(Roe) Greeting MichaelE on 05/10/22 ...

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http://ethicsalarms.com/2022/05/08/the-dishonesty-and-desperation-of-pro-choice-advocates-in-the-wake-of-the-dobbs-leak-part-i-anything-but-the-issues
The Dishonesty And Desperation Of “Pro-Choice” Advocates In The Wake Of
The Dobbs Leak, Part I: Anything But The Issues
MAY 8, 2022 / JACK MARSHALL
Another one of the ironic boons from the despicable Supreme Court leak
of Justice Alito’s draft majority opinion portending that Roe v. Wade is
about to be overruled is how vividly it has exposed the intellectually
dishonest and unethical nature of “pro choice” arguments. This comes as
no surprise to anyone who has been following the abortion debate
diligently, but in their fury and panic, abortion advocates are
revealing just how weak their case is. They are also revealing that
those who are willing to sacrifice nascent human lives for other
objectives tend to have no compunction about using rationalizations, ad
hominem attacks, classic logical fallacies and fearmongering as well as
outright lies, when they finally have to defend their positions.
The reappearance of the costumes from “The Handmaiden’s Tale” is a neat
symbol of the whole phenomenon. (How many of such protesters haven’t
read Roe, the Alito draft, or Margaret Atwood’s novel? My guess: most of
That delusion was apiece with the suggestion that women could force men
to support abortion on demand by going on a sex strike. Similarly
ducking the issues are the illegal demonstrations at the homes of
Justices before it is even known who voted to end Roe, and President
Biden’s moronic declaration in response to the leak that “this MAGA
crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed
in American history—-in recent American history.”
Since Roe v. Wade has been almost unanimously regarded in legal and
academic circles as a badly reasoned opinion (even Ruth Bader Ginsburg
conceded it was a botch), the epitome of flagrant judicial activism and
legislation by judges, those trying to defend the decision now have had
to resort to distractions, diversions, straw men and fictional slippery
slopes. “Next those fascists will ban inter-racial marriage and Brown v.
Board of Education!” more than a few Democratic officials and pundits
have proclaimed, apparently forgetting that just a few weeks ago they
were demanding that Justice Thomas, the dean of the Court’s
conservatives, recuse himself because of the activities of his very
white wife.
Others have blamed the Catholic Church and argued that the maybe-ruling
is a violation of the Constitution’s separation of church and state
because four of the five assumed majority members, plus Chief Justice
Roberts, are Catholics. The reversal would “deepen America’s divide”
warned the New York Times. Heh. “Can’t have that!” sayeth the
publication that didn’t concern itself with such division when it was
covering a false case that President Trump had conspired with Russia to
steal the 2016 election, or when their favorite political party was
illicitly impeaching Trump twice.
The Obamas, predictably, despite their legal education, resorted to the
facile claim that no Roe would “relegate the most intensely personal
decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues.
“Whims!” The Obamas, of all people, now don’t think that politicians
respond to the will of the people? When did “personal decisions” become
off-limits for the law? Deciding to rob banks is a personal decision.
Raping a date is the result of a personal decision. Killing an abusive
spouse is a personal opinion, just like ending the life you are carrying
because it will disrupt your plans is a personal decision.
I have seen opinion pieces that defend Roe on the basis that abortion
slows climate change. Many defenders have argued in print and on the
MSNBC/CNN echo chambers that the motive behind a reversal is racism
(though a disproportionate number of the human lives ended by abortion
are black). Another tack is that retiring the contrived Constitutional
right is hypocritical, since Republicans don’t support more federal
assistance for children who are allowed to be born. The Times ran one
op-ed that argued that fewer abortions would be bad for the economy.
Levi Strauss was among several companies that chose market-pleasing
virtue-signaling over honest debate when it defended Roe as a “critical
factor to the workplace gains and contributions women have made over the
past 50 years,” and argued that “restricting or criminalizing access” to
rubbing out unborn children in the womb “will jeopardize that progress.”
Legalizing the murder of men would also presumably add to workplace
gains for women: this is the same unethical “the ends justify the means”
rationalization that pro-abortion activists and feminists have been
using for decades to avoid trying to balance the competing interests
that have makes the issue so difficult. (It’s easy, though, if you
pretend one of the interests doesn’t exist or matter.)
Today Maureen Dowd resolutely refuses to acknowledge one of those
interests, attributing the potential reversal of Roe to–get
this—“priggishness.” Yes, it’s all about discouraging sex: Dowd’s hook
is that the Court will be rejecting the sexual mores of Marilyn
Monroe—I’m not kidding!— and thus is “yanking away the right of women to
control their own bodies, strapping us into a time machine hurtling
backward.”
“Spoken like the brave former fetus she is” was how Fox’s Laura Ingraham
characterized similar remarks from another furious abortion activist
last week.
Abortion can be good for the aborted child: “People who don’t want to be
pregnant aren’t always capable of or willing to provide a healthy
gestational environment—and that could be terrible for the children they
eventually give birth to. Sometimes women abort because it is the more
compassionate option. They know that alcoholism, addiction issues,
mental health problems, or other circumstances will prevent them from
adequately nourishing a fetus or protecting it from harm during
gestation….If abortion is banned, we would likely start to see a lot
more children born with severe birth defects and developmental issues.
Some may say, “Hey, they were born, that’s all that matters.” But is
setting up a person for a lifetime of suffering really a moral or humane
choice?”
Tell it to Christy Brown. The pro-abortion pundit who wrote that, you’ll
notice, avoided using the word “women.” “People who don’t want to be
pregnant,” she writes. You know, I’m pretty sure men who don’t want to
be pregnant don’t have a problem achieving that objective
Eliminating Roe will make miscarriages “more traumatic.”
Reversing Roe will “grow the government.” I especially like this one,
because the vast majority of pro-abortion politicians want to increase
the size of government.
There are many more. Send the ones you encounter into the comments.
I’ll end Part I by noting that Justice Alito, in his draft, states
directly that the decision to reverse Roe implies no opposition to
either the pro-abortion or the anti-abortion position. Of course, one
has to actually read the opinion to know that.
http://ethicsalarms.com/2022/05/09/the-dishonesty-and-desperation-of-pro-choice-advocates-in-the-wake-of-the-dobbs-leak-part-2-reason-should-be-ashamed-of-itself/
The Dishonesty And Desperation Of “Pro-Choice” Advocates In The Wake Of
The Dobbs Leak, Part 2: Reason Should Be Ashamed Of Itself
MAY 9, 2022 / JACK MARSHALL
It is not a great surprise to see that the libertarian magazine Reason
opposes abortion restrictions; one would assume so, given the
libertarian creed. (Libertarians Ron Paul, a former House member, and
his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky), however, both oppose abortion, and take
the position that life begins at conception.) However, if the
publication is going to declare that Justice Alito’s draft opinion in
Dobbs is badly reasoned (and a publication named “Reason” should be
careful when it makes such a claim if it wants to maintain a reputation
for integrity) it has an obligation to rebut that reasoning competently
and fairly.
Thus when I saw the headline on Reason’s website, “Alito’s Draft Opinion
That Would Overturn Roe Is a Disaster of Legal Reasoning,” I clicked on
it eagerly. Legitimate legal analyses of the draft have been in short
supply, with even supposedly respectable legal scholars from the
pro-abortion camp resorting to hysterical pronouncements rather than
dispassionate argument.
Inexcusably, the author of the article under the clickbait headline
doesn’t come close to making the case that the Justice’s draft fits that
