This story just drips with a key example of rightwing hypocrisy: "States' rights to decide things for themselves are vital only when states want to do what we like." The sheer gall it takes to argue both sides of that position -- sometimes simultaneously even on the same issue -- is constantly amazing to me. #USPolitics
CNN: Reagan-era emergency health care law is the next abortion flashpoint at the Supreme Court
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/20/politics/abortion-supreme-court-idaho-emergency-care/index.html
@cra1g can you point to a right winger promoting EMTALA forcing protection of unborn children?
I haven’t heard rightwingers pushing that, so I wonder if maybe you misunderstand, or even if THEY misunderstand.
@volkris Read the story, man...it's in there.
@cra1g if you’re talking about the reference to the CLI brief, firstly I wouldn’t say that’s a mainstream expression as it was submitted as a technical analysis on behalf of a legal institution, and secondly, the brief was absolutely couched in terms of the state’s position.
So it wasn’t against states’ rights but emphasizing them.
The way that legal documents tend to be written is they will go through a number of different arguments to win the case, and those arguments can be mutually exclusive. For example, there are plenty of legal briefs out there that will argue mutually exclusive things such as "I didn't do it and if I did do it it wasn't against the law". You make the arguments that you think are going to win, not the arguments that you politically would like to be the ones to win.
The lawyer's jobs are not to win the case by the most politically acceptable means possible, it's to win the case. If they don't win the case on states rights grounds, then they will move on to other defenses including the fact that the states argument doesn't match with the text of the law.
Let's say that you were charged with a crime, and you didn't do the crime and you know that. Great, if you can win on that then you should. But what about if you can't win on that? If you didn't do it, but you couldn't get doubt in the evidence to that finishing line to prove reasonable doubt, are you just going to accept going to jail? Or in the event that the jury finds you did do the thing, are you going to make all of the arguments other than you didn't do it, such as if it was a murder, that it was in self-defense, or that there was no mens rea or any one of a bunch of different things that could win you the case, even though the truth is you didn't do the thing?
For people who aren't used to reading legal documents, it's pretty jarring, but again -- your side's lawyers want you to win, and you by definition cannot win unless you make the argument. If you have an incompetent counsel, and they don't make arguments that would let you win the case, even if the judge believes it you should get off, the judges job is to be an impartial arbiter and so they can't help you -- you just lose the case even though you shouldn't have. Also, if you make those different arguments they leave you open for the ability to appeal later because maybe you can ask for a second crack at the bat when it comes to the stuff I constitutional issues. If you don't raise the constitutional issues during the case, by definition you cannot appeal.
@volkris They (the rightwing extremists here) are simultaneously advocating that states should have the rights to outlaw abortions, but not to protect abortions AND that federal law (i.e., EMTALA) should protect the lives of unborn children, but not require EDs to provide abortions when pregnant women's lives are in danger. The "states' rights" claim is a sham...they just want to enshrine their religious ideology into whatever law they can.