> On Monday, the [Pennsylvania Supreme Court] issued a landmark opinion declaring that abortion restrictions do amount to sex-based discrimination and therefore are “presumptively unconstitutional” under the state constitution’s equal rights amendment. The majority vehemently rejected Dobbs’ history-only analysis, noting that, until recently, “those interpreting the law” saw women “as not only having fewer legal rights than men but also as lesser human beings by design.” Justice David Wecht went even further: In an extraordinary concurrence, the justice recounted the historical use of abortion bans to repress women, condemned Alito’s error-ridden analysis, and repudiated the “antiquated and misogynistic notion that a woman has no say over what happens to her own body.”
>
> The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision thus spurned Dobbs in two ways. First, the majority held that laws regulating a woman’s body do discriminate on the basis of sex, a truth that has been widely understood by legal scholars for decades. And second, the majority explained that rooting women’s rights in the past is, itself, a form of sex discrimination, perpetuating misogynistic beliefs about gender inequality by judicial decree. As it was leaked and then published with almost no corrections to its myriad errors, Dobbs set off a firestorm of real-time criticism within the public, the legal academy, and the media, and that criticism is now finally returning to the courts—in the form of decisions that both defy and rebuke Dobbs’ chauvinistic logic.
> The majority vehemently rejected Dobbs’ history-only analysis, noting that, until recently, “those interpreting the law” saw women “as not only having fewer legal rights than men but also as lesser human beings by design.” Justice David Wecht went even further: In an extraordinary concurrence, the justice recounted the historical use of abortion bans to repress women, condemned Alito’s error-ridden analysis, and repudiated the “antiquated and misogynistic notion that a woman has no say over what happens to her own body.”
I read this and whispered “fuck yeah” to myself.
If you’ve got time, it’s worth reading the “extraordinary concurrence”, especially the “History and Tradition” section at the end:
> These nineteenth century physicians were transparent in this intent, arguing that
regulating women’s reproductive conduct was necessary to protect potential life, to keep
women performing their marital and maternal obligations, and to preserve the ethnic
character of the nation. In framing abortion as “a vehicle of social disorder,” the
physicians argued that abortion posed broader demographic concerns because the birth
rate of white, Protestant, native-born women had fallen relative to that of immigrant and
nonwhite populations.
The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh?
> In this historical endeavor, there appears to be a disconnect between what the
United States Supreme Court has concluded as a matter of legal history and what
historians consider to be history, untainted by the Supreme Court’s tinkering.
i.e. “Fuck you, Alito.”
[deleted]
SO proud of PA right now!
This is your daily reminder that conservative religious ideology is a cancer to society and must be stopped at all costs.
The only issue I take with this article is that Roe v. Wade was decided 7-2 in the Supreme court with 5 of those votes being Republican. Most of the GOP has seemed to forget that the party had common sense at one point in history.
Dobbs, citizens United, you name it. There have been some rotten decisions from a shit court these last few years. Turns out 9 people are not qualified to make decisions affecting most Americans. Expand the court.
I think the read on pro lifers as only wanting to oppress women is misguided the same way I think saying people who want to preserve bodily autonomy are out to kill babies is misguided. I dont think you’ll ever have any real movement on the issue when both sides start off assuming the worst intentions of the other.
Abortion restrictions as sex discrimination is an interesting framing. I see the point they’re trying to make but it’s just the nature of human biology that one sex can get pregnant and carry human life and one can’t.
A well written legal takedown is a thing of beauty. Too bad the people that need to read it won’t.
The Heritage Foundation is gonna be lit up today looking for ways to appeal this to Federal Court, their founding father Alito is just dying to respond.
This is why we need the Equal Rights Amendment in the US Constitution. Pennsylvania judge was able to do this because PA has an ERA in its state constitution. Without the ERA, women are second-class citizens with no rights to bodily autonomy.
We should never have stopped fighting to get the ERA passed.
> The majority vehemently rejected Dobbs’ history-only analysis, noting that, until recently, “those interpreting the law” saw women “as not only having fewer legal rights than men but also as lesser human beings by design.” Justice David Wecht went even further: In an extraordinary concurrence, the justice recounted the historical use of abortion bans to repress women, condemned Alito’s error-ridden analysis, and repudiated the “antiquated and misogynistic notion that a woman has no say over what happens to her own body.”
🎉
You tell them, Pennsylvania.
