rchive

The ordinance in this Texas case doesn't make anything criminal, it uses the same civil liability workaround that Texas was using at the state level before Dobbs.

That's also not the strong argument some people might think it is, in the eyes of these Christians.

If SCOTUS were insistent (and consistent) that only the federal government had the power to regulate interstate commerce, yet this Texas jurisdiction is trying to do just that, wouldn't that logically be in violation of the Commerce Clause and SCOTUS would have to strike down?

I was arguing that SCOTUS isn't consistent on this, but pretend they were.

That is not even close to what the Dobbs decision ruled. What are you talking about?

Dobbs just said basically that the Constitution does not imply a fundamental right to an abortion (which is what Roe said). That's it. Congress is still free to pass laws about abortion, and it could try to preempt states prohibiting it.

Not to mention the Commerce Clause reserves the power to regulate interstate commerce to the federal government, which this Texas ordinance doesn't explicitly violate, but comes awfully close and will probably be challenged on those grounds.

People always say this, but it's not as strong of an argument as they think it is. Religious conservative people, especially Christians, give to charity quite a lot, actually. They just hear that argument and think, "this person doesn't know what they're talking about, we obvious do care about the already born, I can comfortably dismiss everything they say now."

Honestly, yes. The nominal reason we give states federal money for highways that there's a benefit to other states from one state having highways passing through it. If you're not going to non-selectively give use of your highways, you're not universally benefiting your neighboring states, so you shouldn't get the money.

Now, the actual reason we take tax money from people in one state, give it to the federal government, just to have the it dish the money back out to the states is so the federal government gets a bunch of leverage over the states. It's not actually efficient to collect a bunch of money, which costs money, and then give most of it back, which also costs money. It's about control.

It's not a ban, per se, it "just" opens people up to civil liability. The reason they do it that way is to skirt the Constitution.

They do care about precedent, usually too much in my opinion. There have been many cases in the last few years brought to SCOTUS seeking the overturning of the doctrine of Qualified Immunity, but SCOTUS has in all cases either not taken them up or not ruled on that issue. They basically keep saying, "we've already ruled on this, we won't touch it unless Congress changes the law in some way." Dobbs was like the one issue SCOTUS has actually overturned a previous opinion on in recent years.

They just care that it sounds good to pro-life voters and donors who haven't thought too hard about it.

Kavanaugh was never that extreme. He's the squishiest of the 3 Trump nominees by far. Gorsuch is way more consistent, actually in a good way much of the time, like when he wrote the majority opinion prohibiting certain discrimination against gay and trans people using a originalist textualist approach.

I actually don't think Dobbs affected this that much. Texas was trying to circumvent Roe before Dobbs, anyway, not using criminal prosecution but by allowing people to be sued in civil court for abortion.

Something something it's not commerce because reasons.

Nevermind that the Commerce Clause has been cited to give the federal government authority to prohibit activities that are neither commerce nor inter-state, such as growing cannabis for personal use on your own property.

Schroedinger's commerce. It's commerce only when it's convenient for prohibitionists.