…

[The huge number of liberals who believe that the government should not regulate commerence when it has to do with abortion but should be able to regulate everything else is amazing]

Abortion as commerce? Spelling aside….but…..are you nuts?

As Robert Bork said correctly about Roe v. Wade, the Court should have stated that abortion and abortion rights are nowhere to be found in the Constitution, so legislation on these matters (there is no absolute, i.e., unlimited “right� to abortion) is reserved to the state and local government to govern that behavior as it sees fit.

Bush couldn’t come out while campaigning and admit he wanted to reverse Roe, so he did it by appointing conservative justices. This is just the first test case in a long line of test cases to see if the SC can uphold any limit Congress places on abortion rights. That’s why regardless of the other failures of the Bush administration, the evangelicals, who comprise 100 million people and are mostly in the South, still back him unquestioningly. This is the issue they care about- this and gay mariage.

is only marginally better than one that simply forces people to live according to one religion’s beliefs.

That is the crux of the problem, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter which side of the argument prevails, on group of religion(s) (or lack thereof, for some of us) ends up living under the tenets of others.

The reality is that the question of abortion is so wrapped emotions that rational discourse and argument is difficult to have. There is also the tendency to put everyone in either camp ‘A’ or camp “b”, bit for many it is more complicated than that.

For myself, I am pro-choice. However, I do not have an objection for this law being upheld as written and for the reasons stated, and do not find it a great break from precedence as other people on ‘my side’ of the debate do.

I would like to see it overturned on Commerce Clause principles, but then I would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned for the same reasons. It is possible to be pro-choice, but not pro-Roe.

I believe that the only way to ever get to an acceptable solution is to either ground a similar Roe v Wade-type ruling in the 14th Amendment as Ginsburg alluded to, actually see Congress address this legislatively, or via a call from the States for an Amendment.

As long as this right exists solely due to a very shaky ruling based on an invented Right to Privacy, then the legitimacy of pro-choice laws remains suspect.

And for those who like to use Stare Decis as the basis of not overturning Roe, that too is a fatally flawed argument. An incorrectly decided ruling has no expectation of Stare Decis, as Dred Scott reminds us.

K. Ritter had a good one.

> isn’t this just the first step
> in the RR’s agenda to reverse
> Roe v. Wade?

1. The US public at large isn’t the same as the Religious Right and most people will resist all the Religious Right’s agenda, so it is not cause for worry.

2. I and probably 99.999% of the US public believes that the Religious Right will probably engage in incrementalist attacks on abortion rights. Again, see #1 and stop overly worrying. What the public as a whole feels about religion is about what should be the eventual case.

3. I refer to abortion rights instead of Roe v. Wade because abortion rights unfortunately are tied too much (especially by the Left) with that ruling, which was illegitimate and which created law out of thin air (the trimester rules, in particular).

4. For consistency or as a counter-attack: if federal law is allowed to stand, the thing to do is to get federal abortion laws passed that cannot be overridden by state laws (take advantage of the de facto system we have had in place for ages). These laws would then of course be, or should be, reflective of general public opinion of abortion (most are in favor of abortion rights in this country). You may see in the federal or in state governments the issue of viability as a dividing line; this is perfectly legitimate.

It’s been found unnecessary as well as abhorrent.

More fifty-decibel, slow “ranting” [sic] from Yours Truly.

> Bork was not a proponent
> of either the Constitution,
> liberty, or individualism.

Actually he was a proponent and defender of the Constitution, but he took issue with libertarian and other conservative activists in addition to the liberal activists.

He is a real conservative, not a libertarian (I have read “Slouching” as well as “Tempting,” and I believe he has written at least one subsequent and “uglier” book), and you miss something when you note

> Bork was a staunch supporter
> of censorship, the War on
> Drugs, and laws regulating
> what people can do in the
> privacy of their own bedrooms.

and he still is, but he did not implicitly or explitly approve federal laws about these issues when there was no power granted to the feds to exercise authority over them. (In not addressing these issues or in not delegating power to the federal government to decide such issues, they are left to states and localities, obviously according to the same constitution and using the same arguments you routinely advance elsewhere.) You left that part out of the picture.

As to

> the basis for Mr. Bork’s
> political philosophy seems
> to be an unshakeable belief
> that the role of government
> is to enforce morality rather
> than to protect liberty

“Indeed,” as Bork correctly says in “Tempting,” “we legislate little else.” However, “Tempting” addresses issues of law, not morality, and notes that judicial activism substitutes the morality of judges and elites like them for the morality of the American people in general and the laws that reflect the morality of the people.

> Bork is not a Constitutionalist.

See above.

