Biden’s top priority for a second term: restoring abortion rights

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Biden’s top priority for a second term: restoring abortion rights
politico.com

“The president has been adamant that we need to restore Roe. It is unfathomable that women today wake up in a country with less rights than their ancestors had years ago,” Fulks said.

Biden has been poised to run on what has been described as the strongest abortion rights platform of any general election candidate as he and his allies look to notch a victory in the first presidential election since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.

Last month, Biden seized on a case in Texas, where a woman, Kate Cox, was denied an abortion despite the risk to her life posed by her pregnancy.

“No woman should be forced to go to court or flee her home state just to receive the health care she needs,” Biden said of the case. “But that is exactly what happened in Texas thanks to Republican elected officials, and it is simply outrageous. This should never happen in America, period.”

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Party spent decades not codifying it...

Didn't fight for Obama's SC seat, just accepted that the next president would pick it to try and help Clinton...

Took no actions since Roe was overturned...

But we're supposed to believe next term it'll be fixed?

They haven't even held a vote yet so voters will know what Dems are going to vote against it.

Why would anyone take Bidens word on this? Isn't the safe bet to assume the same thing will happen as the last campaign promises? Meaning as soon as he assumes office Biden will either "look into it" or he'll say there's not enough D votes so he can't try.

And the voters still won't know if their representatives would actually support party platform.

Please identify the Congressional term that had a pro-choice majority that could have passed federal abortion protections but did not. Do beware of the caveat that up until quite recently, the Democrats had a substantial minority faction of anti-abortion politicians from the south.

No one who's complained about the Dems apparently just deciding to miss what would be one of their greatest political victories for shits and giggles has ever been able to identify when this would have actually passed, but hey, maybe you'll be the first one.

Do beware of the caveat that up until quite recently, the Democrats had a substantial minority faction of anti-abortion politicians from the south.

"Before you criticise our dear leaders, take into account the anti-choice people who the leadership actively supported and promoted!"

Every time a conservative democrat runs against a progressive or even a further left liberal, DNC leadership supports the conservative.

The last anti-choice Dem representative, Henry Cuellar, was losing to pro-choice progressive Jessica Cisneros until Nancy Pelosi and Jim Clyburn endorsed him and personally showed up to speak at his rallies.

You’re just obfuscating. Don’t you see? There’s nothing the Democrats could have done!

But elect Biden and he will codify Roe.

Democrats are some dumb mother fuckers lol

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If they are that bad at governing they have no business getting reelected.

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Maybe this is not a message for people who vote D, after all what you gonna do, vote for the R lunatics?. Maybe it is for moderate republicans, specially women, that got fucked and now may be looking for an alternative, so Biden spelling it out may give enough incentive for some to vote D.

What good would codifying Roe have done?

Edit: perhaps I should be more specific: what good would attempting to codify Roe have done?

The attempt would have allowed the voting base to identify who voted "nay," and vote them out. Even if the bill fails, if people scream the names of the representatives and senators that prevented it from passing, well those people would be primaried. That's why they won't even hold a vote on something that should be as simple as:

US statute XXXX: All people in the US have the right to reproductive healthcare. No medically approved procedure, treatment, or medicine shall be banned.

Done.

They won't because so much of the country is sick and fucking tired of this issue red herring that anyone that votes against it is very likely to be primaried.

I've seen similar arguments for other cases. If Dems do it and not all Dems vote for it, the anti-Dem left says "all Dems are at fault and they're doing nothing". If Dems are united behind it but Republicans block it, then it's "Dems knew the GOP would block it, and they're doing nothing". If Dems do it and it passes, but then the courts block it, then it's "they knew the courts would block it and they're still doing nothing". If the Dems do it and it passes, then it's "that wasn't important compared to 15 other issues, and they're still doing nothing".

It's a Hobson's Choice.

If what you want is a list of names, then you can do that without them calling a vote. Go to your representative's town hall events and ask them their position. If you don't like their answer, find a primary opponent. Doubly so if you live in a gerrymandered district where Dems will always win (the mathematics of gerrymandering is that you give your opponent safe districts, but fewer than your side has). The Tea Party figured out this formula and it's one thing the left ought to learn from them.

Codify would have meant drawing it up and adding it to the constitution as a human right. An amendment. The Supreme Court can declare something unconstitutional, but if it is in the amendment, it is what the SC would rule as acceptable. (Not saying it always appears that way these days)

You should look into what it takes to add an amendment to the constitution. Barring civil war, aliens landing on the whitehouse lawn, or similar galvanizing incident, I'm doubtful the US will be unified enough to be capable of passing an amendment to the constitution on ANY topic for ANY purpose during the lifetime of anyone reading this comment, and I'm doubtful we could have done so within at least the past 20 years.

To add to that, even amendments that only affect the overall structure of government, with no particular favor to any political party, are almost impossible to pass. For example, the last amendment ratified was the 27th, and all it did was prevent Congress from passing its own salary increase and having it take affect before the next election. Simple nuts and bolts stuff. It was proposed in 1789 and wasn't ratified until 1992.

For an abortion amendment that would be so obviously divisive? Forget it. Waste of everyone's time.

Don’t forget that when an amendment does get ratified, you’ve got to really nail it or else people will still be fighting over the verbiage.

You’d think “keep it simple stupid” would suffice, but look at how we interpret this:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

IANAL, but I see a few things as I read it:

  • Militias must be well regulated. I agree.
  • Militias are necessary to the security of a free state. Sounds a bit dated but I don’t disagree.
  • The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Ok…so…is that “the right” can’t be infringed, or “the arms” can’t be infringed? Who are the people, and are they separate from the well-regulated militia? Because you can have a right to bear arms, but still limit what arms are available for civilian use. Non civilian use would be either military or para-military, the latter would be a militia, which ipso facto must be well-regulated, and as such there must be restrictions on arms because how are you going to regulate a militia if not its armaments? It’s not well-regulated if it’s a free-for-all. This is law. There are rules.

Should I be able to buy a nuke? An ICBM? A tank? Live grenades? Where is the line drawn? When does it transition from “civilian hunting and defense” to “military fetishism” to “para-military/militia” to “military”. Because it must be somewhere. And I feel like there’s one group of those four that’s really being a stick in the mud over it.

United States v. Miller did interpret the Second Amendment along those lines. It was a challenge against the NFA's ban on short barreled shotguns. Ruling was that because a short barreled shotgun isn't something a militia would use, the government could ban it.

That leads to an interpretation nobody likes. You can ban short barreled shotguns, but not stuff a militia would use. Stuff like fully automatic weapons or rocket propelled grenades.

Yeah the fucking ERA failed.

I do think there’s a chance for an explicit right to privacy as an amendment but it needs to be really campaigned on as it’d give the democrats most of what they want socially

Codify means laws, generally not amendments.

If it were just made a law then it would be ruled unconstitutional according to the SC, thats why I said amendment. No way 2/3rds support on both the senate and congress will happen anytime soonq. I agree with your definition though

Could be, but given that the argument that they used to overturn RvW was, :it's not our job to write the laws, the states and Congress have that job:. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that even the current SCOTUS isn't that blatantly hypocritical.

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