hyperbolic description. Worse, it is quickly apparent that she wouldn’t
know a “disaster of legal reasoning” if, to quote Matt Hooper in “Jaws,”
one swam up “and bit [her] in the ass.” As I read her mess, I thought,
“Elizabeth Nolan Brown can’t possibly be a lawyer.” Indeed she isn’t.
Her graduate degree is in theater.
Oh. One of those.
Why would Reason allow a non-lawyer to author a piece with that
headline? Good question. Since Brown has no authority (or the skills) to
make such a case, she resorts to appeals to other authorities. (Appeal
to authority is a classic logical fallacy.) The scholarly authorities
she chooses are a colleague at Reason (more on him shortly), and two
unqualified commentators. University of Maryland history professor Holly
Brewer didn’t analyze Alito’s opinion (though she probably could have
done a better job than Brown, a low bar), but just cherry-picked one
small part of it, the Justice’s argument that there is no historical
justification for determining that abortion is one of the “unenumerated
rights” protected by the Ninth Amendment. The other authority not on
Reason’s staff is Jason Kuznicki, editor in chief of the think tank
TechFreedom. Mirabile dictu, he’s also not a lawyer, but he’s a good
social justice warrior, so he plays the race card. “The more we
privilege deep roots in history, the more weight we have to give to some
terribly illiberal ideas,” says Kuznicki. “Rights for white people have
deeper roots than rights for black people, and no amount of time can
change that.”
So Kuznicki would invalidate all legal history as a component of legal
analysis because of slavery. How CRT of him!
Then Brown cites political “authorities,” and reduces her argument to a
joke: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who despite being a former law professor,
has made no substantive arguments to counter Alito, just her usual
demagoguery; Sen. Bernie Sanders (also not a lawyer), who embraces so
many crazy positions that his opposition to the draft opinion would be
the equivalent of an endorsement; Senator Amy Klobuchar, whose
contribution to the debate is to predict a dire backlash at the polls,
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, who is an ignoramus and couldn’t comprehend Alito’s
draft if there were a Cliff Notes version, and Senator Susan Collins,
who had no substantive contribution to make but claimed that Justices
Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett lied in their hearings if they voted to
overturn Roe (which is itself a lie; as many have pointed out including
Ethics Alarms, all of the Justices carefully avoided making any such
assurances, only saying that Roe was “the law of the land” and thay they
respected precedent), and most risible of all, Kamala Harris, who said
the Republicans”want to take us back to a time before Roe v. Wade, back
to a time before Obergefell v. Hodges, back to a time before Griswold v.
Connecticut.” That’s some legal reasoning there, Madam Vice-President.
At least “Reason” thinks so.
Clarification: I meant “most risible of all” of the politicians Brown
cited to support her proposition. She also cited esteemed legal
authority Whoopi Goldberg.
If Brown had gone to law school, she would have learned that when you
include ostentatiously lame authorities—or, as in this instance,
ridiculous ones— in your memo, brief or oral argument, the judge will
conclude that you don’t have a case.
Now let’s examine the only relevant authority Brown uses to show that
Alito’s draft is “a disaster of legal reasoning.” This one is Damon
Root, who is a legitimate legal scholar and fully capable of performing
a critical analysis of Alito’s reasoning. He didn’t do one, though; I
assume that like me, he prefers to devote the time and energy necessary
to the actual opinion and not a leaked draft. The only qualified legal
authority, then, that Brown cites for her proposition that Alito’s
reasoning is a “disaster” doesn’t claim that Alito’s reasoning is a
“disaster” at all. Huh!
What Root does argue, in an earlier Reason article titled “What the
Leaked Abortion Opinion Gets Wrong About Unenumerated Rights” is put
The author of the leaked draft opinion, Justice Samuel Alito, makes the
standard conservative argument against abortion rights. “The
Constitution makes no reference to abortion,” Alito writes, “and no such
right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including
the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held
to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but
any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and
tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.'” Alito
continues: “The right to an abortion does not fall within this category.”
But there is at least one big way in which the unenumerated right at
issue in Dobbs may very well fall into this category. Namely, the right
to terminate a pregnancy may be justly seen as a subset of the right to
bodily integrity.
“May very well fall into this category”? “May justly be seen as a subset
of the right to bodily integrity”? “At least one”? If Alito’s reasoning
is such a disaster, why is Root so equivocal? I know why: his argument
is also weak, and he knows it.
“Bodily integrity”? How does that translate into a right to have a
medical procedure that removes another living organism from one’s body?
Root doesn’t explain that himself—he also pivots to an appeal to
authority. Yup: Brown’s claim that Alito’s legal reasoning is a disaster
hands off its argument to Root, who also hands off the argument, this
time to a Prof. Sheldon Gelman—it’s an appeal to authority that appeals
to authority!
Root also quotes Gelman to the effect that “the right to bodily
integrity may be traced back to the Magna Carta.” Wait—didn’t Brown use
as another authority the guy who said historical references to rights
were inevitably racist? How can Brown use both opinions to criticize
Alito’s draft? Well, she can’t, or shouldn’t, but she doesn’t know what
she’s talking about.
Now Root’s sole authority for the “bodily integrity” theory is a
28-year-old law review article by the afore-mentioned Prof. Gelman. As
it happens, I had read this thing when it was first published. Try to
read it yourself: I dare you. It is almost a parody of scholarly
Authentic Frontier Gibberish in which the high weeds of philosophical
nit-picking obliterate any useful observations.
“life,” as in “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” means more
than just the right to live, but also the right to live a productive and
free life. The Magna Carta forbade the king from cutting off the legs
and arms of citizens as a breach of a basic right: a man without a limb
was still alive, but his life was much diminished. That’s the right to
“bodily integrity.” Thus, Gelman argues, abortion is included among the
“unenumerated rights” mentioned in the Ninth Amendment, because the
burden of having an unwanted child permanently and materially diminishes
the woman’s life—you know, just like losing a leg.
Interesting. But isn’t it strange, indeed hypocritical, to argue for the
right to abortion based on an expanded interpretation of the right to
life when abortion by definition involves ending a life?
One might argue that fetuses have lives, and that a conflict, therefore,
exists between the woman’s and the fetus’ rights of life. No
Justice has ever endorsed that argument, and the considerations
cited in Roe-for example, that abortion is not generally
regarded as murder and that fetuses are not counted in the
census, counsel strongly against it.
One might argue that fetuses have lives, might one? The fiction that
fetuses don’t have lives is central to the one-life-only fiction
inherent in the “pro-choice” euphemism, but if it hadn’t been thoroughly
debunked by 1994, and I’d be shocked if it hadn’t, it certainly is now.
Furthermore, the two arguments Gelman cites from Roe are infamous—talk
about including weak authorities in your brief! It is not unusual for
someone who kills a child in the womb to be prosecuted for murder, when
the means of killing isn’t an abortion. 38 states recognize the fetus
or “unborn child” as a crime victim, with the crime being homicide or
feticide. The census argument is too silly to even debate. Whoever
decided that counting the unborn in the census was not likely to be
thinking about whether a fetus was alive of not. That the unborn aren’t
included in the census proves nothing regarding whether they are alive
or not.
Yes, Gelman’s law review article is a disaster of legal reasoning.
Brown’s article is a disaster of journalism and punditry, and Reason
should hide its metaphorical head in a bag for publishing it.

