Utah Supreme Court reviews abortion ban; judge notes historical omission of women's voices

Flying Squid@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 270 points –
axios.com

Not all Utahns were included at the 1895 convention, Judge Paige Petersen noted.

• "Women were in the audience, but they weren't any of the delegates," Petersen said.

• "How do we know … what they thought the meaning of their rights were?" Peterson asked. "It seems important in this context because women are the ones that experience pregnancy and experience childbirth."

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"There is an unbroken history and tradition … before 1973, of prohibiting abortion. And that unbroken history has to be part of this Court's analysis, rather than present-day policy arguments about the benefits or the or lack thereof of abortion," attorney Taylor Meehan argued.

So their entire argument is based on the belief that we must hold on to the beliefs of people from 1895 from now until the end of time?

"Yeah, we were wrong before, but it is a tradition in our state to be wrong, and that tradition must be preserved above all else!"

This is a real argument, being made in a real courtroom, in front of a real judge, in the year 2023.

I hate this fucking timeline.

I get your sentiment of your despair, but shitty lawyers are gonna be shitty lawyers. What would actually be worse is the judge accepting this argument in 2023.