Legal defense feels like another system in crisis, like health care, where there's just no where near enough capacity for the system's demands. The citizenry sliding into a less and less reasonably well represented state, their respect under the law diminishing: it's hard to imagine what else we could do, how we can retain the decency & dignity & legitemacy of the state, as the crunch comes.
> In a pair of decisions, the [previous] court said that if a defendant is represented by an ineffective lawyer during their post-conviction proceedings, and that lawyer fails to argue that the defendant was represented by an ineffective lawyer during the defendant’s trial, a federal court can still hear the defendant’s claim that they received ineffective assistance at trial in violation of the Sixth Amendment.
Of course that's just too reasonable & decent for the current Court. Again more seeming sensibility & decency, hurled into the gutter. More precedent overturned, more malice for all. The NeoCon agenda felt like it was at attempt to push American might abroad, but having failed that, we seem to be increasingly authoritarian & uncaring at home.
You have to break the infinite appeal loop somewhere. The constitutional right to counsel isn’t a right to the best lawyers in the business. Being licensed and able to legally practice is pretty much the definition of adequate counsel.
> In this case, for example, four federal judges on two different courts concluded there was a reasonable probability that Barry Jones did not commit the crime for which he was sentenced to death
In death-penalty cases, there's no way to reverse an execution. The probability of error should weigh against execution in favor of life until that question is resolved. Too many have suffered the ultimate injustice.
It is hard to take this article serious when they are claiming abortion is a constitutional right that was also removed. Ruth Ginsberg even called it "unstable" reasoning. Does somebody have a better article than this?
Abortion was a constitutional right, with a leaked ruling that explicitly removes that right.
This is a ruling that says that if you had bad counsel, and were unable to procure good council in time, you have lost your right to claim a 6th amendment violation. To wit: if you have bad representation, that bad representation can remove your right to claim that you had bad representation at appeal. I would say that’s patently absurd, but if you’re a Republican judge it clearly is not.
Looking forward to their future removal of LGBT rights, which their leaked removal of abortion rights indicated was also “incorrect”.
Which has had the effect of allowing a number of regressive to pass laws making illegal something that was constitutionally guaranteed a few weeks ago.
What part of what I have said do you think is wrong? What part of what I have said requires some "correction"?
This is a bunch of religious zealots who have repeatedly throughout the years demonstrated an utter hate for personal liberty, and have been repeatedly responsible for legislation targeting individual liberty. I am going to continue to talk about them as such, because not a single one of their claims withstands the most rudimentary scrutiny.
Believe it or not but there are millions of prolife people who are not religious. Trying to paint such a diverse group with such a paint brush shows you either don't know what you are talking about or are not arguing in good faith.
I don't really care about how a group feels about me when that group's defining characteristic is the determination to control other people's lives and bodies.
It is very clearly a movement centered on controlling women, because the pro-life movement has aggressively worked to reduce access to birth control, and undermine or limit effective sex education.
A person who wishes to stop abortions should have as their primary goal the reduction in unwanted pregnancies, after all that is the safest and least controlling approach to reducing abortions. However all the evidence shows that pro-choice legislators and activists are the people who actively work to reduce the rates of unwanted pregnancies.
Pro-life means working to ensure that women have less bodily autonomy than a corpse. It means that forcing rape victims to give birth, even if they are children for whom birth is potentially lethal (because they're "too young" to make such complex choices). Or just to needlessly kill women.
The states that are most aggressively "pro-life" also tend to have the highest maternal mortality rates, the lowest child support, the poorest funded education system. None of those match any claims of being "pro life", they indicate that the only goal is control of women.
I'll believe "pro-life" actually means that when I see pro-life politicians making sure child birth is free, that child care is available to all including low/no income, that quality housing is provided for low/no income families.
I'll believe "pro-life" campaigners are anti-abortion for reasons other than control of women when they are as aggressively working to reduce unintended pregnancies as they have done to criminalize women.
I'll believe "pro-life" campaigners believe life begins at conception when they start child support, life insurance, etc at conception as well.
>I don't really care about how a group feels about me when that group's defining characteristic is the determination to control other people's lives and bodies.
We should get rid of laws against theft, murder, rape, etc while we are at it. If you don't support that then I don't really care about your opinion since you just want to control other people's lives and bodies.
