So are they basically saying a fetus has MORE rights than the person carrying it? Because I don't understand how the person carrying it can't also use this amendment to say their right to life has been violated?
The HYPOCRISY continues to astound. They seem to care about a single cell, but not about living people.
NO to the misuse of the Fourteenth Amendment in this twisted and devious fashion.
Just to be clear, as "noble" as considering the miracle that is conception (as the point of personhood), it's not realistic.
Not every seed that is planted grows into a plant or tree. It's potential.
ROE references "viability." Traditionally and realistically that includes the ability to breathe. Miscarriages occur "all the time" with no chance of survival. It wasn't until the 1960s and the death of President Kennedy's premature son Patrick that the search for treatments such as surfactant and the beginnings of neonatal intensive care units became possibilities. These laws CRIMINALIZE natural biological processes no one has control over.
ANOTHER REASON TO LEAVE THESE DECISIONS UP TO THE PERSON AFFECTED and the MEDICAL EXPERTS, NOT THE GOVERNMENT!
This example of the GOP/WCN’s hidden intentions requires revisiting everything they have written or stated through a different set of lenses. Jenny Cohn’s work and stunning insights provide a starting rubric for developing those lenses and perspectives.
A relationship map showing all of the connections within the GOP/WCN network will be extremely helpful.
Clearly such an effort exceeds the capacity of one or two people. Which existing organization has the resource capacity to take on this task and publish the results widely very quickly?
Princeton's Professor Robert P. George, who appears here in a video, is a busy man! Here is some background information about this right-wing religious activist for those who are unfamiliar with him. Readers will not be surprised to learn that Professor George is active on several fronts in the religious right's war to impose its beliefs and rules on our secular liberal constitutional democracy. For example, in addition to trying to make abortion illegal, the Professor has been attempting to suppress marriage equality for at least 20 years.
According to a 2009 profile of Robert P. George in The New York Times, he is "a Roman Catholic who is this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker." [1] In the 15 years since the piece was written, the Evangelical and Charismatic fringe has produced figures whose influence challenges Professor George's. Still, the Professor's gilt-edged Establishment CV ensures he will remain the nation's most respectable conservative Christian thinker, at least in the minds of those who can live with grievous moral compromises.
One thing Professor George is not is a passive observer of the status quo. He is also a powerful, accomplished and highly respected activist cum culture warrior. As the Times's profile opens, Professor George is the central figure of a gathering of influential figures on the Christian right:
"Alarmed at the liberal takeover of Washington and an apparent leadership vacuum among the Christian right, the group had come together to warn the country’s secular powers that the culture wars had not ended. As a starting point, George had drafted a 4,700-word manifesto that promised resistance to the point of civil disobedience against any legislation that might implicate their churches or charities in abortion, embryo-destructive research or same-sex marriage." [2]
Later in the piece, readers learn that in 2009, before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Robert P. George was "in many ways the public face of the conservative side in the most urgent culture-war battle of the day. The National Organization for Marriage, the advocacy group fighting same-sex marriage in Albany and Trenton, Maine and California, has made him its chairman. Before the 2004 election, he helped a coalition of Christian conservative groups write their proposed amendment to the federal Constitution defining marriage as heterosexual. . ." [3]
Professor George came to my attention late last year when the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) publicized him in one of their Weekly Roundups. The Professor, who is a member of FAIR's board of advisors, had received the Religious Freedom Institute’s 2023 Defender of Religious Freedom Award. [4] I will note parenthetically that in the process of understanding this story, I learned that the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism has a high tolerance for intolerance of the religious kind.
The piece in FAIR’s Weekly Roundup included a link to the National Catholic Register and its story about the award that included the text of the Professor's acceptance speech. [5]
When Professor George accepted his award, he told his audience at the Religious Freedom Institute:
"And here at home, we stand up for the rights of the Evangelical Christian baker or wedding planner threatened with legal sanctions for honoring his or her conscientious belief in marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife . . ." [3]
Earlier in the speech, the Professor said:
“We insist on the right to shape and run our institutions — be they schools, hospitals, food pantries, shelters, adoption agencies, rehab centers, or what have you — in line with the tenets of our faiths . . .” [4]
In the first passage, Professor George was celebrating recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that advanced so-called religious freedom by allowing individuals engaged in certain lines of business to refuse to work for gay people who were engaged to be married on the ground that same-sex marriage was against the religious teachings they observe.