Tragically, abortions continue to be the terrible consequence of
http://bit.ly/terribly_hungry (Genesis 25:32) people misbehaving
terribly like http://bit.ly/h_angry DJT.

Suggested further reading:
https://tinyurl.com/Psalm0201

The only healthy way to stop abortions is to
http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12) to be
http://WonderfullyHungry.org (Philippians 4:12) instead.

Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://bit.ly/Philippians4_12 ) and
hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.

So how are you ?







...because we mindfully choose to openly care with our heart,

HeartDoc Andrew <><

[Michael Ejercito]

Post by HeartDoc Andrew

http://ethicsalarms.com/2022/05/08/the-dishonesty-and-desperation-of-pro-choice-advocates-in-the-wake-of-the-dobbs-leak-part-i-anything-but-the-issues
The Dishonesty And Desperation Of “Pro-Choice” Advocates In The Wake Of
The Dobbs Leak, Part I: Anything But The Issues
MAY 8, 2022 / JACK MARSHALL
Another one of the ironic boons from the despicable Supreme Court leak
of Justice Alito’s draft majority opinion portending that Roe v. Wade is
about to be overruled is how vividly it has exposed the intellectually
dishonest and unethical nature of “pro choice” arguments. This comes as
no surprise to anyone who has been following the abortion debate
diligently, but in their fury and panic, abortion advocates are
revealing just how weak their case is. They are also revealing that
those who are willing to sacrifice nascent human lives for other
objectives tend to have no compunction about using rationalizations, ad
hominem attacks, classic logical fallacies and fearmongering as well as
outright lies, when they finally have to defend their positions.
The reappearance of the costumes from “The Handmaiden’s Tale” is a neat
symbol of the whole phenomenon. (How many of such protesters haven’t
read Roe, the Alito draft, or Margaret Atwood’s novel? My guess: most of
That delusion was apiece with the suggestion that women could force men
to support abortion on demand by going on a sex strike. Similarly
ducking the issues are the illegal demonstrations at the homes of
Justices before it is even known who voted to end Roe, and President
Biden’s moronic declaration in response to the leak that “this MAGA
crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed
in American history—-in recent American history.”
Since Roe v. Wade has been almost unanimously regarded in legal and
academic circles as a badly reasoned opinion (even Ruth Bader Ginsburg
conceded it was a botch), the epitome of flagrant judicial activism and
legislation by judges, those trying to defend the decision now have had
to resort to distractions, diversions, straw men and fictional slippery
slopes. “Next those fascists will ban inter-racial marriage and Brown v.
Board of Education!” more than a few Democratic officials and pundits
have proclaimed, apparently forgetting that just a few weeks ago they
were demanding that Justice Thomas, the dean of the Court’s
conservatives, recuse himself because of the activities of his very
white wife.
Others have blamed the Catholic Church and argued that the maybe-ruling
is a violation of the Constitution’s separation of church and state
because four of the five assumed majority members, plus Chief Justice
Roberts, are Catholics. The reversal would “deepen America’s divide”
warned the New York Times. Heh. “Can’t have that!” sayeth the
publication that didn’t concern itself with such division when it was
covering a false case that President Trump had conspired with Russia to
steal the 2016 election, or when their favorite political party was
illicitly impeaching Trump twice.
The Obamas, predictably, despite their legal education, resorted to the
facile claim that no Roe would “relegate the most intensely personal
decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues.
“Whims!” The Obamas, of all people, now don’t think that politicians
respond to the will of the people? When did “personal decisions” become
off-limits for the law? Deciding to rob banks is a personal decision.
Raping a date is the result of a personal decision. Killing an abusive
spouse is a personal opinion, just like ending the life you are carrying
because it will disrupt your plans is a personal decision.
I have seen opinion pieces that defend Roe on the basis that abortion
slows climate change. Many defenders have argued in print and on the
MSNBC/CNN echo chambers that the motive behind a reversal is racism
(though a disproportionate number of the human lives ended by abortion
are black). Another tack is that retiring the contrived Constitutional
right is hypocritical, since Republicans don’t support more federal
assistance for children who are allowed to be born. The Times ran one
op-ed that argued that fewer abortions would be bad for the economy.
Levi Strauss was among several companies that chose market-pleasing
virtue-signaling over honest debate when it defended Roe as a “critical
factor to the workplace gains and contributions women have made over the
past 50 years,” and argued that “restricting or criminalizing access” to
rubbing out unborn children in the womb “will jeopardize that progress.”
Legalizing the murder of men would also presumably add to workplace
gains for women: this is the same unethical “the ends justify the means”
rationalization that pro-abortion activists and feminists have been
using for decades to avoid trying to balance the competing interests
that have makes the issue so difficult. (It’s easy, though, if you
pretend one of the interests doesn’t exist or matter.)
Today Maureen Dowd resolutely refuses to acknowledge one of those
interests, attributing the potential reversal of Roe to–get
this—“priggishness.” Yes, it’s all about discouraging sex: Dowd’s hook
is that the Court will be rejecting the sexual mores of Marilyn
Monroe—I’m not kidding!— and thus is “yanking away the right of women to