>It is very clearly a movement centered on controlling women,
It is not clear. Maybe you could actually try to understand the other side? If prolifers genuinely believe a fetus is a human than it is not as simple as just controlling women.
>because the pro-life movement has aggressively worked to reduce access to birth control, and undermine or limit effective sex education.
Some have. Some haven't. You really like to paint with a broad brush. Let me do the same. The pro abortion crowd believes you should be allowed to "abort" a baby after it has been born. I can find a couple prochoicers who believe that so that means every prochoicer believes that right?
>A person who wishes to stop abortions should have as their primary goal the reduction in unwanted pregnancies, after all that is the safest and least controlling approach to reducing abortions. However all the evidence shows that pro-choice legislators and activists are the people who actively work to reduce the rates of unwanted pregnancies.
Banning abortions can be effective at lowering abortions as well.
>Pro-life means working to ensure that women have less bodily autonomy than a corpse.
At least it gives rights to her baby.
>It means that forcing rape victims to give birth
Some prolife people support rape exceptions. You really have no clue about the nuances held by a large number of prolifers.
>even if they are children for whom birth is potentially lethal (because they're "too young" to make such complex choices). Or just to needlessly kill women.
Most prolifers support an exception for medical necessities. Also, in some situations the fetus can be removed without killing it first. The baby will likely die, but deliberately killing it isn't great.
>The states that are most aggressively "pro-life" also tend to have the highest maternal mortality rates,
This could be because prolife states tend to be poorer. Of course you think it is because they don't care about woman.
>the lowest child support,
Many prolifers are in support of raising the child support requirements. Unfortunately due to a two party system you don't have an option of prolife and additional protections for poor mothers / kids.
I am not going to even continue since the rest of your tirade is the same. You make no attempt at understanding the other side and always assume the worst. You take stereotypes and assume everyone on the other side are the same.
I was correct in my previous post that you are not arguing in good faith. I hope you have a better day than you are apparently having today.
You are right, I was getting angry, and being unreasonable.
But while claiming my representation of pro-lifers is unreasonably broad, you repeat a bunch of the standard claims.
You make the common claim that laws preventing people from doing things to others without their consent are no different from laws preventing a person from receiving medical treatment of their own body.
> "Banning abortions can be effective at lowering abortions as well."
It does reduce the number of abortions a small amount, and it also increases the number of women who die during them, when they get them anyway.
What actually reduces abortions is reducing pregnancy in the first place. Something that has been repeatedly shown is achieved through provision of birth control, and actual sex education. Doing that results in a much greater reduction in abortions, and doesn't come at the cost of killing women.
"At least it gives rights to her baby."
I honestly don't know what you're trying to say here? No one has removed anyone's rights to their baby - again, the only right being removed here is a woman's bodily autonomy. In fact, by forcing women to carry unsafe pregnancies to term you may end up forcing them into sterility. So not only did you remove their right to abortion, you remove their ability to have children later.
The arguments you are making take the color of "pro-choicers want abortions", which is a standard lie promoted by pro-lifers. The states that are electively pro-choice are also the states that provide contraception, birth control, some semblance of sex ed - things that actually reduce abortions.
I do not understand why you think I have not tried to understand. I understand your position very clearly. It is not complex.
You believe abortion is wrong, and therefore you believe that it doesn't matter what a woman may believe, that they should not have bodily autonomy.
Currently this is limited to abortion, but given you believe that women do not have any constitutional right to bodily autonomy, there is no reason you cannot decide that woman should lose other rights in future.
I am not being facetious, and I am not being hysterical. Numerous governments, left and right wing, liberal and conservative, have at numerous points in history determined that women should be involuntarily sterilized (which I guess stops abortions, so yay?) for a variety of reasons - that were mentally ill, gay, non-white, ...
See, the problem is that once you say someone does not have bodily autonomy, then you have stated that the government has permission to control those victim's bodies. It's not "just one thing", the debate about abortion is the debate over whether a woman gets a say in what happens to her body.
>You make the common claim that laws preventing people from doing things to others without their consent are no different from laws preventing a person from receiving medical treatment of their own body.
Well there is a second body during abortions as well. The fetus has a body. Unless you think a woman grows an extra 2 arms and legs. A woman also has 2 hearts and 2 sets of gentials?
