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Alito Court Overturns Roe; Abortion Illegal in South Dakota

Women in America no longer have a constitutional right to terminate their pregnancies. The United States Supreme Court this morning issued its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which challenged a Mississippi ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, and said it is up to states to decide when and whether they will allow abortions. This ruling comes one day after the Court ruled in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that it is not up to states to decide when and whether they will allow concealed firearms.

To review: states can protect life by bossing women around, but states cannot protect life by bossing gun owners around.

As in other states with trigger laws, abortion is now mostly illegal in South Dakota. Per SDCL 22-17-5.1, enacted in 2005 to take effect upon the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, any person who performs an abortion on any woman in South Dakota or prescribes or procures for any pregnant woman any abortificient medicine, drug, or substance is guilty of a Class 6 felony, “unless there is a reasonable medical judgment that performance of an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant female.”

Prescribe or purchase abortion pills in South Dakota, and you go to jail.

Help a rape or incest victim terminate the pregnancy imposed on her by a criminal, and you go to jail.

Help any woman terminate her pregnancy at any point after conception absent strong medical evidence that the pregnancy will kill her, and you go to jail.

The court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade makes good on the February draft opinion leaked on May 2. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the final opinion; Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett all concurred in striking this previously Constitutional right. Chief Justice Roberts concurred in upholding the Mississippi 15-week ban on abortions, but he said the court did not need to overturn Roe v. Wade to reach this decision.

73 Comments

  1. Ska sunka

    Welcome to Gilead.

  2. Loren

    6-3, 6-3, 6-3… Better get used to it. We are well under way to the 1950s, if not 1850s. Just a coincidence that each and every one of the 6, during their senate confirmation hearings, described Roe as “settled law.” If it was settled law, how do you just toss it out. Is lying under oath an impeachable offense?

  3. Richard Schriever

    If Alito were to apply the same reasoning they used behind this (interpretation within the strict context of the culture and times of the founders) to their 2nd amendment rights – everyone could own a muzzle-loading musket or pistol AND be participants in regular drills of their local militia. Period. No other weapons would be available. But the application of logical consistency is NOT what this court is actually about, no matter their protestations to the contrary. Purely creatures or personal ideology.

  4. bearcreekbat

    To me the oft repeated phrase:

    any person who performs an abortion on any woman in South Dakota or prescribes or procures for any pregnant woman any abortificient medicine, drug, or substance is guilty of a Class 6 felony

    is an inappropriate minimization of the legal dangers now faced in SD by any woman intentionally obtaining an abortion and anyone who intentionally assists her by providing health care or otherwise. As I have repeatedly shown here on DFP SD state stautes make unauthorized abortions !st degree murder and anyonce convicted of that crime is subject ot s sentence of death due to an always existing “aggravating circumstance,” namely the age of the purported victim.

    I wish that I was wrong and I would encourage anyone to explain how and why I am mistaken, but as I pointed out any defendant can be convicted of more than one crime for a single act if each crime has a different element. Murder doesn’t require proof of an abortion, but the new class 6 felony does require this element, so the two crimes of 1st degree murder and illegal abortion indeed have different elements.

    If I am right, the public needs to realize the danger that our trigger law has put women and their doctors and other helpers in.

  5. A cannabis dispensary selling to all adults just opened on the Pine Ridge so clinics on the rez are just a matter of time.

  6. cibvet

    Given the reservations scattered throughout SD, it certainly would be helpful for our economy with a cannabis dispensary and abortion clinics in each one.
    No one would have to drive very far and it would remove SD from its 1900 century Taliban mentality to present day. An added benefit would be
    noem/roden shi**ing themselves.

  7. Well, short term, there’s Minnesota and trips to Canada for those in the hills. Funding is going to be the issue short term. Check with Planned Parenthood, they will help you.

  8. bearcreekbat

    I wonder what Noem, Schoenbeck, and Hansen can come up with that is “even stricter” than the current 1st degree murder charge with an automatic aggravating circumstance that always authorizes the death sentence, or, if the jury is too lenient to actually impose an authorized death sentence, a mandatory life sentence without parol?

  9. Every tribal council is different. Stand-alone clinics on tribal land where medications would be administered is all over Faceberg.

  10. What will have an immediate impact is in the military where some surgical abortions are paid for by the Department of Defense.

  11. All Mammal

    I hate when I wake up and every thought I conjure will wind me up in Guantanamo. I appreciated President Biden’s speech. All this compounds more hatred on Trump. Scary times. When we stand together, we make it just a little righter for those yet to come. We might not be around, but we will eventually kill this whackass oppression. Thomas looks old af.

