching intelligent design necessarily bringing creationism back into schools, but they are both steps in christian activist groups' plans to accomplish these things.
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Kate's justification for asserting that it undermined Roe was that it was "not a big leap from establishing fetuses as people outside the womb to establishing them as people inside the womb." She considers this such an obvious conclusion that she found it necessary to ask me, "You really couldn't see that?"
I have responded to that by pointing out that overcoming a supreme court interpretation is, in fact, a very big leap. I have responded to her theory that it somehow worked with the Induced Birth Infant Liability Act "make it easier to financially punish doctors who perform abortions" by pointing out that the IBILA has the exact same effect whether the new law exists or not.
Now we have the argument that not having explicit "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language somehow undermines Roe. My response is that whether that language exists or not, the effect of the state law is exactly the same. Since Kate pointed to that language as being determinative of whether the law undermines Roe, she must believe that the bill with the language does not undermine Roe. This in and of itself makes your response off-point: the person I responded to doesn't seem to accept your premise that the effects of the bill with the language will undermine Roe. That is the context in which I posted my response.
Moreover, even if I accept your admittedly weakly-sourced theory that the intent is to force doctors to make infants live in agony to make abortion seem more horrifying, we still don't arrive at the conclusion that this undermines Roe. It might lessen the public's support for Roe. But there's zero chance it would allow for the passage of a constitutional amendment or the appointment of new SCOTUS justices who might overturn Roe/Casey/etc. Also, being a "step in ... plans" to accomplish legal change is not "undermining" a SCOTUS precedent.
Finally, whether some people see this as a step to having Roe overturned or not, it is patently clear that there are logical reasons for supporting the law other than undermining Roe or allowing attacks on those who vote against it.
For example, I see it as remedying a moral hole in the law to the greatest extent allowed by Roe and its progeny.
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I find most of your conclusions there poorly founded. The things that you are claiming that Kate must believe don't seem to me to be either necessities nor actually likely to be true.
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As I understand it, the bill in question would grant things to the infants in question beyond that of just personhood.
I'm not sure if I've got this right, but the law was saying that, no matter what the doctors or their legal guardians thought, these doomed to a short life full of pain infants must have every reasonable measure used to keep them alive. If my understanding is correct, this is not something that is shared with the general class of people, correct?
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quote:I find most of your conclusions there poorly founded. The things that you are claiming that Kate must believe don't seem to me to be either necessities nor actually likely to be true.
How? Kate said it undermined Roe because it didn't have the language in it. How does that not imply that she thinks the law with the language doesn't undermine Roe?
quote:I'm not sure if I've got this right, but the law was saying that, no matter what the doctors or their legal guardians thought, these doomed to a short life full of pain infants must have every reasonable measure used to keep them alive. If my understanding is correct, this is not something that is shared with the general class of people, correct?
Can you quote the part of the law you think says this? The federal one (not primary source) - which is by all accounts identical to the middle version of the law (not the one that passed in Illinois, but with the additional sentence we've been discussing) - does one thing and one thing only: create an interpretive canon stating that, "In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words ''person'', ''human being'', ''child'', and ''individual'', shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development."
The second subsection defines born alive. The third says this has no effect on existing law about rights accruing before birth.
That's it. Unless it is required that a physician treat any person at any time who is in unbearable agony, it creates no such obligation. To the best of my knowledge, this is not the case, but I claim no expertise in that area.
All this, of course, is contingent on news reports that the law was essentially identical to the federal one. I've only found potentially biased sources on this matter, but here's one version of the text which seems to support that.
If anyone can link the primary source documents for those - I don't have time to delve into Illinois's online legislative system, assuming there is one - it would clear this up.
Ironically, the 1975 law could be construed as imposing that obligation, although I don't know if it has or not.
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quote:How? Kate said it undermined Roe because it didn't have the language in it. How does that not imply that she thinks the law with the language doesn't undermine Roe?
I'm going to go out on an enormous limb here and suggest that boots doesn't think that any law that doesn't have language in it that says that it doesn't undermine Roe v. Wade undermines Roe v. Wade and that, perhaps, there is more to her objection than that.
---
edit:
I've tried to make it clear that I really don't know anything definite about the specifics of this law. I really know only second hand impressions of this issue that I may not even remember correctly. It is incredibly minor to me and is only an issue at all because it is dishonestly brought up by Republican attack dogs.
