444
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

The Supreme Court said Wednesday it will consider whether to restrict access to a widely used abortion drug — even in states where the procedure is still allowed.

The case concerns the drug mifepristone that — when coupled with another drug — is one of the most common abortion methods in the United States.

The decision means the conservative-leaning court will again wade into the abortion debate after overturning Roe v. Wade last year, altering the landscape of abortion rights nationwide and triggering more than half the states to outlaw or severely restrict the procedure.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] FluffyPotato@lemm.ee 12 points 11 months ago

I'm not American so maybe someone can explain this, the way your supreme court works sounds insane to me. Like what power does the US supreme court have that they can just ban drugs? Also what is stopping the states from just ignoring them on decisions like this?

[-] Vent@lemm.ee 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Legislative branch writes the laws. Judicial branch interprets them. Executive branch executes/enforces them.

SCOTUS's power comes from judicial review and precedent. They can't make arbitrary decisions on arbitrary things. Someone has to bring a case through a ton of appeals and different courts, then SCOTUS can rule on their interpretation of the law and write one or more essays explaining why and the nuances of their decisions. Those decisions are then examples/precedents that are followed by lower courts in future cases, until someone goes through the process again and SCOTUS decides to take the case and change the precedent, which is even more difficult and rare.

In this case, it sounds like they're arguing over if the FDA did their legally required due diligence. If not, then their approval is null and void, so the drug is banned.

A bunch of things stop states from ignoring their decisions. In this case, any company making the drug is not going to value it as worth the risk so it probably won't even make it to court again.

Some federal laws are tied to federal funding. For example, the 21 drinking age is tied to funding for roads. States can choose to set the age to 18, but they lose out on funding.

States can decide to just ignore federal law and get away with it, so long as it's not something the federal government is willing to fight for. For example, states legalize Marijuana essentially by deciding to just ignore the federal ban. The federal government doesn't care enough to send in their own anti-weed police or to pass legislation to force states to ban it again.

It even applies at the federal level. The executive branch can decide to just ignore SCOTUS and do their own thing. For example, SCOTUS ruled in favor of Native American's rights but Andrew Jackson ignored it and did the Trail of Tears anyway (he kicked tons of natives off their land with no shortage of human suffering and death along the way). The Legislative branch can fight against the Executive branch by withholding funding, but the Judicial branch doesn't have any such "stick".

It's rare that situations happen where branches fight against each other or states defy the federal government, but it's not unheaed of. It's all part of the checks and balances. In any case, it needs to stay within some realm of reasonableness in order to get buy-in from other government officials and the populace as a whole.

[-] JustZ@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Yo and fuck Andrew Jackson.

this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
444 points (99.1% liked)

News

23406 readers
3355 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS