A Kentucky woman Friday filed an emergency class-action lawsuit, asking a Jefferson County judge to allow her to terminate her pregnancy. It’s the first lawsuit of its kind in Kentucky since the state banned nearly all abortions in 2022 and one of the only times nationwide since before Roe v. Wade in 1973 that an adult woman has asked a court to intervene on her behalf and allow her to get an abortion.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    The problem is that it’s next to impossible to add amendments to the constitution now due to how divided the nation is. This means that in order for abortion to receive protection under the constitution, it would need to be tied to an existing amendment that was not drafted with abortion in mind.

    Is the nation more or less divided than when slavery was banned?

    • chitak166@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The nation was more divided during slavery, hence why we had a civil war over it.

      We were only able to outlaw slavery because of who won that war.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Huh. So it was more divided then but it is less likely that we can amend the constitution now due to how divided we are? That doesn’t make much sense.

        • chitak166@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          What part of having a civil war determining the fate of slavery do you not understand?

          We’re not discussing a civil war to add abortion protections to the constitution. We’re talking about passing it using measures that would not have worked when trying to outlaw slavery.

          You’re conflating two marginally related causes as though they are identical. Try to stay on topic and you’ll be less confused.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Sure, two causes that involved the rights of states over the rights of people’s bodily autonomy are only “marginally related.” Got it.

            • chitak166@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Why are you mentioning the likelihood of them being added to the constitution while ignoring that one took a civil war to happen?

              You’re saying you’re confused about why slavery was outlawed but abortion wasn’t when the nation was more divided during slavery. It’s because they had a civil war over it! That’s the only reason the constitution was amended to ban slavery, because of who won that war.

              It’s possible that even if the nation is less divided than it was during the Civil War, it’s still too divided to amend the constitution to protect abortion.

                • chitak166@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  It was, but concessions had to be made by the losing side; as is typical among wars.

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                    11 months ago

                    So you’re saying that literally the only way for one side to make concessions when it comes to amending the constitution over a very divisive issue is to fight a war over it.

                    Weird, because I don’t remember the war that was fought over giving women the right to vote despite a huge amount of political opposition.

      • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        An interesting argument. So law is only credible if people go to war over it and is an expression of millitary superiority. Also the Constitution is the only level of federal law that is binding and the only thing that determines what is both ethical and a human right and any attempt to change that is made right only by an expression of deadly force… Hmm.

        There are a lot of non-constitutional federal laws that protect rights however. The FDA for instance enforces the rights of the public to not be subjected to food and drug adulteration, the Americans with Disabilities Act protects the rights of disabled persons guaranting them reasonable accommodation to fully participate in society. Are those laws valid as they are extra constitutional?

        As for abortion specifically, the 14th amendment was invoked heavily during the original Supreme court case as the support for the original Roe v. Wade but the document that court decision was based on has not changed, nor has the medical procedure that case was based on. The original court case featured heavily that private citizen rights were nessisary to individually made health decisions based on the established principles outlined in the document. The progression of the court case attempted to follow a series of logic to determine if the constitution was being applied.

        It’s repeal was through Dobbs v Jackson and it’s precedent over turned for reasons “Abortion not being deeply rooted in this Nation’s history or tradition”, nor considered being a right when the Due Process Clause was ratified in 1868… This is a note for note description of a fallacy - the appeal to tradition. That for something to be true it must be revered as a cultural norm dating back to usually unspecified periord. It also has the component of the genetic fallacy - rejecting or accepting something based on the origin of it rather than it’s content.

        Following that logic you can dismiss basically all of US law that has been codified after the original constitution. Food and drug adulteration was a huge problem during the period of the signing of the Constitution so obviously the US has no tradition to protect the health of it’s citizens based on those grounds. Nothing in the constitution that specifically stops companies from doing that! Disabled people aren’t obviously mentioned and we had a long history of basically telling them that they had no right to participation in anything. Basically the entire naturalization process was codified after the original signing so bye bye citizenship rights slavery is legal.

        Your argument is essentially that what is codified into law is what is ethical but also that modifying an expanding the protections of those laws are an expression of “tribalism”… But they shouldn’t be. The original court that saw Roe v. Wade were majority Conservatives. They held themselves to completely different ethical principles than the modern Conservatives on the court. They MADE this and all constitutional laws a matter of tribalism by discarding logic and greater ethics to the side. Your freedoms and protections are all fundamentally compromised by these fallacies based on exploitation of the system. If one can simply reject the rules, letter and spirit of the law in favour of putting forward the imaginary intentions of a bunch of dead people then all of the laws you have are based only on a complete flight of fancy. They are just hoping you are too wound up in your own tribalism to notice.

        Ever noticed that any change made post Confederacy isn’t supported by an originalist argument? That’s actually by design.

        • chitak166@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          So law is only credible if people go to war over it and is an expression of millitary superiority.

          I didn’t read the rest of your wall of text because you clearly misunderstood my point in the first 2 sentences.

          The law was passed through constitutional amendment because the nation went to war over slavery.

          The US did not amend the constitution to protect abortion. It really is that simple. No mental gymnastics, walls of texts, or analogies required.

          • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Ah the arguement by way of laziness. Why bother commenting if you never bothered to understand my argument at all? It astounds me how many people actually think this fortifies their position.

            It’s also why you are so easy to manipulate. Your rights are going to be so easily chipped away and you won’t even notice you are the one holding the pickax.

            • chitak166@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Why bother commenting if you never bothered to understand my argument at all?

              So I could point out why the rest of your comment wasn’t worth reading based on how it started.

              You’re not astounded. Just grasping at straws.

              • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                So you having zero patience to deal with anyone who doesn’t immediately agree with you is supposed to be some kind of mic drop? Or is it more that I upset you and you immediately needed to tap out? Either way it sounds more like emotional fragility. If that is the case you could just say so and I would make an effort to be more considerate of your feelings.