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quote:I'm going to go out on an enormous limb here and suggest that boots doesn't think that any law that doesn't have language in it that says that it doesn't undermine Roe v. Wade undermines Roe v. Wade and that, perhaps, there is more to her objection than that.
And - not perhaps, but definitely - there's much more to my objection to her objection than that.
My response does not depend on the premise that Kate's position is that the lack of such language being a necessary and sufficient condition to undermines Roe v. Wade. I don't believe she thinks that and have nowhere said so.
Rather, it depends on her express statement that the lack of such of such language was enough to cause THIS law to undermine-Roe-ness.
She's already said that she doesn't think THIS law with the "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language does not, in fact undermine Roe.
In short, you've badly misinterpreted me.
quote:I've tried to make it clear that I really don't know anything definite about the specifics of this law. I really know only second hand impressions of this issue that I may not even remember correctly. It is incredibly minor to me and is only an issue at all because it is dishonestly brought up by Republican attack dogs.
And the response to those "dogs" has also been measurably dishonest.
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posted
Dag, I'm not sure how I misinterpreted this:
quote:Now we have the argument that not having explicit "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language somehow undermines Roe.
Could you explain?
--- edit: I'm also not sure how I misinterpreted this:
quote:Since Kate pointed to that language as being determinative of whether the law undermines Roe, she must believe that the bill with the language does not undermine Roe.
posted
Because you seem to think that it's about a general case. It's patently not. It was a summary of something Kate said on this page:
quote:It undermines Roe v Wade by enacting laws that do not have that "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language.
Now, neither Kate nor I explicitly limited our statement to this law under discussion. But it's pretty clear that we both are discussing this law. It's also pretty clear that she thinks the "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language would cure the law we have been discussing.
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quote:I'm also not sure how I misinterpreted this:
quote:Since Kate pointed to that language as being determinative of whether the law undermines Roe, she must believe that the bill with the language does not undermine Roe.
I don't know how you misinterpreted that, either. But you did, to the extent you think I'm making a statement about "any law."
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posted
After re-reading this part of the thread, I think it might be helpful to explain that by "undermine" I don't mean that one particular act or law will do this all by itself. I think that opponents of abortion "push" at the legal protections of choice - chip at it. It is the cumulative effect of many such acts that I believe is the threat to Roe v. Wade.
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quote:It undermines Roe v Wade by enacting laws that do not have that "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language. I suspect that, if that language was unnecessary, it wouldn't have been included in the existing Illinois law. Or that it would have been included in the new proposal - in which case, Senator Obama said he would have supported it.
She posted the above in response to my request that she "explain how this law undermines Roe." The response given was that it lacked "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language.
It is perfectly logical to conclude that she thought that the lack of the language (in this law, not in any law at all) was what undermined Roe.
Moreover, tKate has earlier asserted that Obama didn't vote for it because it would undermine Roe. She stated in the above that he would vote for a law with the language. Therefore, it's clear (assuming Kate's account is true, which I do), that Obama thinks the language would cure the bill of undermining Roe.
As to whether this reflects Kate's position, I can't be sure. I have independent basis for reaching my conclusion. But this certainly strengthens the conclusion because she generally supports Obama's position on this law.
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quote:After re-reading this part of the thread, I think it might be helpful to explain that by "undermine" I don't mean that one particular act or law will do this all by itself. I think that opponents of abortion "push" at the legal protections of choice - chip at it. It is the cumulative effect of many such acts that I believe is the threat to Roe v. Wade.
Which brings me back to a slightly modified version of my original question: which legal protection of choice does this "chip at"?
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quote:It is perfectly logical to conclude that she thought that the lack of the language (in this law, not in any law at all) was what undermined Roe.
I don't see it this way. In fact, I don't think that that is even a fair interpretation.
The way I read it, the language suggested, likely along with other things, that parts of this law could have the effect or be used for the effect of chipping away at abortion rights such that an explicit provision needed to be made for that.
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quote:The way I read it, the language suggested, likely along with other things, that parts of this law could have the effect or be used for the effect of chipping away at abortion rights such that an explicit provision needed to be made for that.
Yes. The lack of language in THIS law. That necessarily entails that there is some part of this law that would undermine Roe without that language. You're now agreeing with me.
Especially considering that you said this:
quote:
quote:It's also pretty clear that she thinks the "this does not overturn Roe v. Wade" language would cure the law we have been discussing.
