So all the cards are in place for demolishing abortion rights. I was off by a few days in my previous prophecy (maybe I was speaking as a man). Let's open up the betting: how many days before abortions are totally illegal in Utah? I say fewer than 30.

Many months.

In the quicker scenario the nominee won't be confirmed for several weeks, then a test case must wend its way up to the supreme court, then deliberations and a decision ensue. That would pave the way for individual states to formulate, deliberate upon, and pass their own new laws. I can't see that happening until well into 2019 and perhaps 2020.

The slower scenario would require several different cases, with the supreme court using each to chip away further at Roe v. Wade. States wouldn't gain power to prohibit abortions completely for several years.

You may be right. However, I believe that the states will fall over each other to be the first to outlaw abortions, and then dare a poor raped woman to challenge the lawmakers' edicts in court. The restrictions, IMO, will happen at the front end and the court challenges will follow. Yes, the legal challenges will take years- and that is just what they want. In the meantime it will be 100% illegal to obtain an abortion. Thoughts?

In any case, the G-15 must be pleased as punch right about now. Their purpose in life has been fulfilled. They can basically retire now. In the USA it is now 100% legal to discriminate against gays, and soon abortions will be illegal. Seriously, how will they occupy their time now?

I don't think the states can lead the criminalization of abortion. The default position for the lower courts will be to respect the existing constitutional law. So if a state forbids abortion, someone will file for a restraining order against the government in district court and that court will stay the enforcement of the new law pending a decision of the supreme court. The default position would not be state criminalization but rather courts insisting on Roe.

The same is true of gay rights. The Carpenter decision was based on narrow reasoning and hence does not permit wholesale reversal of the sexual freedom cases. That would require a series of cases over years. I agree with you that the balance will now tip as the composition of the court changes, but states won't be able to do much overnight.

I'm not sure how the Q15 feel about all of this, to be frank. I'm sure they would like to see Roe eroded, and they will want more freedom to discriminate against non-heterosexuals. But they have a fairly realistic, and conservative, understanding of international security and trade. Picking fights with Europe, Canada, and Latin America over trade, for instance, is not good for the missionary effort. The church is also on record as opposing tighter immigration policy. Whether they perceive the government's new policies as a net positive or negative is unclear.

Even if they are gratified by the new developments, though, their work is still cut out for them. They are losing young people, tithe-paying families, and potential leaders rapidly and need to stem the hemorrhaging immediately. Otherwise the church will lose whatever relevance it still has. The old men can't be sleeping soundly nowadays.

Not soon enough.

I don't think "choice" is going to be axed. It's become part of the entitlements and once all the bureaucrats get a piece of the cash they don't give it up. It's their cash cow the same with any other federal program.

There could be reform on the way, like supposed welfare reform, where cut backs take place, the pp office open for 2 days a month instead of 5 days a week? And make the women go through 9 months of counselling before being eligible?

You do realize that currently no federal money goes to pay for abortions in any way...right?
Meaning that "choice" doesn't cost taxpayers anything...so there's nothing to cut back on?
Just checking.

Old used up line. Sure, but all it is, is moving money around. Federal money paying for one aspect of that program frees up funds to subsidize the abortion side of the program going to a program. Directly or indirectly having them funded or subsidized by the government is wrong.

Oh, yeah, damn the facts -- full speed ahead!

I'm apparently an outlier here but I doubt Roe will be reversed. I think at most it will be nibbled around the edges a bit, and even that will take years.

The right to discriminate if your god happens to disapprove of the group you discriminate against may be strengthened, but even there I do not expect the needle to move very far.

I don't know what the Q15 are thinking. Mormons have never really been rabidly anti-abortion. When I go to other states, I see billboards and smaller signs in farmers' fields decrying abortion, and protesters picketing abortion clinics. I don't see any of that in Utah. The Utah legislature does a lot of posturing, but the actual citizen activists are strangely silent on the subject.

I also agree with Lot's Wife that LDS Inc is probably quite nervous about what the current administration is doing to the international perception of the US, and how that is hurting their brand. They are clearly perceived around the world as an American church. President T may be bad for the LDS religion business, except perhaps in Russia. They also have their own local (US) set of problems to deal with. They are losing youth in large numbers, and in Utah, it appears that their strong stand against medical marijuana is being roundly ignored.

They are well aware that when they say "jump", and they are met with "no", instead of "how high", they have a serious problem.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2018 02:30PM by Brother Of Jerry.

His getting confirmed and seated before the Court is back in session in October is the goal, but might be easier said than done. Anyway, that will be the earliest. Then a case has to wind its way up to the court (through trail and appeals courts) and the Court has to find a reason to grand cert and hear the case. then the case would be argued and decision rendered. Very unlikely all that would happen by next June when they end the court year. I know what you're thinking, "Well Bush v. Gore..." Don't even go there.

But despite the shenanigans of the 2016 Congress, two wrongs don't make a right and the president has the right to appoint his nominee. The Congress should only hold hearings to determine their legal qualifications and any glaring conflict of interest. And it should be done with extreme haste. Kavanaugh or someone of his ilk will be seated, and the president's pick should be.

Red states have been working hard for the past decade for this day. They have pushed for abortion restriction and state constitutional amendments banning abortion. So that even though Roe is still law, they can chip away against it or file suit to overturn it and then their state laws will already be in place to restrict or ban it at every turn of the Federal courts. This is the scenario we tried to describe a few years ago when we worked tireless to overturn a proposed change to our state's constitution, to no avail (although our little blue niche in this red state hardily rejected it). It's not 1973. Almost half of legal abortions are medical abortions. Watch for the new mafia--traffickers in mifepristone.

I think that the west coast states will gain female tourism. Come for the abortion, stay for the sights.

California and a bunch of other states have constitutionally guaranteed rights to abortion. I'd rather not see it happen a lot, but there are reasons for them to be necessary and I don't have a uterus to have a say.

What I seriously don't understand is why the right to life crowd thinks their responsibility ends at the first breath. Then the kid is on its own. You force a mother to carry a child to term, you should be on the hook for 18 years at least.

I asked a GA (I forget who it was) at a mission conference about birth control and abortion and his answer was that ghawd wanted you to "Plan to have a Family". He said that that was what he wanted from us, but that the timing was at our discretion.

I took him to mean that you could use birth control and have an abortion, so long as you knew in your heart that you'd be making ghawd proud by having kids.

I can't say for sure that he was 'okay' with abortion and that the church was, too, but all of us knew that the pre-existence spirit does not enter the body until a time very close to birth, so you're no more 'killing' a human with an early term abortion than when a young man spills his seed on the ground.