Patterico's Pontifications

9/30/2007

Toobin: No Woman Has Ever Regretted an Abortion

Filed under: Abortion,Books,General,Judiciary — Patterico @ 3:41 pm



In his book “The Nine,” Jeffrey Toobin says:

“While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon,” Kennedy wrote, “it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained.” Small wonder that Kennedy found no such data, because, notwithstanding the claims of the antiabortion movement, no scientifically respectable support existed for this patronizing notion.

Place to one side the fact that (as Toobin knows damn well) if anyone tried to conduct any kind of scientific study regarding abortion, it would be bitterly opposed by NARAL et al. on privacy grounds.

Is “scientifically respectable support” really necessary for the proposition that “some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained”? Does Toobin truly think that no women regret their abortions?

If so, let me set him straight.

I recently wrote a post linking a piece I had seen in the Daily Mail, which quotes women who have had abortions. Of the six women whose abortions are recounted in the piece, four regretted their decision. Let me remind you of some of their quotes:

Sarah Giles:

Today, I still have a huge sense of loss and feel that we did the wrong thing. Mike and I are still together, although the abortion nearly split us up.

I hope that one day we’ll get married and have children together – but I will never forget. Even today, I see pregnant women or happy young mothers with their babies and think: “That could have been me. It makes me cry.”

Sarah Fry:

My abortion haunted me for years afterwards. . . . When [my baby] was born in August of this year, I was thrilled – but when I look at her I sometimes think of the pregnancy I terminated.

Doctors haven’t confirmed a link between my abortion nine years ago and the subsequent miscarriages, but I can’t help but wonder if they’re connected – and inside I do sometimes blame myself.

Varria Russellwhite:

I was given a pill and then a pessary the following day, which induced a miscarriage. I was not prepared for what followed. After eight hours I gave birth to a small but fully formed baby.

As I watched the nurse carry it away in a pool of blood, I felt so hollow at the waste of a life. I could clean the mess off me, but couldn’t wash the guilt from my mind.

Sue Hulbert:

When I came to, I felt devastated about what I had done and immediately regretted it. I went home with this aching, empty feeling.

Alan didn’t wait long before cutting his ties with me and I fell into a deep depression. It took me so long to get out of bed each morning because I had to imagine I was dressing and feeding my lost baby. I gave him a name, Patrick.

One night, I wrote letters to my family and friends and took an overdose of antidepressants. But it wasn’t enough – and the next day I was woken by the phone. It was Alan, who realised I could barely speak and called an ambulance.

After writing this post, I got comments from a number of women with similar experiences. For example, one woman said:

My best friend 1st year of college was suicidal cause her s.o. pressured her into two abortions. I visited the graveyard w/her where she grieved her child.

Another said:

At age 16 I made the decision to terminate my unplanned pregnancy. Is it really a decision when a 16 year old makes it? In retrospect, I don’t think so. My priorities were so shallow I couldn’t see beyond the next month, the next year.

That was 25 years ago. Do I still think about this child? Yes. Do I regret the “decision” I made? Yes. . . . I will never forget or forgive myself for taking the life of my own child.

And our friend Rightwingsparkle wrote an excellent post which noted:

In these many years I have heard many post abortive women speak and their anguish is hard to hear. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece was on Fox News the other night describing the pain of her 2 abortions. She is an active pro-lifer now. Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe of the infamous Roe v. Wade case is an active pro-lifer now, she describes how they used her in that court case and told her to lie and say that she had been raped.

Maybe I have found the only women who regret their decision, among the tens of millions of abortions that have occurred since Roe v. Wade was handed down. I rather suspect there are more — several hundred thousand more, if not millions. But I can’t prove that.

So no, Mr. Toobin, I have no “scientifically respectable support” for Justice Kennedy’s “patronizing notion” that “some” women regret their abortions. All I have is quotes from actual women themselves.

As the kids say: Duh!