In the second paragraph, the Professor was articulating his vision of an ideal future in which a form of apartheid rooted in religious beliefs excludes gay and lesbian Americans - and perhaps other types of infidels - from doing business with a wide range of concerns that are otherwise secular in nature - "schools, hospitals, food pantries, shelters, adoption agencies, rehab centers, or what have you" - solely because the businesses are controlled by the Catholic Church.
Interestingly, Professor George's strategy for terminating gay people's right to use public accommodations is the same as the GOP's sneak attack on abortion, IVF and reproductive freedom.
The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism showed that it is at best indifferent to certain forms of intolerance when it defended Professor George's religious activism. In an exchange on substack, FAIR's executive director wrote me that the Professor "respects the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by the law . . ." and would never "endorse or promote practices that violate the Constitution."
I replied that the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by law present no obstacle to the Professor's agenda. That's because Professor George's activism aims to shape the law - including constitutional law - and society to fit his conservative religious beliefs. Professor George and his fellow activists on the Christian right have no compunction about running roughshod over the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by laws. That’s exactly what SCOTUS did to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis when they gave creators of wedding websites who do business with the general public but oppose same-sex marriage on religious grounds the right to refuse to do work for gay couples.
I added that Professor George is much too sophisticated to "endorse or promote practices that violate the Constitution." Why should he call attention to his nefarious aims that way when he and his fellow right wing activists can and do litigate test cases in order to elicit opinions from a right-leaning, political Supreme Court that bless practices previously considered constitutionally impermissible? I said then that it would surprise no one if Professor George were pursuing Clarence Thomas’s open invitation to overturn the line of cases that include the one that established a constitutional right to gay marriage. I wish I had had the foresight to add that Professor George was probably already hard at work devising high-toned legal arguments in favor of a nationwide abortion ban.
In closing, the deplorable Robert P. George is exactly the sort of person I have in mind when I say that a highfalutin' homophobic intellectual who knows his way around the corridors of power is a far greater threat to the rights and freedoms of gay and lesbian Americans than a bible-thumping fundiegelical pastor from the back of beyond.
Wow, Ollie, I hope you have published this elsewhere as well. Thank you for educating me about this man. Sad that he can use his prestige at Princeton to spread his narrow and misguided view of the world.
I fact, just today I commented about Professor George and the 303 Creative LLC v Elenis case in response to a piece titled "Time for All Liberals to Unite." [1] It was the text of the opening remarks by the owner of The UnHeard Susbtack at the "Liberalism for the 21st Century" conference under the aegis of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism. The lede was: "We need to transcend stale left-right tribal entities and forge a politics based on a commitment to liberal values."
The argument seemed reasonable until I came to this passage:
"The right is deeply upset that progressives today certainly control the commanding heights of cultural institutions. But there are liberal remedies against their excesses—both in the court of law and also through the court of public opinion. Conservatives have already successfully used both to defend religious liberties and freedom of conscience, as David French has convincingly argued."
I commented as follows:
"In today's polarized cultural climate, the phrase "religious liberties" sets my gay thumbs a-pricking that something wicked this way comes. Last year's Supreme Court decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (600 U.S. 570) was a victory for proponents of a wicked and novel form of so-called religious liberty that can only come at the expense of other people's civil rights. In that case, the Court found that a web designer's religious freedom trumped gay and lesbians' rights under Colorado law to do business with any concern that is open to the general public."
I followed that by citing Professor George's ringing endorsement of "the rights of the Evangelical Christian baker or wedding planner threatened with legal sanctions for honoring his or her conscientious belief in marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife" and Justice Sotomayor's stinging dissent against that form of religiously motivated discrimination.