control their own bodies, strapping us into a time machine hurtling
backward.”
“Spoken like the brave former fetus she is” was how Fox’s Laura Ingraham
characterized similar remarks from another furious abortion activist
last week.
Abortion can be good for the aborted child: “People who don’t want to be
pregnant aren’t always capable of or willing to provide a healthy
gestational environment—and that could be terrible for the children they
eventually give birth to. Sometimes women abort because it is the more
compassionate option. They know that alcoholism, addiction issues,
mental health problems, or other circumstances will prevent them from
adequately nourishing a fetus or protecting it from harm during
gestation….If abortion is banned, we would likely start to see a lot
more children born with severe birth defects and developmental issues.
Some may say, “Hey, they were born, that’s all that matters.” But is
setting up a person for a lifetime of suffering really a moral or humane
choice?”
Tell it to Christy Brown. The pro-abortion pundit who wrote that, you’ll
notice, avoided using the word “women.” “People who don’t want to be
pregnant,” she writes. You know, I’m pretty sure men who don’t want to
be pregnant don’t have a problem achieving that objective
Eliminating Roe will make miscarriages “more traumatic.”
Reversing Roe will “grow the government.” I especially like this one,
because the vast majority of pro-abortion politicians want to increase
the size of government.
There are many more. Send the ones you encounter into the comments.
I’ll end Part I by noting that Justice Alito, in his draft, states
directly that the decision to reverse Roe implies no opposition to
either the pro-abortion or the anti-abortion position. Of course, one
has to actually read the opinion to know that.
http://ethicsalarms.com/2022/05/09/the-dishonesty-and-desperation-of-pro-choice-advocates-in-the-wake-of-the-dobbs-leak-part-2-reason-should-be-ashamed-of-itself/
The Dishonesty And Desperation Of “Pro-Choice” Advocates In The Wake Of
The Dobbs Leak, Part 2: Reason Should Be Ashamed Of Itself
MAY 9, 2022 / JACK MARSHALL
It is not a great surprise to see that the libertarian magazine Reason
opposes abortion restrictions; one would assume so, given the
libertarian creed. (Libertarians Ron Paul, a former House member, and
his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky), however, both oppose abortion, and take
the position that life begins at conception.) However, if the
publication is going to declare that Justice Alito’s draft opinion in
Dobbs is badly reasoned (and a publication named “Reason” should be
careful when it makes such a claim if it wants to maintain a reputation
for integrity) it has an obligation to rebut that reasoning competently
and fairly.
Thus when I saw the headline on Reason’s website, “Alito’s Draft Opinion
That Would Overturn Roe Is a Disaster of Legal Reasoning,” I clicked on
it eagerly. Legitimate legal analyses of the draft have been in short
supply, with even supposedly respectable legal scholars from the
pro-abortion camp resorting to hysterical pronouncements rather than
dispassionate argument.
Inexcusably, the author of the article under the clickbait headline
doesn’t come close to making the case that the Justice’s draft fits that
hyperbolic description. Worse, it is quickly apparent that she wouldn’t
know a “disaster of legal reasoning” if, to quote Matt Hooper in “Jaws,”
one swam up “and bit [her] in the ass.” As I read her mess, I thought,
“Elizabeth Nolan Brown can’t possibly be a lawyer.” Indeed she isn’t.
Her graduate degree is in theater.
Oh. One of those.
Why would Reason allow a non-lawyer to author a piece with that
headline? Good question. Since Brown has no authority (or the skills) to
make such a case, she resorts to appeals to other authorities. (Appeal
to authority is a classic logical fallacy.) The scholarly authorities
she chooses are a colleague at Reason (more on him shortly), and two
unqualified commentators. University of Maryland history professor Holly
Brewer didn’t analyze Alito’s opinion (though she probably could have
done a better job than Brown, a low bar), but just cherry-picked one
small part of it, the Justice’s argument that there is no historical
justification for determining that abortion is one of the “unenumerated
rights” protected by the Ninth Amendment. The other authority not on
Reason’s staff is Jason Kuznicki, editor in chief of the think tank
TechFreedom. Mirabile dictu, he’s also not a lawyer, but he’s a good
social justice warrior, so he plays the race card. “The more we
privilege deep roots in history, the more weight we have to give to some
terribly illiberal ideas,” says Kuznicki. “Rights for white people have
deeper roots than rights for black people, and no amount of time can
change that.”
So Kuznicki would invalidate all legal history as a component of legal
analysis because of slavery. How CRT of him!
Then Brown cites political “authorities,” and reduces her argument to a
joke: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who despite being a former law professor,
has made no substantive arguments to counter Alito, just her usual
demagoguery; Sen. Bernie Sanders (also not a lawyer), who embraces so
many crazy positions that his opposition to the draft opinion would be
the equivalent of an endorsement; Senator Amy Klobuchar, whose
contribution to the debate is to predict a dire backlash at the polls,
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, who is an ignoramus and couldn’t comprehend Alito’s
draft if there were a Cliff Notes version, and Senator Susan Collins,
who had no substantive contribution to make but claimed that Justices
Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett lied in their hearings if they voted to
overturn Roe (which is itself a lie; as many have pointed out including
Ethics Alarms, all of the Justices carefully avoided making any such
assurances, only saying that Roe was “the law of the land” and thay they
