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   Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 03:04:01 JST Heidi Li Feldman

   At the heart of Judge Robert McBurney’s order invalidating Georgia’s LIFE Act as violative of the Georgia state constitution is this: “liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections, and in its bundle of rights the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices.” https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25178645-final-order_5cce1275
   If upheld, the moral stakes created by Dobbs will come into sharp practical view.
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     Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 03:03:58 JST Heidi Li Feldman

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     The point of entertaining a hypothetical about a life-begins-at-conception federal Constitutional challenge to a Congressional abortion rights statute is to further illustrate how Dobbs parallels Dred Scott. In today’s decision out of Georgia, Judge McBurney makes it clear he sees the parallel. He asks if a woman should be forced by the State of Georgia to provide life support to a pre-viable fetus…. 10/

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     Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 03:03:59 JST Heidi Li Feldman

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     The devout Catholic Supreme Court Justices presumably do believe life begins at conception. The only substantive way for them to uphold a federal abortion rights law faced with a life-begins-at-conception constitutional challenge is for them to reverse Dobbs and recognize that the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of a right to liberty extends to a right to choose abortion. 8/

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     Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 03:03:59 JST Heidi Li Feldman

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     Alternatively, Justices could double down on Dobbs and insist that the fertilized egg’s right to life is constitutionally protected and a woman’s right to choose abortion is not. This would amount to taking the position that the U.S. Constitution ultimately requires women to keep a pregnancy from the moment of conception. 9/

     Bill repeated this.
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     Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 03:04:00 JST Heidi Li Feldman

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     … a) demonstrates that the U.S. Constitution simply does not guarantee liberty to women to the same extent it does to men or b) if it does, demonstrates that Dobbs is wrongly decided. 4/

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     Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 03:04:00 JST Heidi Li Feldman

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     In other words, Judge McBurney’s decision correctly portrays Dobbs as a precise analogue to the morally reprehensible Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott, which held that the original U.S. Constitution had no guarantee of the liberty rights of Black slaves. Either one thinks Dred Scott was profoundly wrongly decided or one thinks that the original U.S. Constitition permitted state legislatures to totally disregard Black people’s basic right to liberty. 5/

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     Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 03:04:00 JST Heidi Li Feldman

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     The Civil War and the 13th and 14th Amendments meant that the Supreme Court never had to overrule Dred Scott, so never had to face the question of whether it got the reach of the original Constitution’s guarantees of liberty and equal protection of the laws wrong. But if Congress passes the sort of abortion rights legislation it should, the Supreme Court is very likely going to have to face up to the comparable question about Dobbs. 6/

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     Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 03:04:00 JST Heidi Li Feldman

     in reply to

     If Congress enacts a national abortion rights law, it is very likely that somebody on the right is going to challenge it on the grounds that it violates the right to life of a fertilized egg.(the position taken by the life begins at conception crowd). As matters stand now, women have no U.S. Constitutional right to choose abortion, so a Court that accepts that life begins at conception would be bound to strike down a federal law giving women the power to choose abortion. 7/

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     Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 03:04:01 JST Heidi Li Feldman

     in reply to

     As Judge McBurney makes crystal clear, to force a woman to keep a fetus until it becomes viable is to sacrifice her liberty, not for the sake of another person’s life or liberty, but for sake of an interest that is not afforded fundamental protection by a due process right to life, liberty, and property or happiness. In other words, women’s fundamental liberty right is sacrificed to a preference of the state legislature. 2/

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     Heidi Li Feldman (heidilifeldman@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Oct-2024 03:04:01 JST Heidi Li Feldman

     in reply to

     But that just is the sort of legislative action that undergirds slavery: that some people’s liberty interest can be sacrificed for the sake of a legislative policy goal. Now, in Dobbs the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that abortion woman’s right to choose abortion is not encompassed by the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of liberty. If Judge McBurney is correct about what Georgia’s guarantee of liberty requires, then his decision either… 3/