My comment concluded:
"That brings me to my question: Whose side is The UnPopulist on? Does The UnPopulist consider the result in 303 Creative to be an example of the use of 'liberal remedies . . . to defend religious liberties and freedom of conscience,' or is it, in the words of Justice Sotomayor, 'a backlash to the movement for liberty and equality for gender and sexual minorities'? "
I have not received a reply, but I imagine Ms. Dalmia has had her hands full with the conference, which concluded today. If I do hear from her, I hope she repudiates the notion that manufacturing a religiously based right to discriminate against gay and lesbians in public accommodations is an example of using liberal remedies in courts of law to defend religious liberties. My experience with the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism shows that some organizations that espouse lofty principles are shockingly amoral and disingenuous in their deference to Christianity.
I also recounted my story about FAIR's uncritical defense of Professor George's religious extremism in response to Meghan Daum's enthusiastic June 27 interview with FAIR's director Monica Harris on Daum's podcast "The Unspeakable." The title of that episode was "Has Gay Pride Shamed Itself?" [2] In my comment on Ms. Daum's Substack, I quoted part of Ms. Harris's disingenuous and morally passive reply to my criticism of FAIR's hypocritical association with the homophobic Professor George, who is on FAIR's board of advisors. I was very disappointed that neither Ms. Daum nor Ms. Harris chose to reply. One or both of them appear to lack the courage of their convictions.
Thank you again, Ollie. It really is becoming a full time job following the threads of misogyny, racism, and homophobia that lurk underneath such misleading headings. Talk about a wedding cake topper!
Before you get to fetus's having new protection under the fourteenth Amendment you have to get to "fetal life begins at conception." That is, sorry guys, a RELIGIOUS belief. Lots of folks, including other Christians disagree. A whole lot of people believe HUMAN life begins when the fetus can survive (with help) outside the womb. And at that point the law already is concurrence with the 14th Amendment--as with any 14th Amendment rule you have to balance competing interest of parties making claim to "equal" protection. What makes a fetus threatening the life and health of the mother, even if not in fact viable due to birth defects, MORE in the balance that the woman's life?
There is no such thing as a "post birth abortion," of course. There is, sadly, a post birth DEATH of the fetus despite what any medical treatment can do.
But The Right insists that human life does begin at conception. At that point, every natural miscarriage, every ectopic pregnancy, every case of fetal defects, even fetal natural death--in each one the doctor has to try her hardest to keep an unviable fetus alive. If a miscarriage happens in a car, the mother has to cart it to a hospital to get it treated. Add a heart or a brain, if need be. Maybe do a lung transplant. Every single time God has actually said--for those who believe She runs things--"no, this one isn't going to work."
In fact, AFTER viability a fetus already has a right to have a doctor do what she can to keep it alive. That's based on medical ethics. The exception is when all agree that intervention will not in fact lead to recovery for defect reasons or the that the mother WILL die if the pregnancy goes further.
What these folks are saying is ALREADY true of what Roe/Casey allows. The only laws prohibited to state law after viability are those that would require endangering the mother. These folks want to add to it claims that a fetus who has no chance of survival has enough rights to "life" that any state law protecting Roe can be overturned.
David, two questions: first, what does "Under this amendment, it is Congress that enacts and enforces its provisions" mean? Isn't that saying that Congress would need to enact a law banning abortion, except that the 14th Amendment move seems to want to go around Congress? Also, how does voting in Democrats on a federal level protect us from a state legislature passing a 14th amendment-based ban and then appealing it all the way up to the Supreme Court, who will back it? Are we screwed no matter who is Presdient?
So are they basically saying a fetus has MORE rights than the person carrying it? Because I don't understand how the person carrying it can't also use this amendment to say their right to life has been violated?
O.M.G.!!!
Leo showing up in this is revelatory.
As always, FOLLOW THE MONEY!
The HYPOCRISY continues to astound. They seem to care about a single cell, but not about living people.
NO to the misuse of the Fourteenth Amendment in this twisted and devious fashion.