This seems huge, but I’m not politically knowledgeable to know for sure.
Well you should cone over to OHIO where our govenor is saving us from the devils work and promoting sexual discrimination.
I guess “The greater good” doesn’t really exist.
How about we have a national vote on this issue?
I’m really sad that Alito and Thomas are still living and breathing
What a great day for Pennsylvania and the nation!!
” it will be incumbent upon the state to demonstrate how the Coverage Exclusion’s denial of abortions that are medically necessary for the woman’s health—which denial, according to Providers’ assertions, severely undermines women’s health—is somehow serving the state’s
interest in protecting women’s health.”
I have been waiting for a court to actually say this. It’s hypocritical to commit women to death while at the same time attempting to state that women’s health is the priority.
Good. Putting repudiation into the record (and at a very high level at that) is good for history and good for sending the message that there are recognized authorities that also feel *Dobbs* was a illegitimate decision.
Very interesting piece with lots of history to know. Also, paying for abortions costs a lot less than care for a pregnancy, birth and everything after.
Originalism is a shitstain on the fabric of constitutional jurisprudence
When are they ever going to argue these things on the primary factor abortion laws are legislating specific subjective interpretations of specific mythologies?
The developing nervous system isn’t complete until after 24 weeks. There’s no signs of sentience/sapience until ≈30-weeks. Any claim to a person be present before 24-30-weeks isn’t supported by reality/medicine/science.
Therefore, any abortion restrictions before 24-30 weeks is a religious/mythological belief, not supported by reality/science and is a clear-cut, unarguable, 1st Amendment violation.
What we need is the legal definition of “brain alive” or “persistent non-vegetative state” to mirror end-of-life issues.
The vote was three to two.
So, it turns out that pussy grabs back. Pretty cool 🙂
I will note that almost every discussion I see about this subject ignores the unConstitutional enforcement of all these regressive socially backwards state laws. For the state to KNOW if a woman has received an abortion out of state, where she has received medical care that is perfectly legal within those state boundaries, the state in question has to invade her privacy. The state must suspend her right to be free in her person, places, papers and effects. It demands she be subjected to laws based upon a religious conviction she does not hold. There’s at least three articles of the Bill of Rights she is being denied, and has not broken even these archaic laws…yet.
The state then will illegally petition to obtain her medical records, subpoena her private communications, enlist or encourage others to testify against her with a cash bounty incentive- all under standards that would not get a search warrant from a judge were the subject matter drugs, nor would it hold up in court, just one for instance. Enforcement means that in places like Texas, where counties will physically obstruct a woman’s right to travel across state lines because she is pregnant, and because she might obtain an abortion. Louisiana and Tennessee have already incarcerated women because they might flee the state to receive an abortion. Turn that argument on it’s head for just a moment- what stops the state from detaining a pregnant woman because she “might” be a child abuser, though she has no prior history or extenuating circumstances that would indicate that…but merely because she is pregnant. Because you are capable of committing a “crime” is not a crime.
Imagine the state now decides that it will do the same with marijuana, or driving the speed limit, or reading a banned book- so long as this activity took place in a state where it was legal, the red state can decide they will prosecute their resident anyway- Incredible violation of civil rights, and there’s no slippery slope here- women are now less than citizens and are not availed the same protections…thats not about babies, thats about changing the culture to a pre 1921 social structure.
That’s fantastic news! GOP Justices are just fucking fascists encoding bullshit from the Heritage Foundation.
> history-only analysis,
That’s the way of MAGA:
> [his analysis] rested largely on the views of dead white men who condoned the rape, beating, and murder of women to maintain female subjugation in every realm of life.
> rooting women’s rights in the past is, itself, a form of sex discrimination, perpetuating misogynistic beliefs about gender inequality by judicial decree.
Tell me if I understand this correctly.
US Supreme Court took away abortion rights in the Dobbs case. Their logic / evidence was based on a cherry picked version of history. They used a lot of quotes from “important/legal” people of the past
Pennsylvania court ruled that abortion law is unconstitutional because it targets one sex, thus unfair or unequal treatment. Their evidence that this is unfair is the same sources the supreme used clearly said the reason they are doing this is to discriminate against women and to use the law to treat them differently. Thus abortion laws = unconstitutional.
Did I simplify this correctly? I am not sure I understood the Pennsylvania logic correctly.