respected precedent), and most risible of all, Kamala Harris, who said
the Republicans”want to take us back to a time before Roe v. Wade, back
to a time before Obergefell v. Hodges, back to a time before Griswold v.
Connecticut.” That’s some legal reasoning there, Madam Vice-President.
At least “Reason” thinks so.
Clarification: I meant “most risible of all” of the politicians Brown
cited to support her proposition. She also cited esteemed legal
authority Whoopi Goldberg.
If Brown had gone to law school, she would have learned that when you
include ostentatiously lame authorities—or, as in this instance,
ridiculous ones— in your memo, brief or oral argument, the judge will
conclude that you don’t have a case.
Now let’s examine the only relevant authority Brown uses to show that
Alito’s draft is “a disaster of legal reasoning.” This one is Damon
Root, who is a legitimate legal scholar and fully capable of performing
a critical analysis of Alito’s reasoning. He didn’t do one, though; I
assume that like me, he prefers to devote the time and energy necessary
to the actual opinion and not a leaked draft. The only qualified legal
authority, then, that Brown cites for her proposition that Alito’s
reasoning is a “disaster” doesn’t claim that Alito’s reasoning is a
“disaster” at all. Huh!
What Root does argue, in an earlier Reason article titled “What the
Leaked Abortion Opinion Gets Wrong About Unenumerated Rights” is put
The author of the leaked draft opinion, Justice Samuel Alito, makes the
standard conservative argument against abortion rights. “The
Constitution makes no reference to abortion,” Alito writes, “and no such
right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including
the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held
to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but
any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and
tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.'” Alito
continues: “The right to an abortion does not fall within this category.”
But there is at least one big way in which the unenumerated right at
issue in Dobbs may very well fall into this category. Namely, the right
to terminate a pregnancy may be justly seen as a subset of the right to
bodily integrity.
“May very well fall into this category”? “May justly be seen as a subset
of the right to bodily integrity”? “At least one”? If Alito’s reasoning
is such a disaster, why is Root so equivocal? I know why: his argument
is also weak, and he knows it.
“Bodily integrity”? How does that translate into a right to have a
medical procedure that removes another living organism from one’s body?
Root doesn’t explain that himself—he also pivots to an appeal to
authority. Yup: Brown’s claim that Alito’s legal reasoning is a disaster
hands off its argument to Root, who also hands off the argument, this
time to a Prof. Sheldon Gelman—it’s an appeal to authority that appeals
to authority!
Root also quotes Gelman to the effect that “the right to bodily
integrity may be traced back to the Magna Carta.” Wait—didn’t Brown use
as another authority the guy who said historical references to rights
were inevitably racist? How can Brown use both opinions to criticize
Alito’s draft? Well, she can’t, or shouldn’t, but she doesn’t know what
she’s talking about.
Now Root’s sole authority for the “bodily integrity” theory is a
28-year-old law review article by the afore-mentioned Prof. Gelman. As
it happens, I had read this thing when it was first published. Try to
read it yourself: I dare you. It is almost a parody of scholarly
Authentic Frontier Gibberish in which the high weeds of philosophical
nit-picking obliterate any useful observations.
“life,” as in “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” means more
than just the right to live, but also the right to live a productive and
free life. The Magna Carta forbade the king from cutting off the legs
and arms of citizens as a breach of a basic right: a man without a limb
was still alive, but his life was much diminished. That’s the right to
“bodily integrity.” Thus, Gelman argues, abortion is included among the
“unenumerated rights” mentioned in the Ninth Amendment, because the
burden of having an unwanted child permanently and materially diminishes
the woman’s life—you know, just like losing a leg.
Interesting. But isn’t it strange, indeed hypocritical, to argue for the
right to abortion based on an expanded interpretation of the right to
life when abortion by definition involves ending a life?
One might argue that fetuses have lives, and that a conflict, therefore,
exists between the woman’s and the fetus’ rights of life. No
Justice has ever endorsed that argument, and the considerations
cited in Roe-for example, that abortion is not generally
regarded as murder and that fetuses are not counted in the
census, counsel strongly against it.
One might argue that fetuses have lives, might one? The fiction that
fetuses don’t have lives is central to the one-life-only fiction
inherent in the “pro-choice” euphemism, but if it hadn’t been thoroughly
debunked by 1994, and I’d be shocked if it hadn’t, it certainly is now.
Furthermore, the two arguments Gelman cites from Roe are infamous—talk
about including weak authorities in your brief! It is not unusual for
someone who kills a child in the womb to be prosecuted for murder, when
the means of killing isn’t an abortion. 38 states recognize the fetus
or “unborn child” as a crime victim, with the crime being homicide or
feticide. The census argument is too silly to even debate. Whoever
decided that counting the unborn in the census was not likely to be
thinking about whether a fetus was alive of not. That the unborn aren’t
included in the census proves nothing regarding whether they are alive
or not.
Yes, Gelman’s law review article is a disaster of legal reasoning.
Brown’s article is a disaster of journalism and punditry, and Reason
should hide its metaphorical head in a bag for publishing it.

