Full Frontal Abortion

Full Frontal with Sandra Bee did a piece But God Didn’t Say That: Religious Community Members Talk God and Abortion. Let me add a few facts about the current issue.

Christianity's first opposition to abortion was in the Didache. Jesus also gave the example of Joseph not having him aborted and Mary stoned, subject to the law and not letting the crowd stone a woman found (pregnant?) in the act of adultery. 

Abortion bans in the US only started when doctors, rather than midwives, started delivering babies. Likewise, the political persecution of women came with universal male suffrage. Prior to that, non-peasant women (noble and common - meaning not the first son of the lord) had political and economic rights that were respected.

The GOP Evangelicals did not get into the issue until the IRS was able to deny funding for segregated schools. Segregation was not polling well, so they shifted to abortion to attract the Catholics.

There are two questions in Dobbs: whether the last word on abortion goes to the states and whether viability is the correct standard for prohibiting abortion or whether some time sooner is better - but leaving federal power in place. The arguments before the Court focused on the latter. Giving the States what they really want - which is restoration of state government power on civil rights (from segregation to funding education to gay marriage) is not in the cards - but restoring that power is why the case was brought.

The current practice by Mississippi's single abortion clinic is 16 weeks. Forcing a change to 15 weeks is not about protecting those few unborn who may have been aborted during that week. It is about trying to get a case to court to reverse federal authority by letting the states make their own rule rather than abiding by the federal rule. The smart move by the Choice side would be to argue that states may never ban abortion unless that class of unborn is granted civil rights by Congress - and Congress only.

That is actually the law anyway, as made by Gonzalez v. Carhart on the Partial Birth Abortion Law. THAT is the standing precedent - not either Roe or Casey. Recognizing that ends the issue's power, because then states would have no skin in the game.