29 comments
A bit of the analysis in this piece:
> On Monday, the [Pennsylvania Supreme Court] issued a landmark opinion declaring that abortion restrictions do amount to sex-based discrimination and therefore are “presumptively unconstitutional” under the state constitution’s equal rights amendment. The majority vehemently rejected Dobbs’ history-only analysis, noting that, until recently, “those interpreting the law” saw women “as not only having fewer legal rights than men but also as lesser human beings by design.” Justice David Wecht went even further: In an extraordinary concurrence, the justice recounted the historical use of abortion bans to repress women, condemned Alito’s error-ridden analysis, and repudiated the “antiquated and misogynistic notion that a woman has no say over what happens to her own body.”
>
> The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision thus spurned Dobbs in two ways. First, the majority held that laws regulating a woman’s body do discriminate on the basis of sex, a truth that has been widely understood by legal scholars for decades. And second, the majority explained that rooting women’s rights in the past is, itself, a form of sex discrimination, perpetuating misogynistic beliefs about gender inequality by judicial decree. As it was leaked and then published with almost no corrections to its myriad errors, Dobbs set off a firestorm of real-time criticism within the public, the legal academy, and the media, and that criticism is now finally returning to the courts—in the form of decisions that both defy and rebuke Dobbs’ chauvinistic logic.
> The majority vehemently rejected Dobbs’ history-only analysis, noting that, until recently, “those interpreting the law” saw women “as not only having fewer legal rights than men but also as lesser human beings by design.” Justice David Wecht went even further: In an extraordinary concurrence, the justice recounted the historical use of abortion bans to repress women, condemned Alito’s error-ridden analysis, and repudiated the “antiquated and misogynistic notion that a woman has no say over what happens to her own body.”
I read this and whispered “fuck yeah” to myself.
If you’ve got time, it’s worth reading the “extraordinary concurrence”, especially the “History and Tradition” section at the end:
https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/Supreme/out/J-65-2022co%20-%20105815658253413062.pdf?cb=1
> These nineteenth century physicians were transparent in this intent, arguing that
regulating women’s reproductive conduct was necessary to protect potential life, to keep
women performing their marital and maternal obligations, and to preserve the ethnic
character of the nation. In framing abortion as “a vehicle of social disorder,” the
physicians argued that abortion posed broader demographic concerns because the birth
rate of white, Protestant, native-born women had fallen relative to that of immigrant and
nonwhite populations.
The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh?
> In this historical endeavor, there appears to be a disconnect between what the
United States Supreme Court has concluded as a matter of legal history and what
historians consider to be history, untainted by the Supreme Court’s tinkering.
i.e. “Fuck you, Alito.”
[deleted]
SO proud of PA right now!
This is your daily reminder that conservative religious ideology is a cancer to society and must be stopped at all costs.
The only issue I take with this article is that Roe v. Wade was decided 7-2 in the Supreme court with 5 of those votes being Republican. Most of the GOP has seemed to forget that the party had common sense at one point in history.
Dobbs, citizens United, you name it. There have been some rotten decisions from a shit court these last few years. Turns out 9 people are not qualified to make decisions affecting most Americans. Expand the court.
I think the read on pro lifers as only wanting to oppress women is misguided the same way I think saying people who want to preserve bodily autonomy are out to kill babies is misguided. I dont think you’ll ever have any real movement on the issue when both sides start off assuming the worst intentions of the other.
Abortion restrictions as sex discrimination is an interesting framing. I see the point they’re trying to make but it’s just the nature of human biology that one sex can get pregnant and carry human life and one can’t.
A well written legal takedown is a thing of beauty. Too bad the people that need to read it won’t.
The Heritage Foundation is gonna be lit up today looking for ways to appeal this to Federal Court, their founding father Alito is just dying to respond.
This is why we need the Equal Rights Amendment in the US Constitution. Pennsylvania judge was able to do this because PA has an ERA in its state constitution. Without the ERA, women are second-class citizens with no rights to bodily autonomy.
We should never have stopped fighting to get the ERA passed.
> The majority vehemently rejected Dobbs’ history-only analysis, noting that, until recently, “those interpreting the law” saw women “as not only having fewer legal rights than men but also as lesser human beings by design.” Justice David Wecht went even further: In an extraordinary concurrence, the justice recounted the historical use of abortion bans to repress women, condemned Alito’s error-ridden analysis, and repudiated the “antiquated and misogynistic notion that a woman has no say over what happens to her own body.”
