241 Comments

Ta, Robyn. Elect plenty of Democrats and expand the court. 13 circuits, 13 Justices.

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It’s time to expand the scotus and enact legislation that requires the court be as close to balanced as possible. Even in our state circuit court we require balance during case evaluation, a process where a panel of 3 attorneys listen to your case for 15 minutes and then make a recommendation on settlement. One plaintiff attorney, one defense attorney, and one “neutral” is required. I would qualify as neutral because I was a defense attorney for 5 years before switching to plaintiff for the past 16 years. We understand fairness is a concept few people can attack with sincerity, so why we would allow our highest court to be a product of partisan politics is beyond baffling. We are clearly a nation with many flaws and much room for improvement.

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Oh hey, *Doctor* Alito. My understanding of PPROM is that it refers to “Pre-viability Premature Rupture Of Membranes,” meaning we’re referring to a pregnant patient’s water breaking during the 2nd trimester, resulting in loss of amniotic fluid before the fetus is viable.

If we’re talking about a pregnant patient’s water breaking early during the 3rd trimester at 34 weeks, then that is just PROM, not PPROM. The fetus would still be premature, to be sure, but it has an actual chance of living outside the uterus, unlike at 16 or 18 or 20 weeks. And yes, the appropriate treatment at 34 weeks would be to allow the fetus to continue to develop, and immediately induce labor or perform a C-section if things start to go south, in order to save both the woman and her baby (the latter of which may end up in NICU). There is a huge difference between these situations (pre-viability vs simply premature).

If you hadn’t messed with Roe by writing your shitty, unscientific opinion in Dobbs, women and their doctors could still make the best medical decisions based on the accepted standard of care, without worrying if the pregnant patient was close enough to death to receive treatment for a non-viable pregnancy.

In other words, go fuck yourself.

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All of this is just MESSED UP. Glad I am too old to have the kids I didn’t want to have in the first place. Glad I don’t live in a state that has fucked up laws about women’s rights and health.

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Once again, Alito demonstrates what a shithead he is, and why he should have his "lifetime appointment" cut waaay short.

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Justice Jackson sounds puzzled about why the court held back from ruling either way, but she’s new to Washington and probably doesn’t recognize the deeply cynical game they’re playing. Sure, Alito and the rest of the Suspicious Six would be happy to rule that pregnant patients have no “right to life” compared to the oh so precious fetus, but that would ignite a firestorm that would give President Biden the edge in a close race. Better to keep their powder dry and rule for the fetus next year, when Dictator Trump can add a baby Alito and a baby Thomas to lock down a far right wing court for a generation.

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I myself would prefer to see Alito transfixed by the tip of the flagpole, and then require doctors to assert he is at imminent risk of death before taking him down. I think we'd all agree the risk of Alito's colostomy is a small price to pay for the religious scruples of the one doctor who *might* decide he's not sufficiently endangered...

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Alito, stop trying to be a doctor. You're barely a lawyer.

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"You are allowed to use lethal force to prevent someone from potentially killing you or someone else . . ." So if I'm a woman, and a doctor decides that I should possibly die of sepsis, I have a right to use lethal force on them, the hospital administration, and/or the assholes in the Idaho legislature who decided this no abortions stuff was a good idea?

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I like your reasoning. A lot.

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They'd deserve it!

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"At least some may conclude in some cases of PPROM occurring before the 34th week of pregnancy that the woman’s life is not endangered since she may never develop a serious infection, let alone life-threatening sepsis or any other potentially fatal condition, if she receives proper treatment. Rather, those doctors may believe that Idaho law requires them to try to delay delivery long enough to save the child’s life, unless PPROM becomes sufficiently “severe” to cause “infection and serious risk of sepsis.”

If you fall off a 5-story building, you may not actually die, so therefore we conclude your life is not endangered. Hypothetical miracles cancel out experience! Logic!!

Also, wtf does this person think "proper treatment" is for premature rupture of membranes? You can't put a pre-viable pregnancy on steroids, antibiotics or MgSO4. "Watchful waiting" is just that; it's not treatment, proper or otherwise. This dude has been watching too much "House". Doctors have something called "standard of care", which is not a matter of opinion. If a doctor has an eccentric opinion, and that opinion results in death or injury, we call that "malpractice". Otherwise, "doctor's opinion" would be a complete defense to every claim. What if a doctor believes in the miasma theory of disease? What if a doctor believes in the theory of bodily humors? What if a doctor believes the best treatment would be to reimplant the fetus in Martha-Ann, Billy-Sue, Baby-Moo, or whatever tf her twee name is? What if the doctor subscribes to the 14th-century University of Paris view that disease is caused by bad air created by Jupiter, and that the best treatment is to have the floor strewn with lavender, stay indoors and avoid looking at the night sky?

Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't quote a medieval treatise in his screed. Although that's probably only because none of his clerks can read Medieval Latin and couldn't find English translations.

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Forced-birth ER doctors who don’t want any government telling them that the life and health of full-grown women might actually be *more* important than doomed fetuses, do they actually exist?

Yeah, of course they do.

https://www.ncregister.com/cna/appeals-court-says-er-doctors-do-not-have-to-perform-abortions

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Shut up, Katie Tur. Just STFU. Lisa Rubin and Dahlia Lithwick have forgotten more than you'll ever learn about SCOTUS. Stop butting in and stealing their thunder. You're no Ari Melber, but if you keep it up, you soon will be.

/rant

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So, if the Idaho doctor won't treat me and I'm going to die, I could stand my ground and threaten them with a gun to get them to treat me.

On that note, I think I'll just stay out of Idaho.

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I think you're good, so long as you don't have a womb.

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Clearly a pregnant woman in Idaho can shoot her doctor for refusing to perform an abortion, when that refusal endangers her health, under Stand Your Ground...

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They will still find a way to let the woman die because that is who they are.

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Did I read that correctly? Did Alito just acknowledge that the medical community largely agrees that there is no reasonable chance of a good outcome for a premature rupture of membranes...yet still insists that HE says that it could happen? Did I read that right?

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Fuck Sam Alito.

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With a rusty, spike-covered Ted Cruz ; )

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I say let his wife do that, and a poor job of it, too.

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