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[aeolist]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/magazine/do-women-need-legislative-protection.html

A woman, like a child, ‘‘has been looked upon in the courts as needing especial care,'' the Supreme Court pronounced in 1908, unanimously upholding Oregon's 10-hour restriction in Muller v. Oregon. ‘‘She is properly placed in a class by herself, and legislation designed for her protection may be sustained.''

If night work was ‘‘against nature,'' the lawyer Blanche Crozier said dryly in 1933, then starvation was even more so. In 2008, on the 100th anniversary of Muller v. Oregon, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a speech, ‘‘Having grown up in years when women, by law or custom, were protected from a range of occupations, including lawyering, and from serving on juries, I am instinctively suspicious of women-only protective legislation.''

By then, thanks in no small part to Ginsburg's efforts, the Supreme Court had helped to undo Muller, recognizing that equality for women meant giving them the same right that men had to fend for themselves. In 1973, the court ruled 8 to 1 in favor of a female Air Force officer who challenged a law that gave her husband less access to benefits than the wives of male service members. In his opinion, Justice William Brennan disavowed the court's previous ‘‘ ‘romantic paternalism' which, in practical effect, put women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.''

Most of the current slate of anti-abortion laws passing state legislatures frame themselves as "protecting" women with things like mandatory waiting periods, multiple doctor consultations, and being forced to look at ultrasounds of their fetus. What lawmakers are saying with these restrictions is that women aren't capable of making sound decisions for themselves and their own health and need to be protected from choices they might make and regret later on.

This is the philosophy behind the Texas state law being contested before the Supreme Court currently. Texas now requires that all abortion clinics must meet the standards of surgery centers and that doctors on staff must have admitting privileges to a hospital. They're using a (medically unnecessary) desire to "protect" women who want abortions as transparent cover for a law designed to reduce the number of clinics in the state by something like 80%, leaving huge areas of mostly low-income patients without access to care.

The main audience for these briefs is the court's single swing voter on abortion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. He upheld the core of Roe v. Wade in 1992, but his latest opinion on abortion, in 2007, hinted of old-school paternalism. ‘‘Some women come to regret'' their choice of abortion, Kennedy wrote then. ‘‘In a decision so fraught with emotional consequence, some doctors may prefer not to disclose precise details of the means that will be used.'' In other words, to spare women from hearing about a type of late-term procedure, Kennedy permitted Congress to ban it. Contrast that to his stirring endorsement of liberty and equality in proclaiming a constitutional right to same-sex marriage last summer. For gay couples, Kennedy championed the ‘‘autonomy'' to make ‘‘profound ­choices.'' He has yet to express the same faith in women.

 

[Ekai]

Oh, Texas. Why must you be so awful?

This is just an "anti-choice" case too. No one is "pro-abortion".

 

[Saraluna]

It's women's rights to bodily autonomy, and not women themselves, that require better legislative protection.

What's happening in Texas is truly awful.

 

[Misha]

Thats the exact opposite of what I expected from reading the title.

 

[foxtrot3d]

That Texas law is unlikely to be upheld by the Court which will most likely apply the Casey "undue burden" standard.

 

[FyreWulff]

Sadly we still don't have equal rights for women in this country. In many states you are functionally the property of your husband.

 

[everyday math]

And we just de-funded planned parenthood in Wisconsin. I'm really confused as to how my fellow woman can like republicans.

 

[aeolist]

That Texas law is unlikely to be upheld by the Court which will most likely apply the Casey "undue burden" standard.

only now that scalia's gone. i think we would have seen a 5-4 decision for texas if he were still alive and every red state in the country would be putting laws like this in place, effectively banning abortion for large numbers of people.

 

[Ekai]

And we just de-funded planned parenthood in Wisconsin. I'm really confused as to how my fellow woman can like republicans.

I didn't hear of this. Fucking Scott Walker. He's really trying to do all he can to ruin Wisconsin. He already should be in jail, if we're going to be real here. So should all the Republican crooks in this stae. I hate living here now, really. Grew up here all my life but Republican corruption is just ruining everything. I was voting at local elections just the other day and the old white Republican women running it were more or less fabricating voter fraud too. Could overhear them before I entered the room: "Well, how can we say they weren't a real voter?/That black is going to go try to vote in another ward now/Well, whoever we write an incident report on we'll just say was an incident of voter fraud whether they were or not." etc. etc. Just stood there and listened to it for a while. Like, geezus fuck. I hate what this state has become.

As to your confusion: propaganda, lies, selfishness, a lack of understanding what the actual positions are and the purpose of organizations like PP (that educate and help with family planning, reproductive health and do waaaay more than abortion services-and even then the Republicans fabricate and spread lies about the abortion services as well) and a "I got mine, fuck you" attitude that pervades the Republican mindset.

