The left's different approach to rights it opposes

[One Bad Pig]

Source: Jonah Goldberg

I have an idea.

The federal government needs to compile a list of women who shouldn't be allowed to get abortions. The criteria for getting on the list must be flexible. If an official at, say, the NIH or FBI think that a woman should be a mother for some reason or other, he or she can block an abortion. Maybe the woman has great genes or a high IQ or the sorts of financial resources we need in parents. Let's leave that decision where it belongs: in the hands of the government.

Heck, there's really no reason even to tell women if they're on the "no abort" list. Let them find out at the clinic. And if they go in for an abortion only to discover they are among the million or more people on the list, there will be no clear process for getting off it, even if it was a bureaucratic error or case of mistaken identity.

Sound like a good idea?

remainder of article

© Copyright Original Source

Well?

[fm93]

Source: Jonah Goldberg

I have an idea.

The federal government needs to compile a list of women who shouldn't be allowed to get abortions. The criteria for getting on the list must be flexible. If an official at, say, the NIH or FBI think that a woman should be a mother for some reason or other, he or she can block an abortion. Maybe the woman has great genes or a high IQ or the sorts of financial resources we need in parents. Let's leave that decision where it belongs: in the hands of the government.

Heck, there's really no reason even to tell women if they're on the "no abort" list. Let them find out at the clinic. And if they go in for an abortion only to discover they are among the million or more people on the list, there will be no clear process for getting off it, even if it was a bureaucratic error or case of mistaken identity.

Sound like a good idea?

remainder of article

© Copyright Original Source

Well?

Well, there's a lot that's wrong with the article. For one thing, the terrorist watch list was instituted by the Republican-led Bush Administration, and the current Republican nominee has toyed with a no-fly, no-buy idea himself, so it's not inherently a left-wing issue. Besides, from what I saw on social media during that sit-in, some of the most vocal opponents of the no-fly list were left-wing themselves. These facts alone destroy the main point of the article.

For another thing, this quote is awfully misleading:

The court held that abortion is such a fundamental constitutional right that minimal health standards are an "undue burden" on women seeking an abortion, even if they might save women's lives.

"Minimal" health standards? Two of the main objections were that 1) The vast majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester and don't require surgical operations, which renders the ambulatory surgical center requirement moot in over 91% of cases, and 2) There are surgical procedures that carry higher risk factors than abortions, yet those don't have that requirement. The laws would not save women's lives and are not "minimal health standards."

For yet another thing, isn't Whole Woman's Health a group that provides gynecology services including abortion care? Why wouldn't they be allowed to sue on behalf of women over laws restricting abortion care?

the right to bear arms and the right to due process when the government denies you a right. (Both, unlike abortion, are rights spelled out in the Constitution)

To no one's surprise, he wrongly thinks the Constitution spells out "you the individual citizen" having a right to bear arms, instead of the people to bear arms as part of a militia regulated by the state to defend the state's security.

Never mind that the Orlando slaughter -- the event that set off the House sit-in -- would not have been prevented if the Democrats had their way.

Keeping in mind once again that it was hardly a purely Democrat thing, it could possibly prevent future cases of shooters inspired by the Orlando shooter.

Justice Stephen Breyer argued that the Texas statute was unnecessary because "determined wrongdoers" like Gosnell wouldn't be deterred by new laws given that he was willing to violate existing laws.

Maybe so. But isn't that exactly the NRA's position on gun laws? Murderers, never mind terrorists, by definition don't care about the law.

But the issue isn't that existing laws were violated so much as that existing laws weren't even being enforced. At least 17 years passed without state officials performing inspections, and the officials ignored several complaints about Gosnell during that time. That's a case of horrific government oversight, not a relentlessly undeterred criminal. A gun parallel wouldn't be of a guy breaking into someone's house and stealing a gun while the owner slept; rather, it'd be of a guy openly walking into an unlocked, unstaffed gun store and picking up a gun and leaving.

And, of course, ambulatory surgical center requirements such as widening the hallways obviously would not have stopped a Kermit Gosnell, whereas proposed legislation such as increased background checks could have stopped an Omar Mateen.

President Obama, who hailed the court's decision, desperately craves the unilateral power to keep a list of people to whom he wants to deny guns without due process.

The terror watch list is in desperate need of reform, but that's an uncharitable assessment--Obama understandably is bothered by the possibility of some people who might plausibly be terrorists being allowed to legally purchase guns while still under investigation.

Those on the left -- in all three branches of the federal government, along with their cheerleaders in the media -- believe that the rights they like are sacred and the rights they dislike are negligible inconveniences at best and outrageous cancers on the body politic at worst

I remain convinced that individual gun ownership is a luxury, not a right. And although I'm pro-life, abortion does need to be a right--there are unfortunately some instances in which a woman's health would be severely jeopardized by carrying the baby to term, and although it's tragic, better to have there be a mother without a child than a child without a mother (or neither a child nor a mother, which could also happen if women in such instances aren't able to get abortions).

[Adam]

Don't laugh. That my serious policy, long formulated, but I never dared enunciate it.

[Jedidiah]

Come on, the article is a joke.