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Author Topic: Founding Fathers saw abortion as a privacy issue  (Read 971 times)

MU82

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Founding Fathers saw abortion as a privacy issue
« on: July 19, 2022, 01:08:11 PM »
A 1792 case reveals that key Founders saw abortion as a private matter

https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/19/1792-case-reveals-that-key-founders-saw-abortion-private-matter/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F376aa6b%2F62d6d3fdcfe8a21601f79261%2F5f8d147cae7e8a56e5b732a4%2F43%2F72%2F62d6d3fdcfe8a21601f79261&wp_cu=b1005792a416de1fbe1f17e5cf366b7d%7CB1FF71CA724A36FAE0530100007F88D6

A basic premise of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was that the Constitution can protect the right to abortion only if it is “deeply rooted in our history and traditions.” This statement complements Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s concept of originalism, or the idea that the court should interpret the Constitution by trying to infer “the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it.”

Alito’s evidence that abortion was always considered a criminal act, and thus something the Constitution should not protect, consisted of a single criminal case that was prosecuted in 1652 in the (Catholic) colony of Maryland. He then jumped ahead to laws that states enacted, mostly in the mid-to-late-19th century, to criminalize abortion. This cursory survey of abortion in early America was hardly complete, especially because it ignored the history of abortion in the years in which the Constitution was drafted and ratified.

In that era, abortion was governed by Anglo-American common law. Under this framework, the procedure was legal before “quickening,” or the moment the pregnant person first felt fetal movement — a highly subjective milestone that usually occurred around 16 to 22 weeks of gestation. Yet even after quickening, few people were prosecuted for abortion, let alone convicted — Alito’s opinion certainly did not offer contradictory evidence. The reason is simple: In the early republic, abortion was largely a private matter. It was not a cause for public concern, nor was abortion considered a criminal act.

In fact, contrary to Alito’s assertions in Dobbs, three Founders from Virginia — Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and John Marshall — did not seek charges in a sensational court case from that era in which evidence of an abortion was discovered. ...

... Therefore, the more historically accurate conclusion is Justice Harry A. Blackmun’s majority opinion in Roe v. Wade (1973), that “at the time of the adoption of our Constitution, and throughout the majority of the 19th century, abortion was viewed with less disfavor than under most American statutes currently in effect. Phrasing it another way, a woman enjoyed a substantially broader right to terminate a pregnancy than she does in most States today.”

Though Marshall’s notes on Commonwealth v. Randolph are extensive, this episode is poorly documented in the county court records, and, thus, no formal case law was generated. Regardless, the episode begs examination as it involved key Founders who occupied vastly different positions on the political spectrum, both nationally and in Virginia. The Federalist Marshall believed in a strong national government. Jefferson mostly supported a decentralized system. Henry was a populist. Yet all three tacitly agreed that abortion in this case was a private matter, not a criminal act worthy of further investigation and prosecution.
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Uncle Rico

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Re: Founding Fathers saw abortion as a privacy issue
« Reply #1 on: July 19, 2022, 01:09:41 PM »
John Locke
“This is bar none atrocious.  Mitchell cannot shoot either.  What a pile of dung”

brewcity77

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Re: Founding Fathers saw abortion as a privacy issue
« Reply #2 on: July 19, 2022, 01:42:27 PM »
This will of course be locked for politics, but I don't see how anyone can consider the fundamental human right of a living person having bodily autonomy political. Might as well say that breathing is political while we're at it.
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muwarrior69

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Re: Founding Fathers saw abortion as a privacy issue
« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2022, 02:20:28 PM »
The history of abortion is a complicated one. Whether abortion is legal or illegal is not for the courts to decide but for the state legislatures to decide.

In fact abortion is restricted/permitted by laws in many countries, not the courts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/24/global-abortion-laws-roe-wade-courts/

...and though abortion is allowed upon request in many countries in Europe they have mandatory time limits, waiting periods and counseling.

https://reproductiverights.org/european-abortion-law-comparative-overview-0/






brewcity77

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Re: Founding Fathers saw abortion as a privacy issue
« Reply #4 on: July 19, 2022, 02:35:22 PM »
The problem with the legislature deciding is when 53% of the vote goes to a party that gets 36.4% of the seats. It shows just how broken our legislative systems are when what the majority of citizens wants still results in a comparably tiny minority.