  12. We will see how the Republican dogs respond to catching the tire.

  13. Francis Schaffer

    So now no sperm donor can pay for the abortion. Speaking of IVF who gets to track those ‘humans’ and when 3 are implanted and there is only 1 live birth who gets charged then? Mark, the dog catches the tire. Made me laugh and I really needed it today.

  14. Jake

    And this is not “legislating from the bench”?!! Republican dogs have caught the car they’ve been chasing and barking at for 50 years-now let’s see what they do about it!

    All girls and women, old enough to become pregnant willingly or un-willingly (rape/incest) are hereby second-class citizens (similar to slaves of old) in our USA and South Dakota places we live. Today, we old white learned trusted males of the species consider you to be incapable of deciding whether to carry a pregnancy to term or not.

    WE have decided you WILL. This is the ” THE HIDDEN HAND OF BIG GOVERNMENT power for years we have been trying to hide from you that we really wanted. all along.

  15. Bob Newland

    Some fughead said this morning on SDPR, “Now every unborn child in South Dakota has the right to [an uneducated, disease-prone, gun-carrying, poverty-stricken, handmaid’s] life [in Gilead].

  16. Jenny

    A sad day for American women. Are you happy, Pubs? You finally have total control over women. Kick em while they’re down charge them for a felony. What a sick f’d up country we live in.

  17. Jenny

    Gay marriage will be next.

  18. Jenny

    “Let me be very clear: This ruling changes nothing in Minnesota today, tomorrow, or as long as I am governor. We will not turn back the clock on reproductive rights.” – Gov Tim Walz

    Glad my daughter lives in MN where she has more rights.

  19. mike from iowa

    States can’t be trusted to regulate guns, but they can regulate women’s bodies?.

  20. mike from iowa

    Inter racial marriage should be next up on the docket.

  21. CK

    Birth control, LQBTQ+ rights, and interracial marriage coming down the pipe. Just watch.

    I. Am. Scared.

  22. cibvet

    If interracial marriage is banned, will Thomas go to jail and open up a seat on the court?

  23. jerry

    Mid terms are coming up right quick like. Expand the House with Democrats, Expand the Senate with Democrats and Expand the Supreme Court with more justices that understand their roles in Democracy that separates church and state.

  24. P. Aitch

    If you let “them” know it bothers you it makes them even happier. We’ll win. We always do. Liberals are like cats. Most of the time you hardly know we’re around but given the need we “pack up in groups” and then it’s undeniable that we exist. e.g. Removing the one term Trump from office.

  25. 96Tears

    To every person whom I’ve heard say “well, there’s not much difference between Democrats and Republicans,” I say, “f@#k you, you damn dumbass!”

    Three clear-as-a-bell big differences exhibited this week:

    1. SCOTUS’s ruling on Roe v. Wade.
    2. SCOTUS’s ruling on guns, guns, guns.
    3. Thursday’s 1/6 hearing where we learned how Trump and GOP members of Congress teamed up with Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other violent white supremacists in a violent coup.

    I remember in the second Obama election, the prognosticators on TV talked about the shrinking purely white population of the United States and the inevitable collapse of the Republican Party. For a collapsing political party, the GOP shows everyday it has more venom than needed to remove all human rights in the United States. Four entities are responsible for today:

    1. A ballsy mastermind – Sen. Mitch McConnell. He snookered three anti-choice seats onto the SCOTUS by stonewalling Obama’s selection and ramming through two more under Trump.
    2. A thug – Donald Trump. He won the presidency and delivered three anti-choice seats. Trump pulled the trigger despite being pro-choice until he started grifting the GOP at a time when it was circling the drain.
    3. A fool – Sen. Susan Collins. What a waste of skin and a Senate seat.
    4. Dumb liberals – They got mad and took their toys home when their little Bernie Sanders couldn’t beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary. They opened the White House to an absolute beast.

    Oh, what a different world it would be had Hillary became President instead of the grifter Trump. But no. Elections have consequences, the worst being losing control of who sits on the SCOTUS for decades.

    The bad and/or disturbing news of the past week portend an all out effort by the conservative movement to turn back the clock in the United States to the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision (1857). Human rights just get in the way of billionaires making maximum profits. The overlords are buying the government they want. They got the court they want. The GOP is only too happy to take their breadcrumbs and do their bidding.

  26. Jenny

    Don’t be in denial, 96. The 2016 Dem convention was rigged for Hillary and she was a horrible candidate. What an embarassment to lose to an idiot monster like Donald Trump. Not showing up in important swing states, lackluster half filled stadiums at rallies. When you run from popular stances like Medicare for all you’re bound to lose.