Just to be clear, as "noble" as considering the miracle that is conception (as the point of personhood), it's not realistic.
Not every seed that is planted grows into a plant or tree. It's potential.
ROE references "viability." Traditionally and realistically that includes the ability to breathe. Miscarriages occur "all the time" with no chance of survival. It wasn't until the 1960s and the death of President Kennedy's premature son Patrick that the search for treatments such as surfactant and the beginnings of neonatal intensive care units became possibilities. These laws CRIMINALIZE natural biological processes no one has control over.
ANOTHER REASON TO LEAVE THESE DECISIONS UP TO THE PERSON AFFECTED and the MEDICAL EXPERTS, NOT THE GOVERNMENT!
This example of the GOP/WCN’s hidden intentions requires revisiting everything they have written or stated through a different set of lenses. Jenny Cohn’s work and stunning insights provide a starting rubric for developing those lenses and perspectives.
A relationship map showing all of the connections within the GOP/WCN network will be extremely helpful.
Clearly such an effort exceeds the capacity of one or two people. Which existing organization has the resource capacity to take on this task and publish the results widely very quickly?
Princeton's Professor Robert P. George, who appears here in a video, is a busy man! Here is some background information about this right-wing religious activist for those who are unfamiliar with him. Readers will not be surprised to learn that Professor George is active on several fronts in the religious right's war to impose its beliefs and rules on our secular liberal constitutional democracy. For example, in addition to trying to make abortion illegal, the Professor has been attempting to suppress marriage equality for at least 20 years.
According to a 2009 profile of Robert P. George in The New York Times, he is "a Roman Catholic who is this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker." [1] In the 15 years since the piece was written, the Evangelical and Charismatic fringe has produced figures whose influence challenges Professor George's. Still, the Professor's gilt-edged Establishment CV ensures he will remain the nation's most respectable conservative Christian thinker, at least in the minds of those who can live with grievous moral compromises.
One thing Professor George is not is a passive observer of the status quo. He is also a powerful, accomplished and highly respected activist cum culture warrior. As the Times's profile opens, Professor George is the central figure of a gathering of influential figures on the Christian right:
"Alarmed at the liberal takeover of Washington and an apparent leadership vacuum among the Christian right, the group had come together to warn the country’s secular powers that the culture wars had not ended. As a starting point, George had drafted a 4,700-word manifesto that promised resistance to the point of civil disobedience against any legislation that might implicate their churches or charities in abortion, embryo-destructive research or same-sex marriage." [2]
Later in the piece, readers learn that in 2009, before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Robert P. George was "in many ways the public face of the conservative side in the most urgent culture-war battle of the day. The National Organization for Marriage, the advocacy group fighting same-sex marriage in Albany and Trenton, Maine and California, has made him its chairman. Before the 2004 election, he helped a coalition of Christian conservative groups write their proposed amendment to the federal Constitution defining marriage as heterosexual. . ." [3]
Professor George came to my attention late last year when the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) publicized him in one of their Weekly Roundups. The Professor, who is a member of FAIR's board of advisors, had received the Religious Freedom Institute’s 2023 Defender of Religious Freedom Award. [4] I will note parenthetically that in the process of understanding this story, I learned that the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism has a high tolerance for intolerance of the religious kind.
The piece in FAIR’s Weekly Roundup included a link to the National Catholic Register and its story about the award that included the text of the Professor's acceptance speech. [5]
When Professor George accepted his award, he told his audience at the Religious Freedom Institute:
"And here at home, we stand up for the rights of the Evangelical Christian baker or wedding planner threatened with legal sanctions for honoring his or her conscientious belief in marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife . . ." [3]
Earlier in the speech, the Professor said:
“We insist on the right to shape and run our institutions — be they schools, hospitals, food pantries, shelters, adoption agencies, rehab centers, or what have you — in line with the tenets of our faiths . . .” [4]
In the first passage, Professor George was celebrating recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that advanced so-called religious freedom by allowing individuals engaged in certain lines of business to refuse to work for gay people who were engaged to be married on the ground that same-sex marriage was against the religious teachings they observe.
