Abortion restrictions amount to sex-based discrimination, PA state Supreme Court says

[usonian]

https://www.advocate.com/news/pennsylvania-supreme-court-abortion-medicaid

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled against an antiquated anti-abortion law, with justices issuing a scathing rebuke of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision.
RYAN ADAMCZESKI
FEBRUARY 01 2024 3:03 PM EST

The Pennsylvania state Supreme Court has issued a scathing rejection of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision, with justices arguing that abortion restrictions are based in the “antiquated and misogynistic notion that a woman has no say over what happens to her own body.”

Pennsylvania abortion providers filed a lawsuit in 2019 against a 1982 law that prohibits Medicaid from being used to cover the procedure. The groups argued that law violated the Equal Rights Amendment of the Pennsylvania Constitution, with the state Supreme Court agreeing in a ruling issued earlier this week.

“To treat a woman differently based on a characteristic unique to her sex is to treat her differently because of her sex, which triggers enforcement of our Equal Rights Amendment," Justice Christine Donohue wrote in an opinion. (PDF)

...

Wecht noted in a concurrence that Alito's legal analysis in the Dobbs decision "relied upon the patriarchal notions of eminent authorities of old English common law, including Lord Matthew Hale." Hale's “beliefs were driven by his goal of keeping women from encroaching upon the rights of men," who thought that giving women “legally enforceable rights over their own bodies was a threat to the freedom of men."

[bucolic_frolic]

1. There you have it.

And PA jurisprudence predates the US Constitution. PA is very proud of its judicial system.

[FalloutShelter]

2. Alito as performed by Monty Python

?si=UTpeXVmCwzObJsEn

[sanatanadharma]

3. Are there any laws restricting male health care? Sperm regulations?

Must a man be closer to death before his gangrene testicles will be cut off?

[Bev54]

4. Even Roe was too restrictive, just get it out of the legal system and into the healthcare system

where it belongs

[coffeenap]

5. People who can get pregnant

need a law that allows them to sue a sperm-giver for unwanted health consequences.

[redqueen]

6. This part

Alito's legal analysis in the Dobbs decision "relied upon the patriarchal notions of eminent authorities of old English common law, including Lord Matthew Hale." Hale's “beliefs were driven by his goal of keeping women from encroaching upon the rights of men," who thought that giving women “legally enforceable rights over their own bodies was a threat to the freedom of men."

How?!

[usonian]

8. Ask Matthew Hale

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/samuel-alito-roe-v-wade-abortion-draft

Alito, Stern writes, “does not seek out any middle path. He disparages Roe and its successors as dishonest, illegitimate, and destructive to the court, the country, and the Constitution. He quotes a wide range of anti-abortion activists, scholars, and judges who view abortion as immoral and barbaric; there’s even a footnote that approvingly cites Justice Clarence Thomas’s debunked theory that abortion is a tool of eugenics against Black Americans.” The opinion is an appalling, heinous attack on people who have relied on Roe for nearly half a century, and the most sickening part is that the conservative justice clearly doesn’t give a shit that obliterating the landmark ruling will ruin countless lives. In fact, one might argue, that’s all part of the plan. And if you needed further proof that Alito is pure evil and wants to take the U.S. back to a time when women’s bodies were property for men to control, know that one of the people he cited in his opinion was an English jurist who defended marital rape and had women executed for “witchcraft.”

More about Hale there and elsewhere.

https://www.propublica.org/article/abortion-roe-wade-alito-scotus-hale

Hale’s influence in the United States has been on the wane since the 1970s, with one state after another abandoning his legal principles on rape. But Alito’s opinion resurrects Hale, a judge who was considered misogynistic even by his era’s notably low standards. Hale once wrote a long letter to his grandchildren, dispensing life advice, in which he veered into a screed against women, describing them as “chargeable unprofitable people” who “know the ready way to consume an estate, and to ruin a family quickly.” Hale particularly despaired of the changes he saw in young women, writing, “And now the world is altered: young gentlewomen learn to be bold” and “talk loud.”



Alito, in his draft opinion, invokes “eminent common-law authorities,” including Hale, to show how abortion was viewed historically not as a right, but as a criminal act. “Two treatises by Sir Matthew Hale likewise described abortion of a quick child who died in the womb as a ‘great crime’ and a ‘great misprision,’” Alito wrote.

...

Courts have long leaned on precedents established by old cases and the scholarship of legal authorities from centuries gone by. But what happens when you trace citations back to their ancient source? In Hale’s case, you sometimes find a man conceiving precepts out of thin air. Other times it was the opposite, as he clung to notions that were already becoming anachronistic in the last half of the 17th century.

SEVENTEENTH FUCKING CENTURY.

Or his namesake.

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna4837955

Illinois white supremacist found guilty in murder plot
White supremacist leader Matthew Hale, whose gospel of “racial holy war” was linked to a follower’s deadly shooting rampage five years ago, was found guilty Monday of soliciting the murder of a federal judge.

[AKwannabe]

7. ...

[lindysalsagal]

9. We've still got some good judges. Whew.