We're talking about an issue that is supported by 70% of this country and yet a tiny minority is making decisions that strip bodily autonomy from and will 100% kill living citizens. Human rights in this country shouldn't be based on which party gerrymandered your state.
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MU82

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Re: Founding Fathers saw abortion as a privacy issue
« Reply #5 on: July 19, 2022, 02:47:03 PM »
The history of abortion is a complicated one. Whether abortion is legal or illegal is not for the courts to decide but for the state legislatures to decide.

In fact abortion is restricted/permitted by laws in many countries, not the courts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/24/global-abortion-laws-roe-wade-courts/

...and though abortion is allowed upon request in many countries in Europe they have mandatory time limits, waiting periods and counseling.

https://reproductiverights.org/european-abortion-law-comparative-overview-0/

Why should laws either allowing or forbidding a woman to have control of her own body and privacy be different in Mississippi than it is in Colorado than it is in New Hampshire than it is in Wyoming? That's ridiculous. It's like saying one state should be allowed to forbid a White person from marrying a Black person, or like saying a state should be allowed to forbid a man from getting a vasectomy.

Controlling one's own body is an inalienable right, and a privacy issue ... and the Founding Fathers knew it. Christian zealots who would deny an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim shouldn't have the power to take away that right.
“It’s not how white men fight.” - Tucker Carlson

Pakuni

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Re: Founding Fathers saw abortion as a privacy issue
« Reply #6 on: July 19, 2022, 02:48:32 PM »
The history of abortion is a complicated one. Whether abortion is legal or illegal is not for the courts to decide but for the state legislatures to decide.

In fact abortion is restricted/permitted by laws in many countries, not the courts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/24/global-abortion-laws-roe-wade-courts/

...and though abortion is allowed upon request in many countries in Europe they have mandatory time limits, waiting periods and counseling.

https://reproductiverights.org/european-abortion-law-comparative-overview-0/

So the system of checks and balances isn't real?

muwarrior69

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Re: Founding Fathers saw abortion as a privacy issue
« Reply #7 on: July 19, 2022, 03:10:51 PM »
Why should laws either allowing or forbidding a woman to have control of her own body and privacy be different in Mississippi than it is in Colorado than it is in New Hampshire than it is in Wyoming? That's ridiculous. It's like saying one state should be allowed to forbid a White person from marrying a Black person, or like saying a state should be allowed to forbid a man from getting a vasectomy.

Controlling one's own body is an inalienable right, and a privacy issue ... and the Founding Fathers knew it. Christian zealots who would deny an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim shouldn't have the power to take away that right.

...but none of those examples takes another human life, that is science not "Christian zealotry". Even Roe recognized the viability of the unborn baby/child/fetus. So is the right to own and carry a firearm, yet that right is not treated the same in every state either.

NCMUFan

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Uncle Rico

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“This is bar none atrocious.  Mitchell cannot shoot either.  What a pile of dung”

Uncle Rico

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Re: Founding Fathers saw abortion as a privacy issue
« Reply #10 on: July 19, 2022, 03:33:41 PM »
So the system of checks and balances isn't real?

Well, most legislatures don’t work anymore
“This is bar none atrocious.  Mitchell cannot shoot either.  What a pile of dung”

MU82

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Re: Founding Fathers saw abortion as a privacy issue
« Reply #11 on: July 19, 2022, 03:44:16 PM »
...but none of those examples takes another human life, that is science not "Christian zealotry". Even Roe recognized the viability of the unborn baby/child/fetus. So is the right to own and carry a firearm, yet that right is not treated the same in every state either.

Anybody who thinks a 9-week-old fetus is a "human life" is not following science but Christian zealotry. Anybody who thinks a 10-year-old rape victim should have to carry the fetus/baby to term is not following human decency but Christian zealotry.

What percentage of scientists are pushing for those laws? Now, what percentage of Christian zealots are?

Stop trying to take body-control and privacy rights away from women and girls -- who actually are human lives.
“It’s not how white men fight.” - Tucker Carlson

JWags85

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Re: Founding Fathers saw abortion as a privacy issue
« Reply #12 on: July 19, 2022, 04:31:58 PM »
This will of course be locked for politics, but I don't see how anyone can consider the fundamental human right of a living person having bodily autonomy political. Might as well say that breathing is political while we're at it.

There are about 50 political issues that you could swap out with "i dont know how anyone could disagree with me, so I don't know why its political, its common sense/human right/etc..."  I happen to agree with your general stance on the topic of abortion, but the quoted viewpoint above is just total arrogance.