In the second paragraph, the Professor was articulating his vision of an ideal future in which a form of apartheid rooted in religious beliefs excludes gay and lesbian Americans - and perhaps other types of infidels - from doing business with a wide range of concerns that are otherwise secular in nature - "schools, hospitals, food pantries, shelters, adoption agencies, rehab centers, or what have you" - solely because the businesses are controlled by the Catholic Church.
Interestingly, Professor George's strategy for terminating gay people's right to use public accommodations is the same as the GOP's sneak attack on abortion, IVF and reproductive freedom.
The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism showed that it is at best indifferent to certain forms of intolerance when it defended Professor George's religious activism. In an exchange on substack, FAIR's executive director wrote me that the Professor "respects the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by the law . . ." and would never "endorse or promote practices that violate the Constitution."
I replied that the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by law present no obstacle to the Professor's agenda. That's because Professor George's activism aims to shape the law - including constitutional law - and society to fit his conservative religious beliefs. Professor George and his fellow activists on the Christian right have no compunction about running roughshod over the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by laws. That’s exactly what SCOTUS did to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis when they gave creators of wedding websites who do business with the general public but oppose same-sex marriage on religious grounds the right to refuse to do work for gay couples.
I added that Professor George is much too sophisticated to "endorse or promote practices that violate the Constitution." Why should he call attention to his nefarious aims that way when he and his fellow right wing activists can and do litigate test cases in order to elicit opinions from a right-leaning, political Supreme Court that bless practices previously considered constitutionally impermissible? I said then that it would surprise no one if Professor George were pursuing Clarence Thomas’s open invitation to overturn the line of cases that include the one that established a constitutional right to gay marriage. I wish I had had the foresight to add that Professor George was probably already hard at work devising high-toned legal arguments in favor of a nationwide abortion ban.
In closing, the deplorable Robert P. George is exactly the sort of person I have in mind when I say that a highfalutin' homophobic intellectual who knows his way around the corridors of power is a far greater threat to the rights and freedoms of gay and lesbian Americans than a bible-thumping fundiegelical pastor from the back of beyond.
[1] Kirkpatrick, David D. "The Conservative Big Thinker." The New York Times Magazine. 16 December 2009. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/magazine/20george-t.html
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] "FAIR Board of Advisors." Weekly Roundup. Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. 3 December 2023. https://news.fairforall.org/p/weekly-roundup-0e3
[5] George, Robert P. "Championing Religious Freedom: ‘We Must Preserve Our Unity’ Going Beyond Political Disputes." National Catholic Register. 4 November 2023. https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/championing-religious-freedom-rfi-address-2023
Wow, Ollie, I hope you have published this elsewhere as well. Thank you for educating me about this man. Sad that he can use his prestige at Princeton to spread his narrow and misguided view of the world.
You're welcome!
I fact, just today I commented about Professor George and the 303 Creative LLC v Elenis case in response to a piece titled "Time for All Liberals to Unite." [1] It was the text of the opening remarks by the owner of The UnHeard Susbtack at the "Liberalism for the 21st Century" conference under the aegis of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism. The lede was: "We need to transcend stale left-right tribal entities and forge a politics based on a commitment to liberal values."
The argument seemed reasonable until I came to this passage:
"The right is deeply upset that progressives today certainly control the commanding heights of cultural institutions. But there are liberal remedies against their excesses—both in the court of law and also through the court of public opinion. Conservatives have already successfully used both to defend religious liberties and freedom of conscience, as David French has convincingly argued."
I commented as follows:
"In today's polarized cultural climate, the phrase "religious liberties" sets my gay thumbs a-pricking that something wicked this way comes. Last year's Supreme Court decision in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (600 U.S. 570) was a victory for proponents of a wicked and novel form of so-called religious liberty that can only come at the expense of other people's civil rights. In that case, the Court found that a web designer's religious freedom trumped gay and lesbians' rights under Colorado law to do business with any concern that is open to the general public."
