Something like 60% of US residents favour abortion on demand. Something like 39% of US residents favour banning abortion for any reason.

This is why prosecution for murder is such a mess in the US, depending on which state one is found guilty in the sentence can vary from death to a variety of prison terms.

You start by claiming "Like Switzerland, the US is a federal state" and then you give the example of murder prosecution which is handled completely differently in Switzerland.

Those numbers change on a State level though, which is why this decision is appropriate as the USA is a constitutional federal republic.

These statistics are useless for the discussion at hand

How much of those numbers is skewed by places like California, New York, Illinois (Chicago) where abortion is overwhelmingly popular. But why should their opinion matter to less populated,conservative states like Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas.....etc.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of their population support abortion. If they have similar numbers then the politicians in those states should think twice before banning or restricting abortion.

Do you have state level polls you can share? Genuine question, could not find any of recent date.

The constitutional argument is not so evident, in my view, but of course I am not a constitutional lawyer. There are many rights that can be seen as federally enshrined in the constitution - although of course this brings to issue of originalist vs. "living constitution" into play. Generally, individual liberties and a tightly limited role of government strike me as core to the US constitution, so I wonder whether the right to abortion wouldn't naturally belong there also.

In my opinion, SCOTUS could have easily sorted out the so often quoted issues of the initial Roe ruling without overturning the right to choose. This is an activist court now. The, ahem, "inconsistencies" between what Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett said in their confirmation hearing and what they say now confirm this in my view.

The elephant in this room is that polls show only 16 States that have a majority against abortion but 26 States have announced plans to make abortion illegal according to the Guttmacher Institute.

The highest courts in nine states have recognized the right to an abortion under their respective constitutions, these are Alaska, California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana and New Jersey.

I see your view, dont agree with it... but in some areas are you just factually wrong:
a) Most European democracies have the same tendencies that laws get challenged at the supreme courts. This doesnt happen in Switzerland much, because people can force a vote on a topic instead - but both on a country level as well as on an EU level are lots of democratically decided laws challenged in the supreme courts. For good reasons: Because democratically elected officials sometimes do things that either dont match the will of the majority or break basic constitutional rights. Which is the very topic of Roe vs Wade.
b) in all European countries I know is healthcare not a state matter but governed by the central government.

Overall do you have an extreme take on democracy. Whatever the elected guys decide is right and thats it. I disagree with that. Probably because I am from a country that once democratically elected the Nazis. Democratic principles need to go in line with a well designed legal system. A democratically elected official cant take rights away from me unless there is a very good reason to do so. And I need a legal way to battle his decision. There is no good reason for this US decision other than religion. And my take on religion is very simple: You can live your life any way your religion demands as long as this doesnt affect my freedom. This is a prime example where the religion of some is going to affect the life of many women who might believe in very different things.

Here is my confusion around the whole pro-life/abortion topic, and that comes to mind when i read about roe vs. wade this week.


I have had 8 miscarriages. 6 of those were after the heart beat had started. Its a long long story as you can imagine and we were just one of thousands (millions?) of couples struggling with fertility (and staying pregnant).


When I spoke to my gynae about this the general consensus was "it could be chromosomal" and we do not need to investigate until you have had 3 miscarriages in row. My 4th pregnancy was successful so the 3 miscarriages in a row happened after that. At that point they started a series of 9 tests and it turns out I have a tolerance or intolerance, depending how you look at it, to blood thinners, things like aspirin or warafin dont have an effect. Pregnant women are prescribed aspirin, sometimes, to prevent the body rejecting pregnancy. So this wasnt working with me - they switched this out and it was resolved.


Here is why this relevant. There is not much research done into miscarriage, my gynecologist wonderful and sympathetic could only do so much. Thankfully we have jobs and private insurance in Switzerland so we paid to fix this problem and it was so simple. But we lost so many pregnancies at late stages. And we were not alone. There are so many people going through similar journeys.



Why arent the pro-lifers out there fighting for research into miscarriage (specifically for pregnancies where the heartbeat has started)? Why arent they out there advocating for an alternative for aspirin for women try for the population that are intolerant of it? Why arent they insisting on D&Cs (this is like the abortion you have where its a miscarriage) being followed up on (post mortem)?


The answer: because they arent interested in the foetus or the baby. This is about the control of the woman's body.

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I agree that democratic principles need to go in line with a well designed legal system, however abortion doesn't fall under this category. Your country's constitution protects the rights of the baby from the moment of conception. This is the trouble with the "human rights" argument, there is more than one person involved with a pregnancy. Try getting an abortion in Germany after 12 weeks. This is why we don't see many abortion cases being heard by the ECHR, or why Ireland only overturned her ban on abortion a couple of years ago.

Neither does one have to be religious to see the ethical issues involved with abortion, Christopher Hitchens was a militant atheist, however was very far from what one would call "pro-choice".

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Thou/Thee

What is problematic is that these polls don't differentiate what kind of abortion rights people support (until when) and what kind of laws restricting abortion rights are considered.

Again, there may have been a window of opportunity to try to codify a reasonable federal abortion right until week 15-20, but with Roe now overturned this ship probably has sailed.

He also thought it should remain a Federal law.

To continue the discussion: at what stage does a cell, or cluster of cells become an "unborn child"?

An abortion is a medical procedure, and as such arbitrary time boundaries don’t make sense to me. There are individual problems, such as those described by irish_marmot above. Although, I realize she was not talking about abortion, but rather miscarriage.

And by the way, I’m so sorry you’ve gone through this, thank you for telling your story. You are absolutely right about the lack of information and research with respect to miscarriage. Probably because to some extent people think it’s some fault of the mother as often happens in situations where you can’t do anything. And no one talks about it… but there should be much more support for this.

The idea that people might be considered criminals for having a miscarriage is troubling.

If gun control is moving to federal control - e.g. recent opinions about concealed carry, then I don‘t see why abortion is left to individual states. Maybe that seems like an unrelated issue. To my mind it‘s not.

And please don‘t bring up that canard of partial birth abortion. 3rd trimester abortions are incredibly rare, and incredibly traumatic. That term was invented by the pro life lobby to inspire fear and to market anti abortion.

Excepting, like the UK, the US has a FPTP electorial system which actively works to prevent real alignment with votors wishes.

Very simply put, a majority of Republican votors tend to be anti-abortion. These people ensure that anti-abortion R canditates tend to win through the primaries and in the election - in Republican states - will win power leaving them free to persue their agenda regardless of what the majority of ALL votors actually want. Leading to the situation Marton describes above.

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pretty much immediately - or at least early enough to not matter in the discussion. the more important question, is when does it have rights to stop it from being killed.

I don’t think that the control of a woman’s body is the main driving force behind the repeal. They (the conservatives) truly and honestly believe they are doing gods will by protecting unborn life. You can’t argue here, there is no reasoning with the righteous backed by the will of their god. And that makes them as dangerous as a fanatical jihadi suicide bomber.

I don't think that such a "right" really exists. Nature itself (or what some people might label as "god") has no problem killing unborn fetuses. e.g. miscarriages.

You could argue that God is almighty and would intervene if he/she would be against abortion.