Tragically, abortions continue to be the terrible consequence of
http://bit.ly/terribly_hungry (Genesis 25:32) people misbehaving
terribly like http://bit.ly/h_angry DJT.
https://tinyurl.com/Psalm0201
The only healthy way to stop abortions is to
http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12) to be
http://WonderfullyHungry.org (Philippians 4:12) instead.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://bit.ly/Philippians4_12 ) and
hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?

I am wonderfully hungry!


Michael

[HeartDoc Andrew]

Post by Michael Ejercito

Post by HeartDoc Andrew

http://ethicsalarms.com/2022/05/08/the-dishonesty-and-desperation-of-pro-choice-advocates-in-the-wake-of-the-dobbs-leak-part-i-anything-but-the-issues
The Dishonesty And Desperation Of “Pro-Choice” Advocates In The Wake Of
The Dobbs Leak, Part I: Anything But The Issues
MAY 8, 2022 / JACK MARSHALL
Another one of the ironic boons from the despicable Supreme Court leak
of Justice Alito’s draft majority opinion portending that Roe v. Wade is
about to be overruled is how vividly it has exposed the intellectually
dishonest and unethical nature of “pro choice” arguments. This comes as
no surprise to anyone who has been following the abortion debate
diligently, but in their fury and panic, abortion advocates are
revealing just how weak their case is. They are also revealing that
those who are willing to sacrifice nascent human lives for other
objectives tend to have no compunction about using rationalizations, ad
hominem attacks, classic logical fallacies and fearmongering as well as
outright lies, when they finally have to defend their positions.
The reappearance of the costumes from “The Handmaiden’s Tale” is a neat
symbol of the whole phenomenon. (How many of such protesters haven’t
read Roe, the Alito draft, or Margaret Atwood’s novel? My guess: most of
That delusion was apiece with the suggestion that women could force men
to support abortion on demand by going on a sex strike. Similarly
ducking the issues are the illegal demonstrations at the homes of
Justices before it is even known who voted to end Roe, and President
Biden’s moronic declaration in response to the leak that “this MAGA
crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed
in American history—-in recent American history.”
Since Roe v. Wade has been almost unanimously regarded in legal and
academic circles as a badly reasoned opinion (even Ruth Bader Ginsburg
conceded it was a botch), the epitome of flagrant judicial activism and
legislation by judges, those trying to defend the decision now have had
to resort to distractions, diversions, straw men and fictional slippery
slopes. “Next those fascists will ban inter-racial marriage and Brown v.
Board of Education!” more than a few Democratic officials and pundits
have proclaimed, apparently forgetting that just a few weeks ago they
were demanding that Justice Thomas, the dean of the Court’s
conservatives, recuse himself because of the activities of his very
white wife.
Others have blamed the Catholic Church and argued that the maybe-ruling
is a violation of the Constitution’s separation of church and state
because four of the five assumed majority members, plus Chief Justice
Roberts, are Catholics. The reversal would “deepen America’s divide”
warned the New York Times. Heh. “Can’t have that!” sayeth the
publication that didn’t concern itself with such division when it was
covering a false case that President Trump had conspired with Russia to
steal the 2016 election, or when their favorite political party was
illicitly impeaching Trump twice.
The Obamas, predictably, despite their legal education, resorted to the
facile claim that no Roe would “relegate the most intensely personal
decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues.
“Whims!” The Obamas, of all people, now don’t think that politicians
respond to the will of the people? When did “personal decisions” become
off-limits for the law? Deciding to rob banks is a personal decision.
Raping a date is the result of a personal decision. Killing an abusive
spouse is a personal opinion, just like ending the life you are carrying
because it will disrupt your plans is a personal decision.
I have seen opinion pieces that defend Roe on the basis that abortion
slows climate change. Many defenders have argued in print and on the
MSNBC/CNN echo chambers that the motive behind a reversal is racism
(though a disproportionate number of the human lives ended by abortion
are black). Another tack is that retiring the contrived Constitutional
right is hypocritical, since Republicans don’t support more federal
assistance for children who are allowed to be born. The Times ran one
op-ed that argued that fewer abortions would be bad for the economy.
Levi Strauss was among several companies that chose market-pleasing
virtue-signaling over honest debate when it defended Roe as a “critical
factor to the workplace gains and contributions women have made over the
past 50 years,” and argued that “restricting or criminalizing access” to
rubbing out unborn children in the womb “will jeopardize that progress.”
Legalizing the murder of men would also presumably add to workplace
gains for women: this is the same unethical “the ends justify the means”
rationalization that pro-abortion activists and feminists have been
using for decades to avoid trying to balance the competing interests
that have makes the issue so difficult. (It’s easy, though, if you
pretend one of the interests doesn’t exist or matter.)
Today Maureen Dowd resolutely refuses to acknowledge one of those
interests, attributing the potential reversal of Roe to–get
this—“priggishness.” Yes, it’s all about discouraging sex: Dowd’s hook
is that the Court will be rejecting the sexual mores of Marilyn
Monroe—I’m not kidding!— and thus is “yanking away the right of women to
control their own bodies, strapping us into a time machine hurtling
backward.”
“Spoken like the brave former fetus she is” was how Fox’s Laura Ingraham
characterized similar remarks from another furious abortion activist
last week.
Abortion can be good for the aborted child: “People who don’t want to be
pregnant aren’t always capable of or willing to provide a healthy
gestational environment—and that could be terrible for the children they
eventually give birth to. Sometimes women abort because it is the more
compassionate option. They know that alcoholism, addiction issues,
mental health problems, or other circumstances will prevent them from
adequately nourishing a fetus or protecting it from harm during
gestation….If abortion is banned, we would likely start to see a lot
more children born with severe birth defects and developmental issues.
Some may say, “Hey, they were born, that’s all that matters.” But is
setting up a person for a lifetime of suffering really a moral or humane
choice?”
Tell it to Christy Brown. The pro-abortion pundit who wrote that, you’ll
notice, avoided using the word “women.” “People who don’t want to be
pregnant,” she writes. You know, I’m pretty sure men who don’t want to
be pregnant don’t have a problem achieving that objective
Eliminating Roe will make miscarriages “more traumatic.”
Reversing Roe will “grow the government.” I especially like this one,
because the vast majority of pro-abortion politicians want to increase
the size of government.
There are many more. Send the ones you encounter into the comments.
I’ll end Part I by noting that Justice Alito, in his draft, states
directly that the decision to reverse Roe implies no opposition to
either the pro-abortion or the anti-abortion position. Of course, one
has to actually read the opinion to know that.
http://ethicsalarms.com/2022/05/09/the-dishonesty-and-desperation-of-pro-choice-advocates-in-the-wake-of-the-dobbs-leak-part-2-reason-should-be-ashamed-of-itself/
The Dishonesty And Desperation Of “Pro-Choice” Advocates In The Wake Of
The Dobbs Leak, Part 2: Reason Should Be Ashamed Of Itself
MAY 9, 2022 / JACK MARSHALL
It is not a great surprise to see that the libertarian magazine Reason
opposes abortion restrictions; one would assume so, given the
libertarian creed. (Libertarians Ron Paul, a former House member, and
his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky), however, both oppose abortion, and take
the position that life begins at conception.) However, if the
publication is going to declare that Justice Alito’s draft opinion in
Dobbs is badly reasoned (and a publication named “Reason” should be
careful when it makes such a claim if it wants to maintain a reputation
for integrity) it has an obligation to rebut that reasoning competently
and fairly.
Thus when I saw the headline on Reason’s website, “Alito’s Draft Opinion
That Would Overturn Roe Is a Disaster of Legal Reasoning,” I clicked on
it eagerly. Legitimate legal analyses of the draft have been in short
supply, with even supposedly respectable legal scholars from the