I followed that by citing Professor George's ringing endorsement of "the rights of the Evangelical Christian baker or wedding planner threatened with legal sanctions for honoring his or her conscientious belief in marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife" and Justice Sotomayor's stinging dissent against that form of religiously motivated discrimination.
My comment concluded:
"That brings me to my question: Whose side is The UnPopulist on? Does The UnPopulist consider the result in 303 Creative to be an example of the use of 'liberal remedies . . . to defend religious liberties and freedom of conscience,' or is it, in the words of Justice Sotomayor, 'a backlash to the movement for liberty and equality for gender and sexual minorities'? "
I have not received a reply, but I imagine Ms. Dalmia has had her hands full with the conference, which concluded today. If I do hear from her, I hope she repudiates the notion that manufacturing a religiously based right to discriminate against gay and lesbians in public accommodations is an example of using liberal remedies in courts of law to defend religious liberties. My experience with the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism shows that some organizations that espouse lofty principles are shockingly amoral and disingenuous in their deference to Christianity.
I also recounted my story about FAIR's uncritical defense of Professor George's religious extremism in response to Meghan Daum's enthusiastic June 27 interview with FAIR's director Monica Harris on Daum's podcast "The Unspeakable." The title of that episode was "Has Gay Pride Shamed Itself?" [2] In my comment on Ms. Daum's Substack, I quoted part of Ms. Harris's disingenuous and morally passive reply to my criticism of FAIR's hypocritical association with the homophobic Professor George, who is on FAIR's board of advisors. I was very disappointed that neither Ms. Daum nor Ms. Harris chose to reply. One or both of them appear to lack the courage of their convictions.
[1] Dalmia, Shikha. 11 July 2024. https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/time-for-all-liberals-to-unite?utm_campaign=comment&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post
[2] Daum, Meghan and Monica Harris. https://meghandaum.substack.com/p/monica-harris-homophobia-gender-medicine-pride
Thank you again, Ollie. It really is becoming a full time job following the threads of misogyny, racism, and homophobia that lurk underneath such misleading headings. Talk about a wedding cake topper!
Before you get to fetus's having new protection under the fourteenth Amendment you have to get to "fetal life begins at conception." That is, sorry guys, a RELIGIOUS belief. Lots of folks, including other Christians disagree. A whole lot of people believe HUMAN life begins when the fetus can survive (with help) outside the womb. And at that point the law already is concurrence with the 14th Amendment--as with any 14th Amendment rule you have to balance competing interest of parties making claim to "equal" protection. What makes a fetus threatening the life and health of the mother, even if not in fact viable due to birth defects, MORE in the balance that the woman's life?
There is no such thing as a "post birth abortion," of course. There is, sadly, a post birth DEATH of the fetus despite what any medical treatment can do.
But The Right insists that human life does begin at conception. At that point, every natural miscarriage, every ectopic pregnancy, every case of fetal defects, even fetal natural death--in each one the doctor has to try her hardest to keep an unviable fetus alive. If a miscarriage happens in a car, the mother has to cart it to a hospital to get it treated. Add a heart or a brain, if need be. Maybe do a lung transplant. Every single time God has actually said--for those who believe She runs things--"no, this one isn't going to work."
In fact, AFTER viability a fetus already has a right to have a doctor do what she can to keep it alive. That's based on medical ethics. The exception is when all agree that intervention will not in fact lead to recovery for defect reasons or the that the mother WILL die if the pregnancy goes further.
What these folks are saying is ALREADY true of what Roe/Casey allows. The only laws prohibited to state law after viability are those that would require endangering the mother. These folks want to add to it claims that a fetus who has no chance of survival has enough rights to "life" that any state law protecting Roe can be overturned.
David, two questions: first, what does "Under this amendment, it is Congress that enacts and enforces its provisions" mean? Isn't that saying that Congress would need to enact a law banning abortion, except that the 14th Amendment move seems to want to go around Congress? Also, how does voting in Democrats on a federal level protect us from a state legislature passing a 14th amendment-based ban and then appealing it all the way up to the Supreme Court, who will back it? Are we screwed no matter who is Presdient?