[jlisenbe]

These comments sure make me wonder.

"Virtually every state defines a brain death as death," Sotomayor, appointed by former President Barack Obama, said during oral arguments in a potential landmark abortion rights case Wednesday, as the state of Mississippi defended an abortion restriction law that directly challenges Roe v. Wade.

"Yet, the literature is filled with episodes of people who are completely and utterly brain dead responding to stimuli," Sotomayor continued. "There's about 40 percent of dead people who, if you touch their feet, the foot will recoil. There are spontaneous acts by dead brain people. So I don't think that a response to -- by a fetus necessarily proves that there's a sensation of pain or that there's consciousness."

[tomder55]

And here I thought the left believes in science. Off the top of my head ,the comparison is false in that a fetus baby is alive with fully formed organs and a heart that pumps gallons of blood daily ,while a corpse is dead . That really should be self evident for a person who has risen to one of the most important judges in the nation.

Last year 2 researchers ;one pro-life and one so called pro- choice did a study published in the Journal of Medical Ethics .

Reconsidering fetal pain | Journal of Medical Ethics (bmj.com)

They agreed that a fetus feels pain at least as soon as 12 weeks after gestation. That brings the age up significantly from the previous view of 22 weeks . And as the science continues to advance our understanding of fetal pain will be greater .
What is significant is that if a medical procedure is to be performed for anything other than an abortion ;the baby is given anesthesia.

[tomder55]

This is how this decision will go

3 lib justices will vote to uphold Roe and Casey
3 conservative justices will vote to scrap Row and Casey
3 justices .......2 Trump appointees that the libs hair went on fire over, and Chief Justice King Soloman will split the baby as it were ,and uphold the Mississippi law ;push back or overturn Casey's viability test; and uphold Roe .

Combining the Roberts block and the block of conservatives will mean the Mississippi law will be upheld but it will not be the major ruling that the pro-lifers want .

[jlisenbe]

Sounds plausible.

[tomder55]

“You know, I can’t change Texas’s law, but you can and everyone else who may or may not like it can go out there and be lobbying forces in changing laws that you don’t like.” Justice Sotomayor going full political.

Sotomayor tells law students: I can't change Texas abortion law, but you can | TheHill


"I am pointing out to that when I shouldn’t because they tell me I shouldn’t. But my point is that there are going to be a lot of things you don’t like” and require public action.”

[jlisenbe]

So much for impartial, objective SCOTUS justices.

[tomder55]

Need to watch Congress carefully. The House already passed Womens Health Protection Act(WHPA) narrowly . This would nationalize abortion laws under the most radical terms .They claim to want to protect Roe. In fact it goes way beyond Roe. The bill prohibits government entities from imposing any limitation or requirement that “expressly, effectively, implicitly, or as implemented singles out” and “impedes access to” abortion.

[jlisenbe]

I don't think that would go anywhere. Congress cannot pass a law which violates existing Supreme Court rulings.

[tomder55]

Congress can nullify any SCOTUS decision by passing new statutes or amending existing laws or by amending the Constitution

To date SCOTUS has not ruled abortion unconstitutional. If they rule against Casey and Roe then the decisions about abortion laws go to the states .WHPA would take that away from the states and make it national

[jlisenbe]

Congress can nullify any SCOTUS decision by passing new statutes or amending existing laws or by amending the Constitution.

The second part (amend Constitution) is correct. I don't believe the first part is. Congress or the pres can choose to ignore a SCOTUS ruling, but that would be an unconstitutional decision. It has happened, but not, to my knowledge, in recent times.

Now if the Court's ruling was on existing law but not on the Constitutional foundations of the law, then the Congress could change the law and thus nullify the Court's ruling. But they could not, for instance, overrule the Court's decision on Roe since the court found (invented) a constitutional right to privacy which they extended to abortion.

At least that's my understanding.

[tomder55]

What you are talking about is the difference between constitutional and statutory decisions. In this case Congress is not nullifying the SCOTUS Roe and Casey rulings. They are creating national standards that eliminate state rules. I suspect SCOTUS will not reverse Roe but may turn viability issues to the various states . Congress if it passed WHPA will make the most liberal standards the law of the land .

[talaniman]

Agree Tom. The question is will SCOTUS allow MS. to lower the accepted 23 week viability ruling it set previously. That opens the door for more states to lower it even more and no doubt some will try.

[jlisenbe]

They are creating national standards that eliminate state rules.

That's a good point. You might be right, but I'm not sure they can turn aside the Court's ruling in Casey that viability is the key and that viability would be at 24 weeks. That was a reduction from the Roe standard of 28 weeks, and yet is higher than what is probably a new medical standard of 21 weeks, and that not to mention solid evidence that even at 12 weeks a fetus can experience pain. All of this is working to destroy the purely legal, unmedical and unscientific use of the term "potential human life" referred to in Roe.

As an aside, the abortion clinic in the Dobbs case, the Jackson Women's Health Organization, is the only abortion facility in the state of Mississippi and the one I go stand outside of weekly to take a stand in defense of life. Media from all over the globe have been there the past two or three months.