pro-abortion camp resorting to hysterical pronouncements rather than
dispassionate argument.
Inexcusably, the author of the article under the clickbait headline
doesn’t come close to making the case that the Justice’s draft fits that
hyperbolic description. Worse, it is quickly apparent that she wouldn’t
know a “disaster of legal reasoning” if, to quote Matt Hooper in “Jaws,”
one swam up “and bit [her] in the ass.” As I read her mess, I thought,
“Elizabeth Nolan Brown can’t possibly be a lawyer.” Indeed she isn’t.
Her graduate degree is in theater.
Oh. One of those.
Why would Reason allow a non-lawyer to author a piece with that
headline? Good question. Since Brown has no authority (or the skills) to
make such a case, she resorts to appeals to other authorities. (Appeal
to authority is a classic logical fallacy.) The scholarly authorities
she chooses are a colleague at Reason (more on him shortly), and two
unqualified commentators. University of Maryland history professor Holly
Brewer didn’t analyze Alito’s opinion (though she probably could have
done a better job than Brown, a low bar), but just cherry-picked one
small part of it, the Justice’s argument that there is no historical
justification for determining that abortion is one of the “unenumerated
rights” protected by the Ninth Amendment. The other authority not on
Reason’s staff is Jason Kuznicki, editor in chief of the think tank
TechFreedom. Mirabile dictu, he’s also not a lawyer, but he’s a good
social justice warrior, so he plays the race card. “The more we
privilege deep roots in history, the more weight we have to give to some
terribly illiberal ideas,” says Kuznicki. “Rights for white people have
deeper roots than rights for black people, and no amount of time can
change that.”
So Kuznicki would invalidate all legal history as a component of legal
analysis because of slavery. How CRT of him!
Then Brown cites political “authorities,” and reduces her argument to a
joke: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who despite being a former law professor,
has made no substantive arguments to counter Alito, just her usual
demagoguery; Sen. Bernie Sanders (also not a lawyer), who embraces so
many crazy positions that his opposition to the draft opinion would be
the equivalent of an endorsement; Senator Amy Klobuchar, whose
contribution to the debate is to predict a dire backlash at the polls,
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, who is an ignoramus and couldn’t comprehend Alito’s
draft if there were a Cliff Notes version, and Senator Susan Collins,
who had no substantive contribution to make but claimed that Justices
Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett lied in their hearings if they voted to
overturn Roe (which is itself a lie; as many have pointed out including
Ethics Alarms, all of the Justices carefully avoided making any such
assurances, only saying that Roe was “the law of the land” and thay they
respected precedent), and most risible of all, Kamala Harris, who said
the Republicans”want to take us back to a time before Roe v. Wade, back
to a time before Obergefell v. Hodges, back to a time before Griswold v.
Connecticut.” That’s some legal reasoning there, Madam Vice-President.
At least “Reason” thinks so.
Clarification: I meant “most risible of all” of the politicians Brown
cited to support her proposition. She also cited esteemed legal
authority Whoopi Goldberg.
If Brown had gone to law school, she would have learned that when you
include ostentatiously lame authorities—or, as in this instance,
ridiculous ones— in your memo, brief or oral argument, the judge will
conclude that you don’t have a case.
Now let’s examine the only relevant authority Brown uses to show that
Alito’s draft is “a disaster of legal reasoning.” This one is Damon
Root, who is a legitimate legal scholar and fully capable of performing
a critical analysis of Alito’s reasoning. He didn’t do one, though; I
assume that like me, he prefers to devote the time and energy necessary
to the actual opinion and not a leaked draft. The only qualified legal
authority, then, that Brown cites for her proposition that Alito’s
reasoning is a “disaster” doesn’t claim that Alito’s reasoning is a
“disaster” at all. Huh!
What Root does argue, in an earlier Reason article titled “What the
Leaked Abortion Opinion Gets Wrong About Unenumerated Rights” is put
The author of the leaked draft opinion, Justice Samuel Alito, makes the
standard conservative argument against abortion rights. “The
Constitution makes no reference to abortion,” Alito writes, “and no such
right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including
the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held
to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but
any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and
tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.'” Alito
continues: “The right to an abortion does not fall within this category.”
But there is at least one big way in which the unenumerated right at
issue in Dobbs may very well fall into this category. Namely, the right
to terminate a pregnancy may be justly seen as a subset of the right to
bodily integrity.
“May very well fall into this category”? “May justly be seen as a subset
of the right to bodily integrity”? “At least one”? If Alito’s reasoning
is such a disaster, why is Root so equivocal? I know why: his argument
is also weak, and he knows it.
“Bodily integrity”? How does that translate into a right to have a
medical procedure that removes another living organism from one’s body?
Root doesn’t explain that himself—he also pivots to an appeal to
authority. Yup: Brown’s claim that Alito’s legal reasoning is a disaster
hands off its argument to Root, who also hands off the argument, this
time to a Prof. Sheldon Gelman—it’s an appeal to authority that appeals
to authority!
Root also quotes Gelman to the effect that “the right to bodily
integrity may be traced back to the Magna Carta.” Wait—didn’t Brown use
as another authority the guy who said historical references to rights
were inevitably racist? How can Brown use both opinions to criticize
Alito’s draft? Well, she can’t, or shouldn’t, but she doesn’t know what
she’s talking about.
Now Root’s sole authority for the “bodily integrity” theory is a
28-year-old law review article by the afore-mentioned Prof. Gelman. As
it happens, I had read this thing when it was first published. Try to
read it yourself: I dare you. It is almost a parody of scholarly
Authentic Frontier Gibberish in which the high weeds of philosophical
nit-picking obliterate any useful observations.
“life,” as in “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” means more
than just the right to live, but also the right to live a productive and
free life. The Magna Carta forbade the king from cutting off the legs
and arms of citizens as a breach of a basic right: a man without a limb
was still alive, but his life was much diminished. That’s the right to
“bodily integrity.” Thus, Gelman argues, abortion is included among the
“unenumerated rights” mentioned in the Ninth Amendment, because the
burden of having an unwanted child permanently and materially diminishes
the woman’s life—you know, just like losing a leg.
Interesting. But isn’t it strange, indeed hypocritical, to argue for the
right to abortion based on an expanded interpretation of the right to
life when abortion by definition involves ending a life?
One might argue that fetuses have lives, and that a conflict, therefore,
exists between the woman’s and the fetus’ rights of life. No
Justice has ever endorsed that argument, and the considerations
cited in Roe-for example, that abortion is not generally
regarded as murder and that fetuses are not counted in the
census, counsel strongly against it.
One might argue that fetuses have lives, might one? The fiction that
fetuses don’t have lives is central to the one-life-only fiction
inherent in the “pro-choice” euphemism, but if it hadn’t been thoroughly
debunked by 1994, and I’d be shocked if it hadn’t, it certainly is now.
Furthermore, the two arguments Gelman cites from Roe are infamous—talk
about including weak authorities in your brief! It is not unusual for
someone who kills a child in the womb to be prosecuted for murder, when
the means of killing isn’t an abortion. 38 states recognize the fetus
or “unborn child” as a crime victim, with the crime being homicide or
feticide. The census argument is too silly to even debate. Whoever
decided that counting the unborn in the census was not likely to be
thinking about whether a fetus was alive of not. That the unborn aren’t
included in the census proves nothing regarding whether they are alive
or not.
Yes, Gelman’s law review article is a disaster of legal reasoning.
Brown’s article is a disaster of journalism and punditry, and Reason
should hide its metaphorical head in a bag for publishing it.