  27. leslie

    yup, Murdoch (Fox)/Putin hate cancelled Democrats’ 2016 presidential popular victory. John Thune, McConnell’s enabler, is responsible for the war on democracy and on Ukraine.

    Voting blue is the solution. It’ll take many more terms to fix this sheit.

  28. leslie

    96!

  29. cibvet

    Cory–Arielle Zionts only speaks for a small faction of Indian women and possibly all conservative women who are comfortable with being property of repubs. That said, times will change and sooner rather than later, Indian women will tire of being beaten and murdered. They will eventually stand and rule the rez long before their white sisters are allowed to do the same in congress. Indian women have been repressed since they were forced on the reservation and now it is ending. (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW)

  30. TGA

    I’ve voted blue my entire life. I have fewer rights today than when I was born.

    Democrat-held WH, Senate and House didn’t find women’s lives worth enough to get rid of the filibuster of codify Roe with a majority supporting women’s reproductive rights. This has been a 30 year campaign/jihad. This didn’t sneak up on anyone.

    Wealthy women will continue having safe abortions. All other women will just have abortions.

  31. jerry

    Oh Jenny, you silly gal you. Hillary Clinton just got crossed ways with Putin, who seems like your kind of guy.

  32. leslie

    tga- “It’ll take many more terms to fix this sheit.”

  33. leslie

    Top election issues:

    1. Global warming; and

    2. Economic inequality (everything else falls under this one.)

    Simple. Vote “Democrat-[ic, otherwise:] “fewer rights today than” whenever!

    And COVID taught us to follow science, not capitalism.

  34. O

    Just a reminder to all the purists that said that Hillary was the same as Trump. Given that governance is NOT the priority for the GOP, it is all about seating judges.

  35. Eve Fisher

    Clarence Thomas: “in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is “demonstrably erroneous,” … we have a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents.”
    Earlier he defined these cases as “Griswold (contraception), Eisenstadt (same), Lawrence (sexual conduct with member of the same sex), and Obergefell (same-sex marriage).”
    Also, he says, “Because the Court properly applies our substantive due process precedents to reject the fabrication of a constitutional right to abortion, and because this case does not present the opportunity to reject substantive due process entirely, I join the Court’s opinion. But, in future cases, we should “follow the text of the Constitution, which sets forth certain substantive rights that cannot be taken away, and adds, beyond that, a right to due process when life, liberty, or property is to be taken away.” Carlton, 512 U. S., at 42 (opinion of Scalia, J.). Substantive due process conflicts with that textual command and has harmed our country in many ways. Accordingly, we should eliminate it from our jurisprudence at the earliest opportunity.”
    https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf

    Except, of course, for interracial marriage, which he did not mention at all.

    Meanwhile, Thomas and Alito obviously have plans to eliminate “substantive due process” laws, which will undoubtedly strip Americans of far more rights than anyone – except them – have considered. We may end up back with 10 Amendments only, legal slavery, only free males able to vote, because – originalism. Prove me wrong.

  36. LCJ

    Sorry, Les-lie but the top election issues are the inflation, inflation and inflation. Thanks, Brandon

  37. Jenny

    Get over your Hillary loss, people. Wow so typical of SD Dems to be crybabies.
    Get out and fight like DFLers! Make a protest sign, make some calls, organize some huge protests. No wonder SD Dems have lost the last two generations of young progressive voters.
    “If we don’t fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don’t really stand for them” – Senator Paul Wellstone
    “I’d rather live 50 years like a tiger, than 100 years like a chicken”. Hubert Humphrey

  38. leslie

    perhaps the anti-Roe abortion leak and this decision publication now by SCOTUS is also a aimed as weapon of distraction from the devastating gun violence and Jan 6 commission evidence surging the popular discussions!

    expand SCOTUS seats!

  39. leslie

    And further obstructing Biden’s Democratic agenda, taking necessary horsepower needed to fix sheit Republicans break.

    McConnell and Thune’s long game. Insideous.

  40. leslie

    Reminds me of … PUTIN.

  41. leslie

    inflation comes around an ave of every 11 yrs or so. —google

    expensive to fill up ‘yer gas guzzler, eh?

  42. Sorry LCJ even your wife won’t vote with you on that one. Now on the topic at hand. Won’t someone in South Dakota bring it up for a vote? There have been two previous wins right?

  43. For a year before I fled western South Dakota for Montana I had “Flush the GOP” written on the back window of my pickup topper in white paint. Yes, I got flipped off often but then Montana became unsafe for Democrats, too.

    Flee while you still can. South Dakota isn’t worth it.