>It does reduce the number of abortions a small amount, and it also increases the number of women who die during them, when they get them anyway.
I think protecting the most innocent and vulnerable amongst us is more important than a person who will take a dangerous action. It isn't an ideal situation but you have to choose one to protect. At least artificial wombs are starting to be a thing and may prevent this issue in the future.
>What actually reduces abortions is reducing pregnancy in the first place. Something that has been repeatedly shown is achieved through provision of birth control, and actual sex education. Doing that results in a much greater reduction in abortions, and doesn't come at the cost of killing women.
In terms of birth control, some (not sure the percentage) are abortive. They allow conception but prevent the implantation. This is on reason why some are opposed to some birth control.
Like I said in my previous post, we live in a two party system. We don't live in a system where you can vote for additional things like this and restricting abortion. You can't just say prolifers don't vote for these things because there is no other choice for them.
>I honestly don't know what you're trying to say here? No one has removed anyone's rights to their baby - again, the only right being removed here is a woman's bodily autonomy.
I believe if you are not granted protection from being killed than any other right is secondary. You can't exercise any other right if you are dead. When 99% of abortions are not due to rape it is hard to justify removing another person's (the baby's) rights when the other person (the mother) consented to an action whose sole biological purpose is procreation.
>In fact, by forcing women to carry unsafe pregnancies to term you may end up forcing them into sterility. So not only did you remove their right to abortion, you remove their ability to have children later.
Abortions can also lead to sterilization as well.
>The arguments you are making take the color of "pro-choicers want abortions", which is a standard lie promoted by pro-lifers. The states that are electively pro-choice are also the states that provide contraception, birth control, some semblance of sex ed - things that actually reduce abortions.
Like I said, prolifers have no option to vote for someone who will restrict abortion while expanding the other things.
>I do not understand why you think I have not tried to understand. I understand your position very clearly. It is not complex.
You refuse to understand that a fetus is another person that has rights and just say prolifers only want to control woman. It sure sounds like you don't understand.
>You believe abortion is wrong, and therefore you believe that it doesn't matter what a woman may believe, that they should not have bodily autonomy.
I believe a woman has full autonomy over her body, just not the foetus' body.
>Currently this is limited to abortion, but given you believe that women do not have any constitutional right to bodily autonomy, there is no reason you cannot decide that woman should lose other rights in future.
And you wonder why I say you don't understand the other side.
>I am not being facetious, and I am not being hysterical.
Debatable.
>Numerous governments, left and right wing, liberal and conservative, have at numerous points in history determined that women should be involuntarily sterilized (which I guess stops abortions, so yay?) for a variety of reasons - that were mentally ill, gay, non-white, ...
In the US, which we are talking about, this was almost entirely on the left. Eugenics was quite a popular fad with progressives.
Regardless, I think pretty much everyone now is opposed to forced sterilization.
Some places have forced abortions. It isn't relevant to the discussion.
>See, the problem is that once you say someone does not have bodily autonomy, then you have stated that the government has permission to control those victim's bodies.
>It's not "just one thing", the debate about abortion is the debate over whether a woman gets a say in what happens to her body.
I fully agree. That is why I believe babies should have equal rights.
What is stopping a government from removing rights from infants, toddlers or even adults if you can remove rights from babies?
This hill we are on sure seems slippery.
>The pro-life position is that women do not.
The prochoice position is that babies do not have rights.
A fetus is not a person, for the vast majority of the time they lack any organs at all.
However even if we do take a position of a fetus being a person, no one has the right to force anyone to undertake any medical procedure for anyone else's benefit.
We can perhaps make this easier to grasp if we go to post-birth.
Let's say a baby is born with kidney failure. Can the government force the mother or father to donate their kidney? If not, why not? Current law says no, the parent cannot be forced into surgery, but your above definition seems to make the parents murderers?
We know of cases where people have additional children solely to get organs for earlier children, and currently we recognize that those children have rights so they can say no. But maybe you disagree with that? after all, them saying no kills the earlier child.
> What is stopping a government from removing rights from infants, toddlers or even adults if you can remove rights from babies?
The question is "can the government force someone to undertake medical procedures", currently (at least prior to the GOP corruption of the Supreme Court) the answer is no.