Tragically, abortions continue to be the terrible consequence of
http://bit.ly/terribly_hungry (Genesis 25:32) people misbehaving
terribly like http://bit.ly/h_angry DJT.
https://tinyurl.com/Psalm0201
The only healthy way to stop abortions is to
http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12) to be
http://WonderfullyHungry.org (Philippians 4:12) instead.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://bit.ly/Philippians4_12 ) and
hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?

I am wonderfully hungry!

While wonderfully hungry in the Holy Spirit, Who causes (Deuteronomy
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, are rapture ready (Luke
17:37 means no COVID just as circling eagles don't have COVID) and
pray (2 Chronicles 7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6) Father in
Heaven continues to give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy Spirit
(Galatians 5:22-23) so that we'd have much more of His Help to always
say/write that we're "wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways including
especially caring to http://tinyurl.com/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12
as shown by http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 ) with all glory (
http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.

Laus DEO !

Suggested further reading:
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/5EWtT4CwCOg/m/QjNF57xRBAAJ

Shorter link:
http://bit.ly/StatCOVID-19Test

Be hungrier, which really is wonderfully healthier especially for
diabetics and other heart disease patients:

http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrew touts hunger (Luke 6:21a) with all glory
( http://bit.ly/Psalm112_1 ) to GOD, Who causes us to hunger
(Deuteronomy 8:3) when He blesses us right now (Luke 6:21a) thereby
removing the http://tinyurl.com/HeartVAT from around the heart

...because we mindfully choose to openly care with our heart,

HeartDoc Andrew <><
--
Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD
Cardiologist with an http://bit.ly/EternalMedicalLicense
2024 & upwards non-partisan candidate for U.S. President:
http://WonderfullyHungry.org
and author of the 2PD-OMER Approach:
http://bit.ly/HeartDocAndrewCare
which is the only **healthy** cure for the U.S. healthcare crisis