  44. Rob

    I’m a bit confused, and I’m wondering if you could clarify something for me. The Argus Leader ran an article on this where they talked about the ban in 2005, with two subsequent ballot measures having to do with abortion bans in 2006 and again in 2008. What was the difference between the ban that was passed in 2005 and the two that failed in ’06 and ’08?

  45. ABC

    2006 referendum? 59% voted NO in stupid make abortion illegal l. 2024 we can vote No on trigger law, 51% it gets removed.

  46. Good question, Rob. The legislature passed the trigger law in 2005; that’s the ban that took effect yesterday upon Alito’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.

    The Legislature passed another ban in 2006, HB 1215, but voters referred that law and voted Referred Law 6 down in 2006.

    Anti-abortion activists then petitioned another abortion ban onto the 2008 ballot. Voters rejected Initiated Measure 11 in 2008 by a 55-45 margin similar to the vote on RL 6 in 2006.

  47. Eve Fisher

    Another question to consider: We know that Avera in SD already turns “tricky” pregnancies over to Sanford to handle, because Avera’s Catholic & followed dogma. But Sanford would take them. Will they now? Or will they turn now ectopic & septic pregnancies away because they’ll have to be aborted?
    After all, neither Avera nor Sanford is currently issuing medical marijuana cards, despite our vote in 2020. Will they act as one again?

  48. bearcreekbat

    Will the SD trigger law and other criminal sanctions for an unauthorized abortion now mean that any woman that seeks medical care because of a miscarriage needs to be examined , interrogated and tested by local police to determine whether that woman, or anyone else, actually caused an abortion that she now claims was only a miscarriage? Likewise, will any woman suspected of being pregnant will need to be monitored to make sure that she actually gives birth, and if she fails to give birth then a crimijnal investigation will be necessary to determine whether a capital crime was committed?

  49. bearcreekbat

    The idea that abortion has become a capital crime in South Dakota has not been mentioned in any news coverage that I have seen, nor discussed in any local blogs. This suggests that such an idea may hopefully be way off base. Thus, I thought a a quick review of relevant current SD statutes might be helpful to anyone that might care one way or another whether South Dakota can now execute women, and anyone helping them, who have unauthorized abortions. If you are interested please take a look at these statutes, and the referenced Weaver and then come to your own conclusion.

    SDCL 22-1-2. Definitions. Terms used in this title mean: . . .
    (50A) “Unborn child,” an individual organism of the species homo sapiens from fertilization until live birth; . . . .

    SDCL 22-16-1. Homicide defined.
    Homicide is the killing of one human being, including an unborn child, by another. . . .

    SDCL 22-16-4. Homicide as murder in the first degree.
    Homicide is murder in the first degree :
    (1) If perpetrated without authority of law and with a premeditated design to effect the death of the person killed or of any other human being, including an unborn child; . . .

    SDCL 22-16-12. Classification of murder.
    Murder in the first degree is a Class A felony. . . .

    SDCL 22-6-1. Felony classes and penalties–Restitution–Habitual criminal sentences.
    Except as otherwise provided by law, felonies are divided into the following nine classes which are distinguished from each other by the following maximum penalties which are authorized upon conviction:
    (1) Class A felony: death or life imprisonment in the state penitentiary. A lesser sentence than death or life imprisonment may not be given for a Class A felony. In addition, a fine of fifty thousand dollars may be imposed; . . . .

    SDCL 22-16-1.1. Fetal homicide–Felony–Application.
    Homicide is fetal homicide if the person knew, or reasonably should have known, that a woman bearing an unborn child was pregnant and caused the death of the unborn child without lawful justification and if the person:
    (1) Intended to cause the death of or do serious bodily injury to the pregnant woman or the unborn child; or
    (2) Knew that the acts taken would cause death or serious bodily injury to the pregnant woman or her unborn child; . . . .

    SDCL 23A-27A-4. Aggravating circumstance and recommendation of death penalty required for Class A felony death sentencing–Life imprisonment–Bench trial or guilty plea.
    If, upon a trial by jury, a person is convicted of a Class A felony, a sentence of death shall not be imposed unless the jury verdict at the presentence hearing includes a finding of at least one aggravating circumstance and a recommendation that such sentence be imposed. If an aggravating circumstance is found and a recommendation of death is made, the court shall sentence the defendant to death. If a sentence of death is not recommended by the jury, the court shall sentence the defendant to life imprisonment.