97 Responses to “Toobin: No Woman Has Ever Regretted an Abortion”

  1. While I am not an abortion activist on either side, I am concerned, and have illustrated my feelings in designs in my online shop. To read the news it seems that the 2 sides to the issue are called: “Pro-life” and Pro-choice”. That is not so. The principle here is the fetus/infant. It has no choice in the matter. The true description of the 2 sides is: “Pro-life” and “Pro-death”; it is that simple. The “choice” came in when the couple had the opportunity to prevent conception. One doesn’t call the fire department after the ashes become cold. The time of choice is not just prior to birth, but, again, prior to conception. And for the youthful, single girls; still, the best birth control pill is one aspirin- held firmly between the knees.
    nuf sed

    Frankly Opinionated (2323e8)

  2. Good write up. I’ve met many more women who had some regret than those who didn’t.

    voiceofreason63 (41831e)

  3. Page cite? Thanks.

    Itsme (d95f64)

  4. 328.

    Now go find a bunch of quotes surrounding that quote to show how I left out the CRITICAL CONTEXT!

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  5. I also know women personally who regret their abortions, one to the point of attempting suicide.

    So Toobin is an ass.

    Christoph (92b8f7)

  6. My late grandmother (mother’s mother) was an incredible women, just very loving and caring. But she was, well, I don’t want to say “haunted”, but saddened by an abortion she had in her twenties.

    This must have been around 1935 or so, during the Great Depression.

    She only talked to us (my brother and me) once about it (AFAIK). My mother said she would talk to her more often on the anniversary (I guess is the proper word) of the abortion.

    Did she “regret” it? From what I heard from her and from what my mother had said, I think so.

    BTW, I am pro-choice.

    SMG

    SteveMG (28f6b1)

  7. Patterico, you know this stuff better than I do, so could you please explain something to me? It’s about Toobin. My question to you is, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS MAN????

    I mean, this book is a brocade of B.S. It’s Al Franken with a press card. Toobin presents the reader with distortion after distortion to push the reader further and further to the left. And the distortions are so easily exposed, provided that someone takes the time to do it.* Does this man care nothing about his credibility? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!

    * So thank you for doing it.

    Alan (f1706f)

  8. Thanks for your honesty, SteveMG. I appreciate it.

    Christoph (92b8f7)

  9. Alan,

    Toobin will probably make at least $1 million for what looks like very actual little work.

    What’s wrong with that?

    alphie (99bc18)

  10. It’s unfortunate that Toobin’s use of language like “scientifically respectable” and “patronizing notion” to make his point forecloses debate instead of stimulating it. It’s easy to believe he intended it that way.

    DRJ (ec59b5)

  11. What’s wrong with that?

    You have no problem with authors misleading people?

    Oh — only when they’re leftists. I forgot.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  12. Patterico,

    Looks like Toobin has cut-n-pasted rumors and court documents and added a little inane commentary and made a bundle of money for his efforts.

    In other words, he’s a successful capitalist.

    Can you suggest another economic system you’d prefer?

    alphie (99bc18)

  13. This kind of capitalism is about as good as Enron’s.

    DRJ (ec59b5)

  14. Any woman with a heart would have some regret for getting an abortion, though not necessarily for making the decision to do it.

    Dick Stanley (e317c2)

  15. P #4:

    Thanks, I just found it. I figured it was farther along in the book than I had gotten, and the index is frustratingly incomplete – no reference to Gonzalez v. Carhart , for instance.

    Interesting that you see including a quote within the sentence or paragraph within it was written as “a bunch of quotes surrounding that quote.” But whatever you say.

    Let me preface this post – and by reference all my posts on this book – by saying, or repeating, that yes, Toobin is biased and it shows at every turn and can be offputting to readers of all persuasions. Does the book include technical and substantive errors, misquotes, and other avoidable flaws? If it doesn’t, it would be one of the few non-treatises I’ve come across that doesn’t.

    That said, I don’t think his claim (don’t know if it’s true or not) that there is “no scientifically respectable support” for Kennedy’s “notion,” is the same as saying “No woman has ever regretted having an abortion.”

    Of course there’s plenty of anectdotal evidence that there are women who regret having an abortion. You could post that all day. But Kennedy himself said there was “no reliable data” to measure the phenomenom.

    I think you are rebutting an assertion that hasn’t been made.