 

[Volimar]

And we just de-funded planned parenthood in Wisconsin. I'm really confused as to how my fellow woman can like republicans.

We just did the same in Ohio. I'm ashamed of my state.

 

[aeolist]

We just did the same in Ohio. I'm ashamed of my state.

signed into law by kasich, the "moderate" in the GOP primary field

 

[cameron]

In his opinion, Justice William Brennan disavowed the court's previous ‘‘ ‘romantic paternalism' which, in practical effect, put women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.''

Basically.

‘‘They justified the lack of freedom as ‘protection.’ That language comes up again and again. It’s really a euphemism for the public welfare: Women’s purpose is to become healthy mothers who produce healthy children. Their bodies should not be weakened, and the values of the home shouldn’t be undermined by the coarse workplace.’’

Same conservative shit, different decade/century, in the fight for personal autonomy.

 

[LegendofLex]

Thats the exact opposite of what I expected from reading the title.

Yeah, me as well.

If anything, they need special protection from policies that assume they need checks on their personal freedom.

 

[foxtrot3d]

only now that scalia's gone. i think we would have seen a 5-4 decision for texas if he were still alive and every red state in the country would be putting laws like this in place, effectively banning abortion for large numbers of people.

Nah, even had Scalia still been on the bench they would likely have struck down the Texas law. Hell, he might have even voted with the majority to do it. While he voted against Casey he seemed to have no problem siding with the majority in Gonzales which applied the Casey undue burden test to partial-birth abortions. That said, he did write concur separately with Thomas in Gonzaes reiterating that they didn't think Roe or Casey were good law. Still even without their votes I don't see how the Court could not rule this law as anything but an "undue burden" on a women's choice to terminate a pregnancy.

 

[Blader]

And we just de-funded planned parenthood in Wisconsin. I'm really confused as to how my fellow woman can like republicans.

Women who are against abortion and probably think that's all PP does.

 

[Ekai]

Women who are against abortion and probably think that's all PP does.

Those women could use a reality check.

 

[Transhuman]

Oh, Texas. Why must you be so awful?

This is just an "anti-choice" case too. No one is "pro-abortion".

As much as I like that line, I am actually am pro-abortion.

 

[Eye for an Eye]

Women’s purpose is to become healthy mothers who produce healthy children.

See that statement is wrong. The life of the fetus is held way up high above a mother no matter the cost. Until it is born and then it becomes a leech like its mother.

Some states are passing legislation on Down Sydrome. That doctors have to paint rosey pictures and pretend like its a special thing to have Down's. But they're not allowed to speak of the heart defects, bowel defects, and mental impairments that affect most Down's cases that do make it a fatal diagnosis. Even one state passed or is trying to pass a law that prevents terminating a pregnancy for Down's.

Remember the Texas case of the 10 week pregnant woman who passed out, was considered dead by doctors, and the family had to fight the state to get her off life support. They wouldn't do it until 16 weeks when they saw the effects on the fetus that it was incompatible with life before they took the woman off life support.

Here's a good article I read.
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/24/i_a...we_must_support_the_procedure_and_the_choice/

 

[Kazerei]

If people care so much about fetuses, why isn't there a huge uproar over how common miscarriages are? Why isn't there mountains of funding toward pre-natal care? Why is paid maternity leave not mandated? I suspect anti-abortionists don't actually give a shit about "unborn lives". They just like feeling morally superior.

 

[Funyarinpa]

If people care so much about fetuses, why isn't there a huge uproar over how common miscarriages are? Why isn't there mountains of funding toward pre-natal care? Why is paid maternity leave not mandated? I suspect anti-abortionists don't actually give a shit about "unborn lives". They just like feeling morally superior.

Fallacious argument if it's against anti-abortion. "There are other/worse issues out there" isn't a valid point against it.

 

[Kazerei]

Fallacious argument if it's against anti-abortion. "There are other/worse issues out there" isn't a valid point against it.

I'm saying there are far more effective ways to save fetuses and infants if that's what you care about.

 

[Eye for an Eye]

If people care so much about fetuses, why isn't there a huge uproar over how common miscarriages are? Why isn't there mountains of funding toward pre-natal care? Why is paid maternity leave not mandated? I suspect anti-abortionists don't actually give a shit about "unborn lives". They just like feeling morally superior.

It's something like 6 weeks of unpaid leave under the FMLA, but you have to be employed for a year to qualify. Meanwhile other countries get up to a year off and it can be the mother or father or both if they want to share that year and take 6 months each.

There is no care about a baby. Just the fetus.