Your grand plan has now change the rules so medical procedures can be forced. So you're right it does seem slippery: we can force women to undertake one medical procedure, can we force parents to undertake medical procedures if they can save their children? can parents force children to undertake procedures to save earlier children?
One side of this argument is forced medical procedures, the other is not. One is women having bodily autonomy, one side is them not. One side is trying to reduce the need for abortions, the other side punishing women who get pregnant.
It is a person. This is why we are talking past each other on most of these posts.
>for the vast majority of the time they lack any organs at all.
This is just not true. Please tell me when the brain and heart form. It is well before the halfway point.
Also, some people are born without organs or without properly functioning organs. Some people lose their organs later in life. They are still persons, at least I think they are.
>However even if we do take a position of a fetus being a person, no one has the right to force anyone to undertake any medical procedure for anyone else's benefit.
I wouldn't call it a medical procedure but a natural process that is medicalized (is that a word?). In 99% of abortions the woman chose to take the action whose sole biological purpose is pregnancy so this isn't really a forced medical procedure in those case.
If you are not willing to risk getting a speeding ticket don't speed. You can't kill the police officer giving you a speeding ticket to get out of the consequences of your actions. The speeding ticket requires you to lose property rights to pay the ticket. Nobody denies this, but when it comes to pregnancy people take the opposite position. If you are not willing to risk getting pregnant don't have sex. You can't kill the baby just like you can't kill the police officer. You lose your property rights (paying fine) just like you temporarily lose the ability to do a certain action (abortion). It is no different.
>We can perhaps make this easier to grasp if we go to post-birth.
>Let's say a baby is born with kidney failure. Can the government force the mother or father to donate their kidney? If not, why not? Current law says no, the parent cannot be forced into surgery, but your above definition seems to make the parents murderers?
It is not the same situation since letting somebody die is not the same as deliberately hiring somebody to killing them.
I can make an analogy that isn't really related as well.
After a baby has been born parents should be allowed to starve the baby since the parents have property rights. They should not be forced to pay for food for the baby. Current law says you can't do that.
>We know of cases where people have additional children solely to get organs for earlier children, and currently we recognize that those children have rights so they can say no. But maybe you disagree with that? after all, them saying no kills the earlier child.
I am not a fan of this. Having a kids to deliberately harvest organs is wrong, but like I said above, I don't think the situation is the same.
I would say that the prochoice side should be in favor of having this legal. If a mother can do a medical procedure that will kill their child in the womb why can't they do a medical procedure on the child outside the womb? Especially since neither of the medical procedures are medically necessary for the baby.
>The question is "can the government force someone to undertake medical procedures", currently (at least prior to the GOP corruption of the Supreme Court) the answer is no.
This is just not true. The state government can force you to get vaccinated. Maybe you oppose that, but it has been precedent for over 100 years (Jacobson v. Massachusetts).
The federal government can also draft you (a violation of bodily autonomy) then force you to get vaccines since you are in the military. Also, this happens only to men, so it is similar to pregnancy only happening to women.
All levels of the government can arrest you which removes your bodily autonomy.
Bodily autonomy is not 100% just like any other right. There are situations where you do not get to have that right.
I am not going to address the rest of your post since it is all the same. I have just showed you that the government can currently and has forced medical procedures on individuals and removed bodily autonomy and nobody cares.
> abortions the woman chose to take the action whose sole biological purpose is pregnancy.
If you think that, you really haven't been doing it right. Pleasure, companionship, comfort, reinforcement of social status, and many other purposes are commonly fulfilled by the act of sex, including between same sex partners.
But let us say that you're correct. That still leaves 1% of pregnancies that are involuntary. What should women be allowed to do then?
We aren't going to agree on when a fertilized egg becomes a person (I think you would say immediately, I would say only when viable outside the womb), but let's set that aside.
I don't think women should be forced to continue an unwanted pregnancy. You don't think destroying the fetus at any point is moral. What if we could both get what we want?:
Please note that unless women are provided with comprehensive sex education that includes contraception, there are going to be a lot more unwanted babies being born, regardless of how they are brought to term. This imposes a lot of costs on society that I hope you have some sort of plan to cover.
