Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski
From things I've read pissing off the Chief Justice can make a Judge's life tough. I'd be shocked if it is a judge.
So Roberts is trying to flip 1 of the five to his side- His side is Roe is still valid, but the Miss law is fine as viability now is not what it was 50 years ago?
So 4 votes throw out Roe. 3 votes throw out Miss. 2 votes leave Roe and leave Miss. So then what is the outcome? Nothing happens because there are not 5 votes for anything?
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I read 60 or so pages of the thing at the suggestion of a friend who was stunned by the vitriol within it.
He was right. The language veers into sarcasm and is often passionate. It's more advocacy than decision, I suspected at first because Alito really needed to slam
Roe to overturn it, knowing how hostile the response will be. But as I read along, I began to think Alito is a just a really fucking angry dude.
It's also poorly reasoned. From what I could gather, it turns on an argument that abortion has not historically been something falling under "ordered liberties" (individual liberties which society has previously balanced against the interests of society in total). These "ordered liberties" by Alito's estimation include the pedestrian right not to be over-fined or penalized (parking tix, DUI fees, etc.), but do not include the right to a guaranteed certain level of autonomy over your body. Seems a bit weak, no?
The whole thing is an absolute position where an argument of degree is needed. If the speculation is accurate, Roberts was and may still be inclined to agree that states have a right to curtail abortion, but not unreasonably deny anyone the right. The possibility of that decision is an 800 lb gorilla sitting in the corner as you read Alito's. You can't digest what he writes without seeing eminent and numerous compromises.
Instead, Alito digs the hole even deeper, and displays animus to not only
Roe but also the Courts before him that followed it. When he gets into the history of abortion historically being a crime even where there could not have existed outside-the-womb viability, he's just embarrassing himself. He's obviously inoculating the decision against the criticism that compromise was possible.
TL;DR: The decision isn't a decision as much as it is advocacy.
