h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Not even China?

As a New Yorker, Trump is, shall we say, a man of the world. He won't try to outlaw divorce or require women to wear veils or bring back public flogging.

I have a different take on his pathological "lies" during the campaign. It gets back to the thin skin issue. We get upset by things people say, even as we're getting distracted from what's being done. Let's watch what people are doing.

"He won't try to outlaw divorce or require women to wear veils or bring back public flogging."

He could on a whim appoint "pro-life" judges to the supreme court, though, and take it out of federal control and leave it to the states, which could roll back the US's already woeful provision for abortion especially in the more backward, dumbfvckistan states in the south. Which means more dead women, ultimately. If I were a woman I'd take having to wear a veil over having to have a backstreet abortion.

Okay, good point.

We have some otherwise conservative Supreme Court judges who personally oppose abortion but support continuity. Women have been able to get abortions for more than forty years; what kind of message would the court be sending if it allowed political considerations to disregard forty years of precedent? My take on lawyers is that they will move heaven and earth to make the law seem rational -- even if they have to split hairs in ways that the rest of us can't understand?

At the same time, judges sometimes get an inspiration that changes the way they -- and those who come after them -- understand the Constitution. I read "Abrams versus the U.S.," which tells how Oliver Wendell Holmes came to see the first amendment in an entirely new light. Freedom of speech has not been the same since.

Some ideas change life as we know it. Seriously.

"Women have been able to get abortions for more than forty years"

Indeed. Women have been able to get abortions for a LOT longer than that.

What's at issue is safe, legal, affordable abortions. And provision of those is already woefully inadequate in the US.

"what kind of message would the court be sending if it allowed political considerations to disregard forty years of precedent? "

The message it would send would be "We're listening to you and doing as you ask", to all the interfering busybodies who want to control other women's access to family planning. Sure, there'd be protests from a lot of the usual special-snowflake suspects, lefties, feminists, etc. But who cares what those people think, amirite?

I think a lot of folks do believe abortions began in this country with Roe v. Wade and that making them illegal again will make them go away. The fact that a good percentage, if not most "pro life" voters also favor restricting access to sexual education and contraception.

Trump's promise to appoint pro life judges (and note, he'll be making appointments to more than just the Supreme Court) will be bad for women's health issues for decades.

"The message it would send would be 'We're listening to you and doing as you ask' [Hoovooloo]

I imagine that Ben Franklin and his cohorts would roll over in their graves when they heard that message. Not that Franklin himself would be surprised. When he was leaving the Constitutional Convention, someone asked what kind of government he was giving the people, he is said to have replied "A Republic, if you can keep it."

He might have been reflecting on the tendencies of the people of his time, or human nature in general, or the downfall of the Roman Republic. Or all of the above. I'm not a Franklin specialist, just a concerned modern citizen.