    Is it irritating that Toobin interjects himself to call it a “patronizing notion”? Yes. He is in fact reiterating a view that many, many others took of Kennedy’s remarks:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR2007042401501.html

    http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2007/04/20/pbab_ruling/print.html

    Myself, I’d be more interested to hear if people think his larger claims, such as that Kennedy was actually turning his Stenberg dissent into the majority opinion, or may have been influenced by his “colleagues abroad” (a favorite Toobin theme) who tended to have more restrictive views of abortion.

    But that’s just me.

    Itsme (d95f64)

  16. DRJ #10:

    It’s unfortunate that Toobin’s use of language like “scientifically respectable” and “patronizing notion” to make his point forecloses debate instead of stimulating it. I

    Well said, DRJ. I agree completely.

    Itsme (d95f64)

  17. Itsme,

    There is no evidence for the ridiculous proposition that you have said some things that make sense.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  18. Myself, I’d be more interested to hear if people think his larger claims, such as that Kennedy was actually turning his Stenberg dissent into the majority opinion, or may have been influenced by his “colleagues abroad” (a favorite Toobin theme) who tended to have more restrictive views of abortion.

    That’s a load of crap. His colleagues abroad could never have written Casey, and he has done nothing to cast doubt on his position in that case.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  19. When you call something a “patronizing notion” you generally indicate that you think it’s wrong.

    I think my headline is accurate.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  20. Sorry, I don’t know what you mean in post #16, unless it is just to make a generic personal insult.

    As to post #17, could you expand?

    Itsme (d95f64)

  21. I think it means he thinks it’s patronizing.

    Itsme (d95f64)

  22. Itsme #20,

    Toobin’s word choice is the give-away. Describing something as patronizing is a way of saying it isn’t worth discussing but his use of the word “notion” is even more troubling. Notion is defined as a belief or opinion that is a fanciful whim. That doesn’t sound like something Toobin or anyone could describe as a true or correct idea.

    DRJ (ec59b5)

  23. Christoph:
    Thanks for your honesty, SteveMG. I appreciate it.

    Thanks for the kind words.

    She really was a remarkable woman. 100% Cajun.

    Married an Italian who had come over from Sicily. He had gotten in trouble because of his open support for Mussolini. That’s because Mussolini broke up the Mafia, some of whom harassed my grandfather when he was in Italy. Not because of any ideological affinity (I sure hope not).

    In fact, my grandfather was almost sent to the internment camps in Minnesota during the war.

    What a pair they were!!

    SMG

    SteveMG (28f6b1)

  24. the internment camps in Minnesota during the war.

    Check that: Montana, not Minnesota.

    SMG

    SteveMG (28f6b1)

  25. Sorry, I don’t know what you mean in post #16, unless it is just to make a generic personal insult.

    I am riffing off of Toobin’s comment regarding Kennedy. Toobin said there was no (scientific) evidence that Kennedy’s patronizing assertion waws true. You claim that doesn’t mean he’s calling it false.

    I said there was no evidence that you have ever said anything that makes sense. By your logic, that doesn’t mean I am accusing you of having said only things that make no sense.

    It’s not intended as an insult, but as a parallel to show you why your argument re Toobin’s phrasing is wrong.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  26. As to post #17, could you expand?

    The foreign countries Kennedy so respected in his Roper v. Simmons opinion do not provide the constitutional protections for abortion that we provide here.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  27. I think it means he thinks it’s patronizing.

    . . . but correct?!?!

    Uh, no. He means it’s patronizing, and wrong.

    Surely you can’t argue with me about *that*.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  28. DRJ #21:

    I think taken together he really does mean to dismiss Kennedy’s statement. And I think the fact that Kennedy chose to talk not about aborting a fetus but “the infant life they once created and sustained” is a give-away about Kennedy’s own point of view, which many, many people found patronizing.

    Off to watch “Dexter.” Bye.

    Itsme (d95f64)

  29. P #26:

    I’ll put it this way. No one would argue that no woman has ever regretted having an abortion. Not even someone as obviously biased as Toobin.

    Now, off to rewind the TiVo.

    Itsme (d95f64)

  30. Yet, he did.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  31. P #25:

    Okay, I see. Thanks for explaining. Sorry I didn’t understand at first.