    SDCL 23A-27A-6. Designation by judge in nonjury cases–At least one aggravating circumstance required for death penalty imposition.
    In nonjury cases the judge shall, after conducting the presentence hearing as provided in § 23A-27A-2, designate, in writing, the aggravating circumstance or circumstances, if any, which he found beyond a reasonable doubt. Unless at least one of the statutory aggravating circumstances enumerated in § 23A-27A-1 is so found, the death penalty shall not be imposed.

    SDCL 23A-27A-1. Mitigating and aggravating circumstances considered by judge or jury.
    Pursuant to §§ 23A-27A-2 to 23A-27A-6, inclusive, in all cases for which the death penalty may be authorized, the judge shall consider, or shall include in instructions to the jury for it to consider, any mitigating circumstances and any of the following aggravating circumstances which may be supported by the evidence: . . .
    (6) The offense was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or an aggravated battery to the victim. Any murder is wantonly vile, horrible, and inhuman if the victim is less than thirteen years of age; . . . .

    Finally, according to the South Dakota Supreme Court in State v. Weaver
    2002 SD 76, the Double Jeopardy Clause does not prevent a defendant from being convicted under two separate statutes for a single course of conduct.

    [¶8.] Weaver claims he was prosecuted, convicted and sentenced twice, once in Pennington County and once in Meade County, for the same assault on Waichler on March 17, 2000 and that this constitutes a violation of his double jeopardy protections under the federal and state constitutions. Weaver pled guilty to violation of a protection order in one county and was convicted of simple assault in another county. These are two separate crimes, containing separate elements, albeit presumably arising from the same conduct by Weaver. “Established double jeopardy jurisprudence confirms that the Legislature may impose multiple punishments for the same conduct without violating the Double Jeopardy Clause if it clearly expresses its intent to do so.” State v. Dillon, 2001 SD 97, ¶14, 632 NW2d 37, 43 (citing Garrett v. United States, 471 US 773, 778, 105 SCt 2407, 2411, 85 LEd2d 764 (1985)).

    https://law.justia.com/cases/south-dakota/supreme-court/2002/976.html

    This case addresses the problem of whether under the Double Jeopardy Clauyse someone may be convicted of violating both the 1st degree murder prohibition and South Dakota’s trigger abortion statute, which reads:

    22-17-5.1. (Section effective on the date states are recognized by the United States Supreme Court to have the authority to prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy) Procurement of abortion prohibited–Exception to preserve life of pregnant female–Felony.
    Any person who administers to any pregnant female or who prescribes or procures for any pregnant female any medicine, drug, or substance or uses or employs any instrument or other means with intent thereby to procure an abortion, unless there is appropriate and reasonable medical judgment that performance of an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant female, is guilty of a Class 6 felony. (Section 7 of SL 2005, ch 187, as amended by SL 2005, ch 188, § 1, provides: “This Act is effective on the date that the states are recognized by the United States Supreme Court to have the authority to prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy.”)

    It should be noted that the above trigger statute may not cover the pregnant woman, in which case she could only be convicted of 1st degree murder, but not an unauthorized abortion.

    I would be interested in reading the opinions of anyone on the meaning of these statutes, especially if it differs from my personal interpretation as described in previous comments.

  50. ABC

    Let’s set up a nonCatholic nonBillionaire hospital, marijuana physicians only.

    Then medical marijuana people can have Doctors!

  51. Phil

    Gov. Noem said something about “Protecting life to it’s natural end.” Consistent thinking would make it appear that the death penalty could be abolished next….? Interesting to see conservatives now talking about spending tax dollars on social welfare programs to help poor people, not holding my breath on that one. Our Saturday picking circle just played the Utah Phillips song “Orphan Train,” a little known part of history which could be reprised now,

  52. 96Tears

    The Liars Club – These justices said Roe was settled precedent, then voted to overturn it. (From NY Times)

    Amy Coney Barrett, 2020 – Pressed on whether she would vote to overturn decisions protecting abortion rights, Judge Barrett gave no hint of how she might rule.

    “What I will commit is that I will obey all the rules of stare decisis, that if a question comes up before me about whether Casey or any other case should be overruled, that I will follow the law of stare decisis, applying it as the court is articulating it, applying all the factors, reliance, workability, being undermined by later facts in law, just all the standard factors,” she said during her confirmation hearing in October 2020. “I promise to do that for any issue that comes up, abortion or anything else. I’ll follow the law.”

    —————————————-

    Brett Kavanaugh, 2018 – Judge Kavanaugh, questioned repeatedly about how he would rule on Roe, declined to directly answer whether the decision was “correct law.”

