Roe v Wade | Piss and Moan

Right reversal

Posted on June 24, 2022 by backuphill

“The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”

OK, Chicken Little…or littles….there is a lot of yelling, crying, hand-wringing, and plain old threats of violence over the Supreme Court of the United States’ reversal of the Roe v. Wade decision. A decision that has been on debate about the correctness, legality, and morality since it was handed down nearly 50 years ago.

In my humble opinion, this is the right reversal. I say it that way because of two things: it overturns a precendent set in the past that was wrong from the start and it removes the ability to legally kill human babies.

I wrote all the way back in December of last year, when this case was being heard by SCOTUS, that the danger of precendent was something that the court could not and should not stand on, simply for standing on precendent. I also wrote about it way back in 2019, about precedent being danderous. I was trying to show that previous courts had made decisions that were wrong and that needed to be overturned because they were morally wrong and righted wrongs that never should have existed. When this decision was leaked to the press (in and of itself, unprecedented) early, the sky began falling then. This just confirms that there are some who clearly are going to die on this hill and that a large portion of the United States is morally bankrupt.

So, again, overturning the first decision to legalize abortion at the federal level was the correct thing to do. It’s the right reversal. There is no inherent right or implicet right in the Constitution for an individual to take a life, let alone to kill babies. It can’t be Constiutionally protected because there are no means to justify it.

It’s the right reversal because there is no moral justification for taking the life of a baby. You can’t tell me that an inch and a half (or three, or whatever amount) of skin and tissue makes the different between whether or not a baby, a child, a human is alive or not. Once it has a detectable heartbeat, no matter the time or space, it is alive. Some might even argue earlier, but a heartbeat for sure is discernable and can’t be debated. It just can’t. No argument can be created or defended that would change this fact and to do so would simply be smoke and mirrors to displace the real issue.

Once again, there will be a lot of complaining, groaning, screaming, and lying (yes, lying) about the wrong that has been done with this right reversal. For many in the country, there can no better or singular issue to demonstrates their depravity than this. Any opinoin that directly supports killing children, at any age, tells you alot about the person holding the opinion.

The danger of precedent

Posted on December 2, 2021 by backuphill

Photo by EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA on Pexels.com

You’re gonna hear about the Supreme Court a lot in the coming days and weeks. They’re hearing a case that could change the course of human events in the U.S. for a long time to come (or not). It really depends on how the court decides the case it heard yesterday, the one about abortion and limiting it.

One of the ways the court makes it’s decisions is based on precedent. Precedent is used to help guide the court in making decisions related to issues of the past. A court obviously can’t really know if a decision they are making in the current day will be used as precedent, but they certainly know in the present when they are using the precedent set by earlier courts.

One of the things about SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) is that it relies heavily on precedents set by previous courts. This is kind of a nod to the fact that those justices have made a correct ruling based on interpretation of the Constitution, intent of the Founders, etc., etc. Therefore, most decisions coming from the court often don’t step on previous decisions and most often don’t overturn precedent.

But, there have been times where that has taken place and it was no small matter.

The best example of a court reversing it’s own precedent (and really the best one to apply now to abortion) is the 1896 case of Plessy vs. Ferguson. The precedent that was set by the court as a result of that case became known as the “separate but equal” doctrine. Essentially it established that, for all intents and purposes, segregation was legal as long as accommodations were equal for both races. Of course, we know the application of that doctrine didn’t really get applied that way and was the basis for all sorts of discriminatory and racist laws. Over and over there challenges to those racist laws and over and over the court upheld decisions in favor of racism simply because the justification was the precedent of Plessy. That precedent would eventually be overturned by a different and later court, which set a new precedent. The 1954 case of Brown vs. The Board of Education turned Plessy on it’s head by deciding in the case that separate was not equal but inherently unequal. Thus, sanctioned and legal racism was stamped out by a future court righting the wrongs of a previous court. There was a new understanding and interpretation and it was decided that the precedent was wrong, so they fixed it and made it right. It took 58 years to make that morally wrong decision, morally right.

Today, some 43 years after the Roe vs. Wade court decision SCOTUS has a chance to right another wrong. A chance to reverse a precedent that has cost millions and millions of human lives – those of unborn children. A chance to stand on what is morally right, saving the lives of babies, instead of standing on what is morally wrong, killing babies. It doesn’t seem like this should be that tough of a decision. But, apparently it is.

Going against public opinion isn’t an easy thing and I am sure it wasn’t that easy in the Brown decision, but it was the right thing to do. Lots of things have changed in 43 years since Roe was decided. Healthcare, medical knowledge, and technology has gotten a lot better in those years, so denying that life starts at conception is backwards as saying the Sun revolves around the Earth.

The arguments from the liberal side of the bench were a little strange yesterday. Sonia Sotomayor is standing on precedent and arguing for maintaining the status quo simple so the court can take on the appearance of legitimacy? Isn’t it less legitimate if it doesn’t correct precedent and right a wrong? To me that seems like a weird argument to make when talking about morally wrong judgements. Can you imagine if the court argued in 1954’s Brown decision that they needed to keep the Plessy precedent to “survive” and remain legitimate?

Anyone else find that strange?

Anyone else care about this topic? What do you think?

Ultimately, precedent can be a positive way to look at pending cases and it can be used as a guide to current issues, but if precedent can’t ever be corrected (despite public opinion) it’s a dangerous thing to stand on.