    Again, saying there was “no scientifically respectable support” is not the same as saying no woman has ever regretted having an abortion. Otherwise Kennedy’s similar observation would have to mean that he was saying, “Even though no woman has ever regretted having an abortion, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice …”

    In my view, anyway.

    Itsme (d95f64)

  32. P #26:

    But I thought Toobin’s point throughout the book was that Kennedy was influenced in general by his contacts with legal practitioners/scholars in other countries. Not just those referenced in a particular opinion.

    Itsme (d95f64)

  33. P #30:

    We agree to disagree, I suppose.

    Itsme (d95f64)

  34. Itsme – Just a thought. Attmpting to slow down that oppositional patellar reflex before posting might result in you having to walk back from fewer comments. Just a thought.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  35. Again, saying there was “no scientifically respectable support” is not the same as saying no woman has ever regretted having an abortion. Otherwise Kennedy’s similar observation would have to mean that he was saying, “Even though no woman has ever regretted having an abortion, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice …”

    Itsme, are you leaving out relevant context?

    Toobin called Kennedy’s view “patronizing” even as he said there was no scientific support for it.

    Kennedy, DISsimilarly, did not say: “While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, we have a patronizing view that it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained.” Because why would he call his own view wrong?

    Any rational reader would read Toobin’s sentence, as a whole, as a disagreement with Kennedy.

    Which means he didn’t read Kennedy’s statement very carefully, because if he had, he would have seen that it was indeed unexceptionable.

    It would be as if you said: “It’s unexceptionable that some conservatives are poorly educated.” If I said: “There is no scientific basis for your patronizing statement,” you would correctly conclude that I disagreed. It wouldn’t matter that no reasonable conservative could possibly disagree with that statement; I still did.

    And a conservative defender of mine named Itsyou could tap dance, quibble, and defend me all day long . . . it still wouldn’t change the facts, my friend.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  36. Patterico,

    I don’t have the book, but it seems like the sentence before and after your snippet clarifies what Toobin was talking about.

    alphie (99bc18)

  37. Other great Liberal talking-point conclusions designed to end all debate:

    There is no scientifically respectable support existed for this patronizing notion…

    …that blacks can have lower average SAT scores.
    …that men and women are different.
    …that illegals come to America and commit crimes.
    …that Social Security is insolvent.
    …that welfare can creates poverty and dependance.
    …that taxes can be bad.
    …that AIDS is predominantly a lifestyle choice.

    Perfect Sense (b6ec8c)

  38. P #35:

    I suppose people could tap dance all day, and I agree it would mostly be a tap dance.

    I think your take on it, and especially your headline, is a stretch. And really not a very substantive point, in the end. Just my view.

    Is Toobin really worth the morphology/expository effort? Whatever rolls peoples’ sox, I guess.

    I’m back to Dexter, catching what TiVo didn’t get last time.

    Good night. And thanks for being so responsive, despite our differing views.

    Itsme (d95f64)

  39. Alphie – If you have knowledge that the sentences clarify the snippet, by all means post them. If you don’t have the book, post them from wherever you gained that marvelous knowledge. Don’t keep everyone in the dark.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  40. daley,

    Looks like Patterico’s snippet came from this Toobin article:

    http://www.jeffreytoobin.com/article_view/?Title=Five_to_Four

    alphie (99bc18)

  41. “[I]t seems unexceptionable to conclude …”. Jesus Christ on a crutch! Who talks like that? And what does it mean?

    nk (7d4710)

  42. Alphie – How do those sentences before and after clarify? Analysis please. You are the one who raised the subject.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  43. It’s not an issue of what he’s talking about. The issue is that he called patronizing (and questioned the validity of) a view that is so obviously correct it’s not even close: namely, that “some” women regret their abortions.

    All the tap dancing in the world, as I say, can’t change the basic facts.

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  44. Well, daley,

    The “patronzing notion” Toobin is clearly talking about isn’t that some woman regret having an abortion, but that the court, not woman, should decide whether they can get one or not.

    alphie (99bc18)

  45. Oh, I agree that Toobin is FOS. But he’s just a wordsmith peddling his goods. Kennedy is a Supreme Court Justice whose words are law.

    nk (7d4710)

  46. The “patronzing notion” Toobin is clearly talking about isn’t that some woman regret having an abortion, but that the court, not woman, should decide whether they can get one or not.

