Fred Thompson comes out against Griswold.
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In Ur Bedroomz, Confiscatin' Ur Contraceptivz
15 Jun 2007 04:21 pm
Comments (34)
In the world of John from Cincinnati, I'm not sure we'll even need contraceptives, so no biggie.
Was that a spoiler, Petey? Not all of us have watched it on demand, y'know.
Good.
The more we can make the issue one of birth control, or even privacy, and less one of abortion, the more divisive it'll be to the GOP and the less divisive for us.
Heck, even many conservative Catholics like Griswold 'cause they know enough of the history of Catholicism in the English world to know that a robust right to privacy is important should they ever have to shelter priests in holes again ...
Going against Griswold is a loser for the anti-choice coalition, which is very divided on this issue -- so, in the zero sum game of politics -- it's good for us!
I think you're headline is a little harsh. It's quite possible that Thompson didn't think Griswold was relevant or he may have forgotten about it. It's a pretty big jump to conclusion to say that he "comes out against Griswold."
Rob -
It's possible Thompson didn't *intend* to come out against Griswold. Thompson graduated from law school, according to Wikipedia, two years after Griswold, so presumably he studied it in school, but perhaps it slipped his mind - he did get his JD forty years ago, after all.
But since the constitutional basis for Roe is also found in - builds upon - Griswold, then if there's no basis for Roe, and if that's what he sincerely believes, then he logically commited himself to the idea that there's no basis for Griswold either. That doesn't mean he wants to take away your contraceptives, but other people do.
I think you have to be an abortion fetishist to think that Roe v. Wade is a particularly persuasive opinion. While it's probably an overstatement to say that it contains not a single line of reasoning, the reasoning that is there is not particularly strong. The whole opinion reads like the Justices wished to make abortion legal in the country, and cobbled together precedents to support their wish. Which is exactly, in sum and substance, what it is. You can see the Justices planning for the Roe case beginning with Eisenstadt v. Baird.
I've been hoping they'd make a run against Griswold. That, the war and alienating the entire hispanic population will eliminate the GOP from national politics for years to come. Kind of the way the Tories in Britain committed suicide by poll tax some years back.
This is totally unfair. He didn't "come out against Griswold," he came out against Roe. And while it may be true that consistency requires that he also be against Griswold, it is equally true that if you believe Griswold was wrongly decided that doesn't imply that you want contraceptives to be confiscated. So this is just a cheap shot.
Why doesn't every Democrat campaign for a Right to Privacy Constitutional amendment? Yeah, I know they believe the right is already implicit in the Constitution, but explicitly adding it would completely remove a large part of this conflict and leave conservatives to argue that aborting clumps of fetal cells is the moral equivalent of killing a baby, a much weaker position.
Ron -
Because
(a) Constitutional amendments are pretty hard to enact, and
(b) Such a debate would be really, really ugly.
This [usually (a) but in this case also very much (b)] is, I think, in general why you get what lots of people term judicial activism; the cost to politicians winds up being a lot lower if you just let judges expand on their interpretations of existing law; it'd be a lot "easier" to just pass the ERA, f'rinstance, but instead we've built (we're building) a patchwork of smaller legal precedents which wind up getting you most of the way to what the ERA would do in like three sentences.
Homer,
I don't buy the whole 'Roe is irrational' argument. It is based on Griswold and the right to privacy and the only premise it brings in that you could question is the idea that life does not begin at conception.
But can a rational person really question that? No doubt that the day before a fetus is born, it is very much alive; but equally convincing is the idea that at fertalization an egg is not a human with rights.
And from there you have the creation of trimesters in Roe with graduated rights. If more people would sit down and read Roe, they would be surprised at how moderate an opinion it really is.
-Yep
It's a cheap shot because Matt didn't call him an intellectually bankrupt panderer!
And while it may be true that consistency requires that he also be against Griswold, it is equally true that if you believe Griswold was wrongly decided that doesn't imply that you want contraceptives to be confiscated. So this is just a cheap shot.
No. It is possible to thing Roe was wrong and Griswold correct because the state has a greater interest in the former case. But that wasn't what Thompson argued. He said that Roe was "made up out of whole cloth," which can only be true if Griswold was wrong. As long as Griswold is good law, then Roe has a legal basis--it would be absurd to hold that a woman has a fundamental liberty interest to reproductive freedom before pregnancy that vanishes entirely at the moment of conception. The logic of Thompson and Bork's position--that there is no right to reproductive freedom at all in the Constitution--logically requires the conclusion that Griswold is just as wrong as Roe.
ed,
If you think Griswold was wrongly decided it means that you believe CT had the right to put married couples in jail for practicing birth control (and jail their doctors).
yep
OK, it's one thing to say "Thompson must be against Griswold," because he's against Roe, or even to say, "Thompson is against Griswold, whether he says so or not." But if you're going to say "Thompson COMES OUT AGAINST Griswold," then I think you should wait until he actually, you know, comes out against Griswold.
In fact, I think you owe Fred Thompson a retraction of this entire 1-line post. It's 100% false -- you click through and the linked items says nothing about Thompson coming out against Griswold.
I can't believe I'm defending Fred Thompson. I feel dirty.
There's nothing to retract; it's a completely legitimate rhetorical device.
I agree that to argue that Roe is baseless is to make an attack on the reasoning of Griswold, and that moving the fulcrum of disagreement to Griswold would be immensely beneficial to strengthening Roe, but I can't help but feel that Scott's reaching on this one (although I agree with him on about 85% of non-beer-related or corporate band topics). On the one hand, the argument obviously demands more exposition that simply saying , "If one argues that Roe has no basis on constitutional jurisprudence...then it's not only Roe but Griswold that is wrong." On the other hand, I also can't help but feel like backhanding whatever pansy would write a sentence like the preceeding one. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!!!