>If you think that, you really haven't been doing it right. Pleasure, companionship, comfort, reinforcement of social status, and many other purposes are commonly fulfilled by the act of sex, including between same sex partners.
I am not talking about beneficial side affects like pleasure. It is my understanding that the we evolved from asexual to sexual beings not for pleasure but for procreation of individuals that are more resilient than the result of asexual procreation. I am not denying these alternative benefits.
Same sex sex does not lead to pregnancy so it isn't really relevant.
>But let us say that you're correct. That still leaves 1% of pregnancies that are involuntary. What should women be allowed to do then?
Are you willing to ban all abortions excluding rape and medical necessity? If not you are using an outlier to prove a rule (or whatever that phrase is). I don't think rape justifies killing an innocent bystander but would be more than happy with a ban of abortions excluding rape.
> We aren't going to agree on when a fertilized egg becomes a person (I think you would say immediately, I would say only when viable outside the womb), but let's set that aside.
I think this is crux of our disagreement. If you believed abortion killed a baby you would probably be closer to my side. I just think when a fetus has human DNA and possibly even a different blood type as the mother that shows it is a distinct individual. I don't think you can have a distinct human without it being a person. It is quite dehumanizing in my view.
>I don't think women should be forced to continue an unwanted pregnancy. You don't think destroying the fetus at any point is moral. What if we could both get what we want?
I am in favor of things like this, the problem is removing the fetus. It would quite probably require in a c-section which some woman would not be a fan of. I do think it will quite hard to argue for abortion when artificial wombs become available for humans though. By the way, a few posts back I did mention artificial wombs.
>Please note that unless women are provided with comprehensive sex education that includes contraception, there are going to be a lot more unwanted babies being born, regardless of how they are brought to term. This imposes a lot of costs on society that I hope you have some sort of plan to cover.
I am not strictly speaking opposed to sex education, but I don't think it is relevant to whether or not abortion is legal. Just because you didn't have comprehensive sex end doesn't mean you should be allowed to have an abortion.
> I am not talking about beneficial side affects like pleasure. It is my understanding that the we evolved from asexual to sexual beings not for pleasure but for procreation of individuals that are more resilient than the result of asexual procreation. I am not denying these alternative benefits.
Well, sexual reproduction was invented by rather primitive organisms around two billion years ago, but evolution hasn't stood still since then. If you think things like pleasure are mere beneficial side effects, you don't understand much about people either singly or in groups (how do you explain married couples who choose to remain childless?). You might look into bonobo chimpanzees, for whom sex has an even more central social role than for humans.
> I don't think rape justifies killing an innocent bystander but would be more than happy with a ban of abortions excluding rape.
Many conservatives would agree with you, but many of those would then start defining rape very restrictively.
> I just think when a fetus has human DNA and possibly even a different blood type as the mother that shows it is a distinct individual. I don't think you can have a distinct human without it being a person. It is quite dehumanizing in my view.
Hmm. I'm not sure what blood type has to do with it, and you've somewhat sidestepped the issue of when you think a fertilized egg becomes a human. You just use the term "fetus". Do you believe a fertilized egg immediately becomes a human deserving of rights, or is there some additional grace period or precondition such as successful implantation into the wall of the uterus?
> I am not strictly speaking opposed to sex education, but I don't think it is relevant to whether or not abortion is legal. Just because you didn't have comprehensive sex end doesn't mean you should be allowed to have an abortion.
I was more thinking that conservatives shouldn't be allowed to forbid abortion if they don't allow comprehensive sex-ed, rather than preconditioning abortion on the lack of it.:-/
What do you think of medically preventing fertilization, or preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus (eg. hormones such as Levonorgestrel, also known as Plan-B)?
>Well, sexual reproduction was invented by rather primitive organisms around two billion years ago, but evolution hasn't stood still since then.
I didn't say otherwise.
>If you think things like pleasure are mere beneficial side effects, you don't understand much about people either singly or in groups (how do you explain married couples who choose to remain childless?).
I don't get what you mean? People can attempt to separate sex from procreation and take steps to try and stop it from happening. I didn't say otherwise.
>You might look into bonobo chimpanzees, for whom sex has an even more central social role than for humans.
Nothing you are saying contradicts what I am saying.
