Yada, Yada, Yada, Yada,....
Look folks. Let us all be perfectly honest here. Nobody on either side is really trying to save or kill babies.
Full disclosure. I HATE abortion. I am pro-choice with certain limitations.
This is nothing but a political issue. It is being stoked by the Republican Party because it gets votes. That is all.
The only way to establish a time when a fetus becomes a child is to set an arbitrary time on it. Alabama says 11 weeks and some plates say 24 weeks. I say 25 weeks, three days, 6 hours and 21 minutes. We do know how old preemies can be when successfully birthed. But I like my time better because I made it up just like everyone else is.
I do not doubt the sincerity of people who for religious or other reasons are rabidly anti-abortion. I do not denigrate their right to vote their beliefs. (Now pay the fuck attention to what I am about to say not to what you want me to have said.) This issue points out a fatal flaw in the US form of government. I believe a fatal flaw.:
For our government to work we have to believe in the supremacy of the people. That is not the problem. We have constructed a system that relies on the state to express that supremacy. With me so far? Then. We decided that to regulate trade and support human rights positions that are not universally held, we would empower the US government to supersede the laws of the states through what amounts to sleight of hand. Withholding federal funds, the commerce clause, executive order, etc. THAT, in effect, made it necessary for us to have a Supreme Leader, just like Iran does. Our Supreme Leader, is the Supreme court.
The Federal Government has no constitutional authority to ban abortion and couldn't if it tried. (It can't even pass a fucking budget.) So some folks came up with the notion that women have some right to a few months of their body that they never had before. Why? Because the overwhelming number of Americans wanted abortion illegal. They would have added, "of course". (Mind you that we take many years and even life itself away from men through the draft laws so 9 months does not shock me much at all.)
Well the aforementioned group tried to sell it to the individual states and succeeded in a few. In the others they were met with "oh hell no". So they got laws passed allowing abortion in the pro-abortion states and failed in the other. In the failed states they tried a political canard. And what was this canard? They asserted that a woman had a right to control her body that is denied to men and always has been. (The draft.) But that is not what carried the day. It was, in the end, privacy that gave us Roe v. Wade.
Look folks. This thread is about Roe V. Wade. Nothing else. So what the the supreme court actually say?
The Court divided the pregnancy period into three trimesters. During the first trimester 0-13 weeks), the decision to terminate the pregnancy was solely at the discretion of the woman. After the first trimester, the state could “regulate procedure.” During the second trimester, the state could regulate (but not outlaw) abortions in the interests of the mother’s health. After the second trimester, the fetus became viable, and the state could regulate or outlaw abortions in the interest of the potential life except when necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.
So. Read that again. And again. A word that is used often is "state". For 13 weeks it is up to the mom. For the rest of the pregnancy the SCOTUS left to the states the prerogative to "regulate" the procedure IN THE INTEREST OF THE HEALTH OF THE MOTHER. It
left to the states the right to decide what constitutes the "health of the mother". Being inconvenienced can reasonably be argued to not constitute a health issue in abortion anymore than it does in the call for jury duty.
So that is what the anti-abortion folks are trying to do with the draconian laws. Though we could easily say that they are trying to overturn Roe the fact is that what they are really attempting to do is enforce it. They are simply asserting a right that the court already gave them. The right to regulate the procedure and the responsibility to define what "In the interests of the health of the mother" means.
Will the SCOTUS overturn Roe V. Wade and leave a legal gap?
God I most sincerely hope so. I really do. I don't think they will. I think they will just gut it by letting these state laws stand.
Either side of the argument wins if Roe is struck down root and branch. The anti abortion folks because they can bad in in their states. The pro-choice people win because the people want abortion to be readily available. They may vote new pro-choice candidates into office.
But understand as you expend a shit ton of effort kvetching over when a cake becomes a cake, it has already been decided by the SCOTUS 48 years ago.
This issue is so simple. We just do not have a form of government that is systematically capable of dealing with big issues. And it never will be again until the Republicans take control of all three houses of government.