    Roe v. Wade “is important precedent of the Supreme Court that has been reaffirmed many times. But then Planned — and this is the point that I want to make that I think is important. Planned Parenthood v. Casey reaffirmed Roe and did so by considering the stare decisis factors,” he said in 2018. “So Casey now becomes a precedent on precedent. It is not as if it is just a run-of-the-mill case that was decided and never been reconsidered, but Casey specifically reconsidered it, applied the stare decisis factors, and decided to reaffirm it. That makes Casey a precedent on precedent.”

    —————————————-

    Neil Gorsuch, 2017 – Judge Gorsuch, President Donald J. Trump’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, refused to say how he would rule on abortion.

    “Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed. The reliance interest considerations are important there, and all of the other factors that go into analyzing precedent have to be considered,” he told senators in March 2017. “It is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was reaffirmed in Casey in 1992 and in several other cases. So a good judge will consider it as precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other.”

    He added, “For a judge to start tipping his or her hand about whether they like or dislike this or that precedent would send the wrong signal. It would send the signal to the American people that the judge’s personal views have something to do with the judge’s job.”

    —————————————

    Samuel A. Alito Jr., 2006 – During his confirmation hearing in January 2006, Mr. Alito said he would approach the issue of abortion with an open mind.

    “Roe v. Wade is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. It was decided in 1973, so it has been on the books for a long time,” he said.

    But he stopped short of calling the landmark ruling settled law.

    “If settled means it can’t be re-examined, then that’s one thing,” he told senators on the Judiciary Committee. “If settled means that it is a precedent that is entitled to respect as stare decisis, and all of the factors that I’ve mentioned come into play, including the reaffirmation and all of that, then it is a precedent that is protected, entitled to respect under the doctrine of stare decisis in that way.”

    He added, “It has been challenged. It has been reaffirmed. But it is an issue that is involved in litigation now at all levels.”

    ———————————–

    Clarence Thomas, 1991 – Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 1991, Judge Thomas sidestepped declaring his views on abortion and declined to state whether Roe had been properly decided.

    “The Supreme Court, of course, in the case of Roe v. Wade has found an interest in the woman’s right to — as a fundamental interest a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy,” he said. “I do not think that at this time that I could maintain my impartiality as a member of the judiciary and comment on that specific case.”

    “Senator, your question to me was did I debate the contents of Roe v. Wade, the outcome in Roe v. Wade, do I have this day an opinion, a personal opinion, on the outcome in Roe v. Wade,” he added, “and my answer to you is that I do not.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/25/us/abortion-roe-wade-supreme-court#scotus-justices-roe-wade-abortion

  53. John

    Alito, Noem, and their faux pro-lifers are descending us into hell.
    A woman from Missouri shares her experience this week. She and her husband are trying to become pregnant. The test was positive. The ultrasound revealed a separate fetus, yolk and sac. The fetus was not viable and could kill her via sepsis. Walgreens refused to fill her prescription for misoprostol – an “abortion pill”.
    Read it from her experience.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/vkost6/i_had_a_miscarriage_on_wednesday_a_pharmacist_in/

    Recall that Ben Franklin had an abortion recipe in his math textbook. That abortion was well known and practiced at the nation’s founding and for 100+ years after.

  54. leslie

    “It’s fitting that the three judges appointed by a man who literally led a fascist coup would be the ones who allowed this to happen. The end of Roe isn’t just a tragedy for human rights. It’s the surest sign yet that American democracy is collapsing, and Republicans are securing the ability to force the majority of Americans that keep voting against them to live under minority rule.” Amanda Marcotte, continues:

    “It’s hard to even comprehend how much this decision is about a malignant minority imposing an authoritarian will on the majority. It starts, of course, with how this decision directly contravenes the will of Americans, strong majorities of whom repeatedly espouse, in poll after poll, a belief that Roe should not be overturned. It is also that, of the six justices who voted to uphold abortion bans, only one — Justice Clarence Thomas — was appointed by a president who won the majority of the vote. Both Trump and Bush obtained the White House, and the ability to nominate justices, because of the archaic electoral college system that overweighs the votes of rural whites and marginalizes the majority of Americans who support reproductive rights. Justice Gorsuch has no right to sit in his seat. He is only there because Sen. Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., illegally used his power as then-Senate Majority Leader to refuse to hold hearings for then-President Barack Obama’s 2020 nominee to the court, Merrick Garland. Instead, in a direct violation of his constitutional duties, McConnell held the seat open for a year. All so Republicans could install someone who could be counted on to ram through endless amounts of reactionary policies rejected by the American majority that wants a clean environment, sensible gun safety regulations, fair labor laws, and human rights.” Salon Magazine