I think you are getting things backwards. The reason why sex is pleasurable or increases social standing or whatever else is to encourage procreation. Sex did not come about for pleasure but for procreation.
>Many conservatives would agree with you, but many of those would then start defining rape very restrictively
Since you can see the future can you tell me the winning lotto numbers?
>Hmm. I'm not sure what blood type has to do with it, and you've somewhat sidestepped the issue of when you think a fertilized egg becomes a human
Some people deny that a fetus is a distinct individual from the mother. No different than a tumor. A different blood type shows it is different than a tumor. A human doesn't have two different blood types.
> You just use the term "fetus".
Correct. I will sometimes use baby, but it can be ambiguous for people who deny a fetus is a baby. Using fetus makes it clear we are talking about a preborn baby. I think it can have a dehumanizing effect so I am not a huge fan of it though.
>Do you believe a fertilized egg immediately becomes a human deserving of rights, or is there some additional grace period or precondition such as successful implantation into the wall of the uterus?
I believe at conception it is a distinct human which should have all human rights. I don't think the location or size of the human determines if a human is a human.
>I was more thinking that conservatives shouldn't be allowed to forbid abortion if they don't allow comprehensive sex-ed, rather than preconditioning abortion on the lack of it.:-/
I think you are generalizing conservatives. In the US you have an option of proabortion with sex ed or antiabortion without sex end. I would also say that if you talked about the basics and didn't go to far, like what happens in the same places you would have support from the majority of conservatives. I think the majority of conservatives just don't trust the government to handle this properly.
>What do you think of medically preventing fertilization
That is not abortion. I think the majority of prolifers have no issues with it.
>preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus (eg. hormones such as Levonorgestrel, also known as Plan-B)?
Wow. Well, if you're going to define both abortion and human so expansively, I can't say I have much sympathy for your position. What about all the extra fertilized eggs produced via IVF? Do you think the ones not selected for implantation are "aborted" as well?
Cloning of human cell lines for various purposes (especially therapeutic) is going to throw a monkey wrench into your definitions, with "humans" flushed down the drain wholesale every day, as a matter of course.
>Well, if you're going to define both abortion and human so expansively, I can't say I have much sympathy for your position.
If you are going to define human is limited, I can't say I have much sympathy for your position. It is dehumanizing and absolutely frightening.
>What about all the extra fertilized eggs produced via IVF? Do you think the ones not selected for implantation are "aborted" as well?
Yes.
>Cloning of human cell lines for various purposes (especially therapeutic) is going to throw a monkey wrench into your definitions, with "humans" flushed down the drain wholesale every day, as a matter of course.
I don't believe random cells are humans. Please stop (deliberately?) straw-manning millions of people's beliefs. You sound like the people who say prolifers think masturbation is the same as abortion. Just stop.
This conversation is not going anywhere and is a waste of time. We have such fundamental difference on what is a human that any higher level conversation is a waste.
> I don't believe random cells are humans. Please stop (deliberately?) straw-manning millions of people's beliefs.
What makes a pluripotent stem cell not a human? If implanted, it would basically grow into one. With more research it could probably be implanted into an artificial womb instead.
There is no difference between a clump of cloned cells and a clump of cells originating from a fertilized egg, except some incidental details like methylation that aren't essential and can be reset as needed.
Growing cloned organs and tissues for transplanting isn't all that far away. Pretty soon the ultra wealthy will pay to grow entire bodies to transplant their brain into. They may not wait for the additional research necessary to grow clones without a neocortex.
So personally, I am worrying a lot more about regulating the things we allow cells to be grown into than about giving the clumps of cells rights depending on the exact methodology of their origin. And that's still just considering cells that are sourced solely from humans.
> In a pair of decisions, the [previous] court said that if a defendant is represented by an ineffective lawyer during their post-conviction proceedings, and that lawyer fails to argue that the defendant was represented by an ineffective lawyer during the defendant’s trial, a federal court can still hear the defendant’s claim that they received ineffective assistance at trial in violation of the Sixth Amendment.
Of course that's just too reasonable & decent for the current Court. Again more seeming sensibility & decency, hurled into the gutter. More precedent overturned, more malice for all. The NeoCon agenda felt like it was at attempt to push American might abroad, but having failed that, we seem to be increasingly authoritarian & uncaring at home.