> He is a conservative with
> authoritarian leanings.

We know that. We know all about his outside-the-court references to “the criminal class” as well as to “the chattering classes.” Yet he still defends the Constitution and rule of law and law through legislation based on a democratically elected legislature, which you totally leave out of the picture. You slide into ad hominem if you try to discredit him, someone who has argued against an activist judiciary that is either liberal or conservative.

> Why conservatives put him
> on a pedistal is beyond me.

Real conservatives of course do, because they’re more like Bork than you or I am. I like his work on judicial activism that explains as well as exposes it, both conservative and liberal activism. You simply ignore this because he’s not a purist ideological libertarian, or because he’s criticized the libertarian concept in any way (naive, childish, “too much freedom” [there's a hot button], etc.).

I provided more then enough information to support what I said.

> no matter what their reasons might be

If you’re referring to me, you are a liar, and this isn’t the first time.

When not directly confronted with the workings of a conservative mind, I can find aspects of conservatism quite appealing.
But when theory is boiled down to real life situations, it gets really scary.

DLS- Its true that SCOTUS has only banned one form of abortion

Come on, we are back to square one. SCOTUS did no such thing. Congress did. SCOTUS just ruled it, under the terms it was appealed to them, as within their scope and within existing precedence. And, again, hints were dropped that other appeals, under different terms, may be successful against this law.

Also, re:

AR The right says that decisions about the war should not be made on the basis of polls- so isn’t that also elitism by an imperial executive?

Using the Judiciary to ‘create law’ where the Legislature chooses not to is not the same thing as a President choosing to exert the Constitutional powers granted to him, even if the majority disapproves. We are, after all neither a Parliamentary government, nor a direct Democracy.

The point being, Judicial activism, by definition, is the usurpation of Legislative or Executive powers via the creation of new law or rights, i.e., the unenumerated Right to Privacy, which of course does not actually exist within the Constitution.

One is the use of enumerated power correctly, but in an unpopular way, the other is, in essence, the disenfranchisement of the American voter.

No, this is not merely about banning one procedure. It is about banning it, regardless of what the consequences are to the woman .

You rant on and on but skip blithely over the most pertinent
but inconvenient (to you) part of the ruling.

Bork was not a proponent of either the Constitution, liberty, or individualism. Like so many other social conservatives who call themselves “Constitutionalists”, he embraced a “state’s rights” view whenever such an outcome would lead to less personal liberty (allowing abortion) while ignoring a “state’s rights” view when such an outcome would lead to more personal liberty (liberalization of our drug laws). Bork was a staunch supporter of censorship, the War on Drugs, and laws regulating what people can do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. He embraced traditionalism and distained libertarianism, which he considered to be a “virus.”

Based upon his best-selling book Slouching to Gomorrah, the basis for Mr. Bork’s political philosophy seems to be an unshakeable belief that the role of government is to enforce morality rather than to protect liberty. In Reason Magazine, libertarian Walter Olson wrote of Robert Bork:

America’s real problem, [Bork] now proposes, is that Americans enjoy too much freedom, not too little. One chapter title inveighs against “The Rage for Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”; throughout the book “liberty” and “pursuit of happiness” turn up as pejoratives. Bork traces “our modern, virtually unqualified enthusiasm for liberty” in part to the Declaration of Independence, a document whose influence he generally deplores. He assails as “both impossible and empty” John Stuart Mill’s principle that law should interfere with the individual’s liberty only for the sake of protecting other persons. Instead he calls for “law based on morality”: “society may properly set limits on what may be shown, said and sung.” His pivotal chapter is titled “The Case for Censorship.”

Bork is not a Constitutionalist. He is a conservative with authoritarian leanings. Why conservatives put him on a pedistal is beyond me.

> The state has now taken
> control of a woman’s body.

No, it hasn’t. It merely has banned one form of abortion.

Abortion has routinely been subject to legislation in our history, and may continue to be so.

Do not assume wrongly, as radicals have, that people can do whatever they want, as toddlers believe. They cannot, in civilized places with laws. Such radicalism goes beyond the most pure libertarians, who themselves are accused of flirting with anarchy.

> What would the reaction be,
> I wonder, if the state took
> control of a man’s body?

I could answer this a number of ways. To answer your false statement, I could say we’d find out if men started getting preganant. I could also add (in refuting your earlier false statement) that we’re not able to murder, steal, or do many other things without adverse consequences already. Our bodies are controlled! We’re slaves of the evil State!

Or I could add that this nation desperately needs and should have “implied consent” for organ donation but some (prpbably on the Religious Right) would then say that it means the state controls our bodies (and their disposition), everyone is a slave of the State, etc., ad nauseum.