Not to me it isn't.
How on earth is it NOT clear to you that Kate thinks the language would cure the law, given that you've now said that an explicit provision is needed for the "parts of this law [that] could have the effect or be used for the effect of chipping away at abortion rights"?
I'll also note that I've asked repeatedly what those provisions that chip away at Roe might be. Still no answer.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Does anyone have a link that has the language of the bills, his actual votes (yes, no or present) and his explanations (at the time and now) for why he voted the way he did?
All the articles I've seen thus far have been sorely lacking in the kind of information I would need to form an opinion on this matter.
Lyrhawn, I am assuming that you have checked the links on Senator Obama's web site which link to the bills themselves and cite contemporary news articles where he explains his vote. The links are helpful. For example, you can link the existing law which gives you the name of the bill and then you can look that up. Or the dates of the newspaper articles. The web site is a good place to start.
quote: REALITY: Obama Said He Would Have Supported Federal Born Alive Legislation Because It Made a Distinction Between a Fetus in Utero and Child That is Born
Obama Said He Would Have Supported Federal Born-Alive Legislation. The Chicago Tribune reported, "Obama said that had he been in the US Senate two years ago, he would have voted for the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, even though he voted against a state version of the proposal. The federal version was approved; the state version was not. Both measures required that if a fetus survived an abortion procedure, it must be considered a person. Backers argued it was necessary to protect a fetus if it showed signs of life after being separated from its mother…the difference between the state and federal versions, Obama explained, was that the state measure lacked the federal language clarifying that the act would not be used to undermine Roe vs. Wade." [Chicago Tribune, 10/4/04]
Bolding mine. Honestly, if Senator Obama thinks that the clarifying language was necessary - and presumably it was in the Federal bill for some reason - I don't understand why it is so beyond comprehension that I would think so.
And I don't know that I agree with Senator Obama's position. Abortion is something about which I am fairly conflicted. I usually come down on the pro-choice side of the argument, but not always.
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quote:Bolding mine. Honestly, if Senator Obama thinks that the clarifying language was necessary - and presumably it was in the Federal bill for some reason - I don't understand why it is so beyond comprehension that I would think so.
It's not beyond comprehension. I've just yet to hear any plausible way by which the law without the language chips away at Roe.
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quote:That necessarily entails that there is some part of this law that would undermine Roe without that language.
No, it doesn't.
Yes, it does.
Would you care to explain, or will you just make another statement that I'm wrong without bothering to explain?
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quote:The way I read it, the language suggested, likely along with other things, that parts of this law could have the effect or be used for the effect of chipping away at abortion rights such that an explicit provision needed to be made for that.
quote:Well, if my first post on this is accurate, a potential affect would be to make abortion more horrifying to some by creating situations where some failed abortions lead to forcing the doctors and nurses to do preserve the doomed agony that the infants would be in.
Not all eroding would necesarily be legal, although there certainly could be legal angles as well.
posted
It's now clear what I meant. Just to prevent any additional confusion, I am happy to qualify it: The meaning I had for what I said is the same as the meaning "that parts of this law could have the effect or be used for the effect of chipping away at abortion rights such that an explicit provision needed to be made for that."
Any continued insistence otherwise by you will be willfully ignoring what I mean.
The relevant part was whether the language cured any defects. The current squabble over what I meant doesn't affect that conclusion.
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posted
So, you now agree that this doesn't necessarily entail that there is some part of this law that would undermine Roe without that language?
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quote:So, you now agree that this doesn't necessarily entail that there is some part of this law that would undermine Roe without that language?
No.
Edit: more explicitly, it necessarily entails "that parts of this law could have the effect or be used for the effect of chipping away at abortion rights."
Edit 2: Of course I still await someone - anyone - pointing out which parts of the law could do that.
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quote:more explicitly, it necessarily entails "that parts of this law could have the effect or be used for the effect of chipping away at abortion rights."
Right, which is a fundamentally different statement from what you said and is also fundamentally different from the approach you've been taking up to this point.
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posted
I don't think me (and by my estimation, boots) meaning something different from what you want us to mean makes me automatically wrong.
You don't understand what we are saying. That's not really a problem. But when you're going to address what we've said when you don't understand it and respond to being informed that how your characterization of what we said is incorrect and having where this is incorrect pointed out to you with "You're wrong." that kind of is a problem.
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