    . . . despite what he actually wrote.

    The word “bullshit” comes to mind.

    Put another way:

    Haha alphie,

    Is English your first language?

    Patterico (2a8eaa)

  47. Whether English is Alphie’s first language is in some doubt, but clearly Alphie does not actually think in English.

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  48. Alphie, it is not the court vs. the woman. It is not anybody vs. the woman. It is the value in the infant given it by society and by its mother.

    nk (7d4710)

  49. Haha,

    You guys are funny.

    Contrast this post with the defense of the true meaning of the Abu “Quaint” Gonzalez memo.

    Can someone explain to me how the anti-abortion, but small government right plans to pay for the upbringing of the 20,000,000 or so kids that would result from a judicial fiat outlawing abortion?

    Would you guys support, say, doubling the income tax?

    alphie (99bc18)

  50. Alphie, thread hijacking again with another strawman I see.

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  51. Can someone explain to me how the anti-abortion, but small government right plans to pay for the upbringing of the 20,000,000 or so kids that would result from a judicial fiat outlawing abortion?

    Would you guys support, say, doubling the income tax?

    Alphie, you really are a ridiculous asshole. We don’t need the fucking government for the upbringing of our kids you stupid fucking sterile cuckoo. We were doing it way before the welfare state. Maybe like a million years before. And we’re going to China to bring back baby girls to raise. You disgusting little asshole!

    nk (7d4710)

  52. There’s that too.

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  53. My sister worked as a counselor at Crisis Pregnancy Center back in the early 90s, and she received nearly as many calls from women who were still dealing with the emotional fall out from abortions performed years before, as she did young women contemplating an abortion.

    The most remarkable call that she told me about was from a woman in her 80s who still had dreams about the child that never was.

    Ray G (50194a)

  54. I’m not sure you’re helping the cause, nk.

    The median cost to the federal government for a child in foster care is $15,914 a year.

    Unless your vision of America involves a return to child labor and 30 year life expectancies, someone is gonna have to pay to feed these kids.

    alphie (99bc18)

  55. Alphie, you are getting less coherent by the line.

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  56. Geez, with all those extra kids arounds we’d have more taxpayers. Maybe we wouldn’t need all those illegal immigrants depressing wages and doing jobs people claim Americans won’t do.

    Alphie’s still in a state of confusion. He desperately wants that socialist state – to have the government in the child raising business. Isn’t it enough that their education is screwed up in so many places already? I thought parents were supposed to raise children not the government. Maybe he can talk to some wild ani,als, see if they’d be willing to undertake the task.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  57. Alphie – Did your mother have any children who survived?

    Have you ever had an abortion and did you regret it?

    daleyrocks (906622)

  58. I have to chuckle when the perpetual war crowd talks about socialism.

    Even crappy daycare costs more than many single woman who seek abortions make. And unlike Bush administration, they can’t just borrow money off China to pay for their mistakes.

    So, if you want to deny abortions to woman who make $8-10 an hour, how are they supposed to raise your kids without government help?

    alphie (99bc18)

  59. Clearly, those four women are not scientifically respectable… I guess…

    Kevin (4890ef)

  60. Alphie – What happened to the father or child support from the father?

    daleyrocks (906622)

  61. I have to chuckle at all the lefties who assume there’s no way for a single parent to raise a child except on the government’s dime.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  62. That sounds about right, daley.

    Not a single dime to help some poor mother who has to raise the child you guys forced her to give birth to.

    But billions of government dollars to set up a massive government agency to identify, track down and extract child support from the fathers.

    No doubt some outfit like Blackwater would get the pork.

    alphie (99bc18)

  63. alphie:

    Can someone explain to me how the anti-abortion, but small government right plans to pay for the upbringing of the 20,000,000 or so kids that would result from a judicial fiat outlawing abortion?

    Please explain your number. I’m wondering how many years you are projecting, how you account for adoption, whether you think unplanned pregnancies would decrease, and how much taxpayer money currently goes to Planned Parenthood.