    Dahlia Lithwick remarks: “The three [liberal] dissenters take no joy in decrying the self-administered body blow the court has brought upon itself this term. There is no pleasure in seeing new fencing around the building, nor is there any delight in the protesters blocking D.C. streets or staking out justices’ residences. There is no mention of the fact that one of their colleagues is married to a partisan political operator who worked to support those who would have set aside the presidential election. There is simply the acceptance of that colleague’s abject refusal to take responsibility for it. This may well be one of the last published opinions of Stephen Breyer’s storied legal career, and it reads like a rebuke to his own aspirational hopes, including in a book published only this fall, for an institution he tried to protect until the end. Breyer always understood that public acceptance and regard aren’t demanded, and that for the court he is departing, it may not come back.” Slate Magazine

  55. leslie

    “Jenny
    2022-06-24
    Get over your Hillary loss, people.”

    Thoughts and prayers, eh?

    May 14 and 24th, 2022 Buffalo minority shopping center massacre and Uvalde grade school massacre, etc. Jan 6 Commission (2020 election’s peaceful transition attacked by coup). Mueller’s Report and two impeachments after Russian interference, of Trump in 2016 US election and Ukraine war. Thune/McConnell’s stolen March 2016 SCOTUS seat from Judge Merrick Garland. 2015, Maria Butina spying for Putin embedding the NRA (Trump pardoned her boyfriend/conspirator 2021).

    A lot to just “get over it”! Putin benefited at every step of the way from then until now.

  56. John

    Simon Schama, a leading historian, tweeted on Friday: “American democracy is in deep trouble. It can’t survive in its present form if the constitution is manipulated to impose minority rule.”

  57. Well Planned Parenthood can set up in Pipestone expand in Moorhead they will receive South Dakota women and North Dakota women who need care. I believe that they are hiring the current South Dakota people. Watch for the deaths that WILL happen in South Dakota and report on them.
    Someone in South Dakota needs to bring it up for a vote of the people. Democrats need to put this issue forward at the top of their agenda from now on. Nationwide what is needed, three or four percent for Democratic sweeps?
    Also big businesses need to push on red states, hard, and use Roe to decide where they are putting new jobs. Put the jobs in states that treat women as equal without treating them as slaves, wards of the state if they become pregnant, like the red states now do.

  58. John

    “Witch” “Doctor” Noem wants to be your doctor.
    Her scheme is having the strictest abortion laws in the nation. Your wife/mother/daughter/sister/niece/granddaughter is her vassal.
    Read my note, above, 6/25/22 about the married woman in Missouri who miscarried but is unable to get Walgreens to fill her perspiration to flush her uterus.
    Good ‘ol witch doctor Noem, endangering women at every opportunity.
    https://rapidcityjournal.com/news/noem-seeks-ban-on-abortion-pills-but-no-punishment-for-women/article_9eefe3ca-5b75-5c17-8ccd-bbf73b2893c9.html?utm_source=rapidcityjournal.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletter-templates%2Fnews-alert&utm_medium=PostUp&utm_content=14b2d828a96a301c3ffbbb514b6d0aa2e19e7855

  59. RINO Republicans aren’t good at justice.

    We’re doing our best to vet and qualify better America First candidates (in the true direct spirit of that phrase, a notion that predates President Donald John Trump).

    Many issues have keystones critical to understanding. This one, for me, is exemplified in this quote:

    “A woman should have the right to decide freely what substance is being injected in her body, without pressure, threats or coercion.” — Maxime Bernier

    I agree with this wholeheartedly.

    One of my favorite authors, orators, philosophers is Christopher Hitchens (RIP).

    “Look, once you allow that the occupant of the womb is even potentially a life, it cuts athwart any glib invocation of ‘the woman’s right to choose.’ If the unborn is a candidate member of the next generation .. [abortion is] a very reactionary and selfish position.” — Christopher Hitchens

    “.. the theory of evolution .. establishes beyond reasonable doubt that life is a continuum that begins at conception because it can’t begin anywhere else.” — Christopher Hitchens

    If conceived human embryos do not have human rights, neither do you and I.

    We must do the hard work of finding another way immediately (this should have happened next year or last year to avoid being labeled the cheapest of political tricks, which I hope is lost on intelligent people among the left who are being herded into promulgating an ill advised civil war in my opinion).

  60. 1. A pregnant woman is the patient.

    2. Ectopic pregnancies kill women.

    3. Rich women have full reproductive rights while women at the lower income margins suffer chilling effects on those rights. Women in Texas, Wyoming and South Dakota who can afford it simply jump on a plane and fly to Albuquerque, Minneapolis, Denver or elsewhere for their procedures. Imagine a woman on the Standing Rock or Pine Ridge doing that.