Although this is not really the space for fitting in the entirety of the argument, I wanted to say 2 things.
Matt - your line is misleading. He came out against Roe, and some blogger (not thompson) infers that he must be against Griswold.
An interesting fact is that Justice Blackmun was the former legal counsel for the Mayo Clinic, so he was versatile in medical terminology and practice.
The trimester system essentially comes entirely from Blackmun's devising, as there was no precedent in supreme court jurisprudence that would lead Blackmun towards such a rigid system - it is this aspect that looks like a legislative compromise rather than a judicial holding.
Other aspects of the decision drew upon precedent such as Griswold and Eisenstadt and are completely legitimate.
It's entirely possible to disagree with Roe v. Wade and agree with Griswold, just as it's entirely possible to disagree with both.
In fact, the concurring judges for Roe v. Wade wrote different opinions because while 7 agreed with the main holding of the case, no two judges agreed entirely on the legal reasoning behind it.
So what am I saying? I'm saying that's complicated, and that it's unfair to say that Fred Thompson is going to steal your Trojans (Durexi? Durexa?) because he thinks Roe (or part of it) came from nothing.
Surely, beyond just the issue of the parts of Roe that clearly came from nowhere (trimesters, etc.), and clearly aren't based on Griswold, there's surely a sensible argument to be made that the "right to privacy" which might exist for the right of couples to use contraceptives in private is rather different from the "right to privacy" of having an abortion. As I understand it, Griswold only forbade laws against use of contraceptives, not laws against, say, production or sale of contraceptives. So it does seem like Roe is rather a strong extension of the right to privacy as was found to exist in Griswold, and that one can agree with the latter decision while thinking that the former is an unjustified extension of it.
Also, Matt's post title is clearly misleading, in a way that Scott's post is not. Scott at least clearly indicates in his post that Thompson has not explicitly come out against Griswold (and, of course, Thompson isn't going to come out explicitly against Griswold), which Matt's post strongly implies that he does.
Leaving aside whether the headline is fair to Thompson or not -- because I really don't give a shit about being unfair to him -- it is misleading to your readers, Matt, and that I do care about.
Matt - your line is misleading. He came out against Roe, and some blogger (not thompson) infers that he must be against Griswold.
Awwwwwwwww......don't take away the strawman NOW!! It was just getting good!
So it does seem like Roe is rather a strong extension of the right to privacy as was found to exist in Griswold, and that one can agree with the latter decision while thinking that the former is an unjustified extension of it.
Perhaps, but come on. Thompson disagreed unequivocally with Roe, claiming that it was "fabricated out of whole cloth." If you take Thompson at his word, that at the very least strongly implies that he thinks Griswold was also wrongly decided. It's hardly an unfair conclusion.
Maybe someone should ask Thompson whether he thinks Griswold is correctly decided?
Also, Matt's post title is clearly misleading, in a way that Scott's post is not. Scott at least clearly indicates in his post that Thompson has not explicitly come out against Griswold (and, of course, Thompson isn't going to come out explicitly against Griswold), which Matt's post strongly implies that he does
Exactly. And there's a commenter at LGM who says that Scalia said (at a cocktail party or something) that he wouldn't overturn Griswold. Inconsistent, perhaps, but maybe Thompson feels the same way.
Thompson didn't come out against Griswold because he's too pig-ignorant of constitutional law to know that rejecting Griswold is the necessary consequence of his argument against Roe.
And anyway, most of the Anti-Roe people don't believe in contraception, either.
Look. I don't really agree with the take of the link on Thompson's views. But I gotta admit the title is pretty darn clever.
this post is about the worst i've ever read on this blog. There is a diffence between someting not being a constituional right and it being banned , no american has a right to social security matt does that mean social secuirty is ended?????????
The only states which banned contraception were Conniecutt and Massachutess- I look forward to you subsequant post "Why the Massachutess state legislature will ban contraception if Fred Thompson is president"!!!!
i also love DAS's comment below
The more we can make the issue one of birth control, or even privacy, and less one of abortion, the more divisive it'll be to the GOP and the less divisive for us."
so in other words make an issue without the most controvesial point it's amazing how well you can do? "IF only the Republcin could make Social Secuiryt reform about freedom rather than about anyone losing benefits how well they can do"
Re: And anyway, most of the Anti-Roe people don't believe in contraception, either.
Apart from the handful of Roman Catholics who really do hew to Rome's line on birth control, I don't think this is true. The Protestant Religious Right has no categorical ban on contraception and many of them probably use it.
Not a single prominent anti-choice group has come out in support of the birth control pill.
This should tell us all we need to know about these Neanderthals.
Re: This leads me to think that Bush is leaning toward a strike.
I am not aware that any of them have come out against borth control either. Unless you count the Roman Catholic Church as nothing more than an anti-abortion lobbying organization.
Apart from the handful of Roman Catholics who really do hew to Rome's line on birth control, I don't think this is true. - JonF
And half of those Catholics would be very nervous about over-turning Giswold simply 'cause they know enough history to be very big into "the right to privacy".
The other half of those Catholics are the Donohue wing viewed as heretics by that first half of Catholics.
Comments closed June 29, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
In the world of John from Cincinnati, I'm not sure we'll even need contraceptives, so no biggie.
Posted by Petey | June 15, 2007 4:27 PM