    Amphipolis (fdbc48)

  64. Pity people don’t apply alphie’s argument to illegal immigrants. Maybe that’s where he got his numbers.

    Amphipolis (fdbc48)

  65. Women have the right to choose. But if many (most?) regret their choice, what does that say about the value of the choice they were offered?

    Oh, now I get it – it’s not about their choice, it’s about how many babies we think our society can afford. We don’t want too many of them to choose life. So we push abortion with government funded organizations and don’t care if the women we convinced to abort later think they made the wrong choice. It all neatly ties together.

    Amphipolis (fdbc48)

  66. Alphie, the only logical outcome of your line of thought is that we should increase the number of abortions to drive down the costs of social welfare programs. I mean, you can only raise so many taxes so much, right?

    After that, you’ve just gotta pressure more people, I suppose.

    Techie (c003f1)

  67. Not a single dime to help some poor mother who has to raise the child you guys forced her to give birth to.

    Um… what law says that a woman who gives birth must raise the child herself? Isn’t there a great hue and cry from adoption agencies that we have to go outside the country for healthy babies? When there are thousands upon thousands of couples desperate to raise a so-called “unwanted child,” how, then, is a biological mother “forced” to raise any child?

    And, not to go all sideways over the issue of abortion rights, but whatever happened to the initial responsibility of the couple? Sexual intercourse, by its very nature, is a reproductive act. As the carnies say, you pays yer money and you takes yer chances. Sometimes, you don’t walk away from that rigged roulette wheel empty-handed.

    For the record, I gave away a child for adoption nearly three decades ago; I have always regretted that I could not have raised the baby myself, but never have I regretted my ultimate decision regarding that new life. How many women who had abortions can say the same thing? According to Toobin, all of them. But substantial anecdotal evidence would tend to put the lie to that belief.

    leucanthemum b (e17f2b)

  68. You all debate about everything having to do with abortion. Have I missed the fact that “abortion” is the number one choice of birth control? “Birth Control”, i.e., abortion is responsible for over 45,000,000 deaths in this country alone!! But, there are more abortions in the U.S. than all the countries in the world. There is no responsibility any more when it comes to sex between consenting “adults”. There is no excuse, no law, spiritual or lay that could possibly forgive the horror of so much death. And the tinfoil hatted leftist loons bray about the deaths in Iraq but not here in the good ole USA. What a shallow and selfish group of homo sapiens.

    Sue (e6ec10)

  69. there are more abortions in the U.S. than all the countries in the world.

    This is, unfortunately, incorrect. China has more, and so does Russia with half our population. There may be others.

    Amphipolis (fdbc48)

  70. no scientifically respectable support existed for this patronizing notion

    There’s no need for “scientific” support. That implies some kind of repeatable experiment. That’s not necessary or even possible for a question like this. All you have to do is ask some women who’ve had abortions. But that’s not scientific – just factual.

    Another “sophisticated” liberal who doesn’t understand what scientfic means.

    Gerald A (6b39c1)

  71. “Can someone explain to me how the anti-abortion, but small government right plans to pay for the upbringing of the 20,000,000 or so kids that would result from a judicial fiat outlawing abortion?”

    You apparently are not familiar with the way law works in the United States. Should Row V Wade be overturned in the SC, it does not become a judicial fiat outlawing abortion. What it does is throws the issue back into the states legislature. In other words, abortion gets voted on and the rules become whatever the individual states vote on. It is the farthest thing from judicial fiat. Why do you post on things you clearly know nothing about?

    buzz (9e5c44)

  72. I know how it works, buzz.

    Why would the righteous brothers on the Supreme Court limit themselves to just overturning Roe if they manage to get a majority?

    alphie (99bc18)

  73. Alphie @72 – Maybe because they understand how the constitution works and you clearly do not.

    daleyrocks (906622)

  74. Sure, daley,

    Last session of Congress, Republican Senators complained about filibusters and threatened the “nuclear option” to stop them.

    This session of Congress, Republican Senators are on pace to break the old filibuster record with 3 times the old record…and not a peep from those who backed the “nuclear option” to end this obstructionist tactic.

    In fact, they cheer every Republican filibuster.