    4. South Dakota’s repeated attempts to restrict access to medical care are not only mean-spirited, they’re discriminatory anti-choice extremism.

    5. “Pro-life” is simply code for white people breeding. The extreme white wing of the Republican Party is driving the abolition of women’s rights because they’re wedded to the Great Replacement Hypothesis. African-Americans terminate pregnancies at about the same per capita rate as white people do but don’t take their jobs. Latinas, however, have fewer abortions per capita but the extreme white wing laments it’s hemorrhaging jobs to Latinos.

    6. No foetus in the United States has any civil rights until the third trimester. Republicans preach civil rights for human blastocysts but deny the protections of the First, Fourth and Ninth Amendments to people who enjoy cannabis.

    7. Republican politicians drive their anti-woman crusade to raise campaign dollars so ending reproductive rights in red states is Balkanizing women’s health care.

    8. An acorn is not an oak tree so a foetus is no more an unborn child than it is an unborn grandparent.

    10. There is no foetal heartbeat until late in a pregnancy. What an ultrasound “hears” at six weeks are cells beginning to built a cardiac system.

    11. States that ban women from going out of state for their procedures or medications are violating the Commerce Clause enumerated in the United States Constitution.

  61. ABC

    Pro choice activists will put the trigger law and all other laws No passes and we will defeat those laws in November 2024! Then abortion will be legal as we defeated those laws by referendum.

    All the more important to elect Smith for Governor. Noem would try to Dugaard what we defeat in November.

    Democrats and Progressive need to start acting like Governors NOW!

    Why wait for November’s in even years. Be a Governor now!

  62. leslie

    Just like Scotus dramatically publicizing its extraordinary reversal of Roe v. Wade a few days ago, smack dab in the middle of vital Jan 6 Commission hearings, whoa! Tuesday the committee has announced w/ no notice (just like Scotus) an additional hearing this afternoon. The substance to be presented has not been announced!

    So much for GOP distraction and obstruction. Muscular Democrats are showing teeth! Just not the corruption Republicans are steeped in at every turn.

  63. leslie

    Security for the surprise witness(es) is very high. According to Punchbowl News, members of the select committee brought the [today’s] hearing forward in part over “sincere concerns” for Hutchinson’s physical safety because of what she has revealed to the panel, and that her testimony will inform the hearings that are due to take place in July.

    John Dean, the former White House counsel to President Richard Nixon, also set the expectations high for Tuesday’s hearing. He tweeted: “The January 6 Committee is dealing with a very high historical standard in springing a surprise hearing and witness tomorrow.” Dean, who was the first administration official to testify that Nixon was directly involved in the Watergate coverup, pointed to the surprise testimony from Alex Butterfield, who testified to Nixon’s secret taping system, as “forever changing history.”

    And documentary perhaps it will also feature filmmaker Alex Holder, who supplied hours of footage shot with Trump and his inner circle before and after the election. Holder has already publicly alleged that the president held a previously undisclosed phone call with Vladimir Putin aboard Air Force One just before voters went to the polls in late 2020.

    In one instance, Cassidy Hutchinson described seeing Meadows burn documents after a meeting in his office with Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., Politico reported in May.

  64. mike from iowa

    Back in 1993, Clarence Thoimas told his law clerks he would serve on the Scotus just to make Libs miserable. Then he allegedly told them Libs made the first 43 years oif his life miserable.

    Didn’t know how badly he wanted to be a field negro, uneducated, no equal rights, not being able to be that uppity negro that marries a white woman, etc.

    His opinions in recent court cases show he is out to show them Libs.

  65. cibvet

    mfi–Thomas is much like some of the people who post on this blog. Their only purpose in life is to be an antagonist and in
    their perverted view, this makes them relevant.

  66. mike from iowa

    cibvet, you are correct. Good job.

  67. leslie

    1. Dale, the division in this country is immense. You argue that on the pro-choice side “do the hard work of finding another way immediately…people among the left … are being herded into promulgating an ill advised civil war”.

    “Another way” to do what? “Being herded into … civil war” by whom? Please explain.

    2. LCJ-said “inflation, inflation, inflation” is the big election issue.

    But see https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/02/perfect-storm-crises-widening-global-inequality-says-un-chief

    “Of all the crises facing the world the climate crisis was the most vital,” Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General, said. “That is why it is so concerning that the war in Ukraine has to a large extent kept out the focus on climate action. We need to do everything we can to bring again the climate issue as the most important issue in our collective agenda. It’s more than the planet, it is the human species that is also at risk.”

    Economic inequality, which includes inflation, is the second of the two major election issues we as a nation, and for the world, are facing.

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