🎉
You tell them, Pennsylvania.
This seems huge, but I’m not politically knowledgeable to know for sure.
Well you should cone over to OHIO where our govenor is saving us from the devils work and promoting sexual discrimination.
I guess “The greater good” doesn’t really exist.
How about we have a national vote on this issue?
I’m really sad that Alito and Thomas are still living and breathing
What a great day for Pennsylvania and the nation!!
” it will be incumbent upon the state to demonstrate how the Coverage Exclusion’s denial of abortions that are medically necessary for the woman’s health—which denial, according to Providers’ assertions, severely undermines women’s health—is somehow serving the state’s
interest in protecting women’s health.”
I have been waiting for a court to actually say this. It’s hypocritical to commit women to death while at the same time attempting to state that women’s health is the priority.
Good. Putting repudiation into the record (and at a very high level at that) is good for history and good for sending the message that there are recognized authorities that also feel *Dobbs* was a illegitimate decision.
Very interesting piece with lots of history to know. Also, paying for abortions costs a lot less than care for a pregnancy, birth and everything after.
Originalism is a shitstain on the fabric of constitutional jurisprudence
When are they ever going to argue these things on the primary factor abortion laws are legislating specific subjective interpretations of specific mythologies?
The developing nervous system isn’t complete until after 24 weeks. There’s no signs of sentience/sapience until ≈30-weeks. Any claim to a person be present before 24-30-weeks isn’t supported by reality/medicine/science.
Therefore, any abortion restrictions before 24-30 weeks is a religious/mythological belief, not supported by reality/science and is a clear-cut, unarguable, 1st Amendment violation.
What we need is the legal definition of “brain alive” or “persistent non-vegetative state” to mirror end-of-life issues.
The vote was three to two.
So, it turns out that pussy grabs back. Pretty cool 🙂
I will note that almost every discussion I see about this subject ignores the unConstitutional enforcement of all these regressive socially backwards state laws. For the state to KNOW if a woman has received an abortion out of state, where she has received medical care that is perfectly legal within those state boundaries, the state in question has to invade her privacy. The state must suspend her right to be free in her person, places, papers and effects. It demands she be subjected to laws based upon a religious conviction she does not hold. There’s at least three articles of the Bill of Rights she is being denied, and has not broken even these archaic laws…yet.
The state then will illegally petition to obtain her medical records, subpoena her private communications, enlist or encourage others to testify against her with a cash bounty incentive- all under standards that would not get a search warrant from a judge were the subject matter drugs, nor would it hold up in court, just one for instance. Enforcement means that in places like Texas, where counties will physically obstruct a woman’s right to travel across state lines because she is pregnant, and because she might obtain an abortion. Louisiana and Tennessee have already incarcerated women because they might flee the state to receive an abortion. Turn that argument on it’s head for just a moment- what stops the state from detaining a pregnant woman because she “might” be a child abuser, though she has no prior history or extenuating circumstances that would indicate that…but merely because she is pregnant. Because you are capable of committing a “crime” is not a crime.
Imagine the state now decides that it will do the same with marijuana, or driving the speed limit, or reading a banned book- so long as this activity took place in a state where it was legal, the red state can decide they will prosecute their resident anyway- Incredible violation of civil rights, and there’s no slippery slope here- women are now less than citizens and are not availed the same protections…thats not about babies, thats about changing the culture to a pre 1921 social structure.
That’s fantastic news! GOP Justices are just fucking fascists encoding bullshit from the Heritage Foundation.
> history-only analysis,
That’s the way of MAGA:
> [his analysis] rested largely on the views of dead white men who condoned the rape, beating, and murder of women to maintain female subjugation in every realm of life.
> rooting women’s rights in the past is, itself, a form of sex discrimination, perpetuating misogynistic beliefs about gender inequality by judicial decree.
Tell me if I understand this correctly.
US Supreme Court took away abortion rights in the Dobbs case. Their logic / evidence was based on a cherry picked version of history. They used a lot of quotes from “important/legal” people of the past
Pennsylvania court ruled that abortion law is unconstitutional because it targets one sex, thus unfair or unequal treatment. Their evidence that this is unfair is the same sources the supreme used clearly said the reason they are doing this is to discriminate against women and to use the law to treat them differently. Thus abortion laws = unconstitutional.
Did I simplify this correctly? I am not sure I understood the Pennsylvania logic correctly.
PA saving the country again