    If the righteous brothers declared that the Constitution says life begins at conception, I have little faith that those who oppose Roe now on Constitutional grounds would complain.

    alphie (99bc18)

  75. Filibusters are rules written by the Senate for the Senate. They have as much to do with this as the rules the boy scouts fall under. Will you be bringing this up next?

    “I know how it works, buzz.”
    Clearly, you do not.

    “Why would the righteous brothers on the Supreme Court limit themselves to just overturning Roe if they manage to get a majority?”

    What are you suggesting then? That the Supreme Court ‘pass a law’?
    You didn’t pay attention to school house rock when you were a kid, did you.

    buzz (9e5c44)

  76. Alphie claims to have gone to law school (I think, back in his glory days at Protein Wisdom). This is just scary. The SC can not pass legislation.

    Techie (c003f1)

  77. Thanks for the link Patterico.

    Anyone who thinks that women aren’t hurting from abortion needs to visit this website and read the testimonies.

    Rightwingsparkle (32e718)

  78. Techie, Alphie’d have been eaten alive at my old law school if Alphie had displayed the same command of logic and argument that we see here. I’ve long marked that down to an overactive fantasylife.

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  79. Haha,

    I suppose techie will provide us a link to the PW comment thread where I claimed to have gone to law school?

    Eaten alive, SPQR?

    You go to Pat Robertson’s “law” school?

    alphie (99bc18)

  80. I think the point is that if you ever did attend law school it was short lived and had a unhappy ending. Well, unhappy for you. Happily for the rest of us.

    buzz (e09efa)

  81. Fair enough, It could have been Actus. I don’t reserve too many mental resources for keeping track of trolls.

    Techie (c003f1)

  82. Why would the righteous brothers on the Supreme Court limit themselves to just overturning Roe if they manage to get a majority?

    Because they are basing their votes on the constitution. A concept which is incomprehensible to you – the constitution itself and justices basing their votes on it.

    Gerald A (6b39c1)

  83. Well, Gerald,

    They certainly came up with some novel interpretations of the commerce clause.

    Why can’t the religious right just admit that their view of the “right” way to interpret the Constitution is just partisan spin?

    Lack of conviction in their beliefs, perhaps?

    alphie (99bc18)

  84. See, more evidence that Alphie never attended law school, at least not while conscious.

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  85. How many years of law school does it take to learn how to make ad hominem attacks, SPQR?

    Most kids already know how to make them by they get to kindergarten.

    alphie (99bc18)

  86. Alphie – I don’t get it. What does the concept of states rights have to do with the U.S. Senate? Is the SC filibustering the Senate or is the Senate filibustering the SC? Could you clarify WTF you are talking about?

    daleyrocks (906622)

  87. The “nuclear option” to stop filibusters in the Senate was having Cheney declare them unconstitutional, daley.

    But more generally, it’s the idea that the Constitution (properly interpreted, of course) supports your partisan position.

    alphie (99bc18)

  88. Alphie, daleyrocks asked for a clarification, not a new incoherent non sequitur.

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  89. Reading alphie try to create and defend a position is like watching a monkey try to f**k a football. Immensely entertaining for a few minutes anyway.

    Just Passing Through (ff997a)

  90. Create a new position, yes. Defending it, no.

    I’ll say it again: I hope Patterico never bans Staunch Brayer, because his writing is its own punishment.

    Paul (e4a0a7)

  91. Hmmm,

    Do you guys think Bush needs Congress to declare war on Iran before he can attack it?

    alphie (99bc18)

  92. JPT, the difference is that I have the impression that a monkey knows where he’s going.

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  93. The monkey stays focused anyway.

    Just Passing Through (ff997a)

  94. Another way to put it. Indeed.

    SPQR (6c18fd)

  95. alphie – we are still waiting for an explanation of your 20,000,000 or so kids statement. That would be around 15 years of current abortions with no provision for adoption, mothers that would not need assistance, fewer unplanned pregnancies in the future (abortion rates are already declining), etc.

    In other words, you just made the figure up with no basis whatsoever.

    What is clear from your statement is that you would approve the killing of up to 20 million children for economic reasons even if they may be wanted.

    Amphipolis (fdbc48)

  96. just wanted to hop in and say- bravo. yup. exactly. and all those re-affirming type words.

    excellent post.

    Jewels (fcf55b)


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