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Exactly.

The 13th Amendment abolishing slavery should be used as a legal basis for the right to an abortion. Restrictions on abortion and the resulting forced pregnancies are disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude: forced pregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state's asserted interest. Indeed, the actual process of delivery demands work of the most intense and physical kind: labor of 12 or more grueling hours of contractions is not uncommon.

Abortion prohibitions violate the Amendment's guarantee of personal liberty, because forced pregnancy and childbirth, by compelling the woman to serve the fetus, creates "that control by which the personal service of one man [sic] is disposed of or coerced for another's benefit which is the essence of involuntary servitude." Such laws violate the amendment's guarantee of equality, because forcing women to be mothers makes them into a servant caste, a group which is held subject to a special duty to serve others and not themselves.

Having a right to life does not guarantee a right to the use of another person's body -- even if one needs it for life itself.

While the pregnant woman is not serving at the fetus' command -- it is the state that supplies the element of coercion -- she is nevertheless serving involuntarily for the fetus' benefit, and this is what the Court should have said that the amendment forbids.

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If I remember correctly, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg advocated for reproductive rights based not on the right to privacy but on the 13th amendment. She didn’t think the privacy argument was strong enough to withstand appeals.

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It's unbelievable to me that the 13th amendment is never considered. The parts of the constitution that are being downplayed or ignored: Trump trying to overturn our democracy and still OK to run for President?? "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." What's with all the guns used in mass murders or just for knocking off friends and family...........Is the Constitution just a piece of paper??

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As someone once said regarding arguing that the Constitution somehow guarantees the right to flood the country with guns, more guns, then more guns again, the Constitution is not s suicide pact.

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someone posted this site...from the American Bar Asso. on SCOTUS canceling legal abortions....https://www.americanbar.org/groups/communications_law/publications/communications_lawyer/2023-summer/unprecedented-precedent-and-original-originalism/

........well worth the long read.

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I used to be an RBG fan. Until her decision to not retire while Obama was president. It was hubris. It allowed Trump and McConnell to give us a rightwing court. As for her argument about the 13th vs 14th amendment, weakening and ultimately giving a talking point to anti-abortion extremists, that whole thing was just a smarty pants move. She could never get past the Court taking up Roe when she believed she had a better case—a member of the military pressured by the military to get an abortion.

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She has a stain on her for that. I think she was a bit dementia.

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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was a gift from God...Until she hung in to the bitter end and made it possible for a majority of the wrong justices to rule the roost.

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I have argued for years that—since the civil war—there are two instances where the government sets aside bodily autonomy and seizes the person of an adult. The first is when it sends someone to prison. The second is when a woman becomes pregnant. My question is not whether the 13th or 14th amendment is more germane. My question is how the state ever forced its way into this decision.

I suppose it’s a part of the time when American society considered women as chattel. But surely, as that has changed, we should take a look at removing this issue from examination by judges, legislators, or any other external authority.

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Exactly! It's none of their GD business. Or, it should not be....

But, they're men and women have been encroaching on male territory for..30? years now. Those women had to be reined in! The best way to do that is to deprive them of Choice. Nothing will send her back to the kitchen faster than another brat.

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I think this is a stronger base to build these rights on.

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Then why aren't they? Do those majority cranks on the Supreme Court ever study or consider The Constitution?

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Jan 22, 2024
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I have brought it up a number of times. I do not understand why it isn't brought up where it counts. In the GD congress! I have it in my docs : "abortion". I just c/c it. Copy it and do the same.

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The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. Is the "crime" having had sex??

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Does the thought that a woman isnt having sex ALONE ever cross the "minds" of these numnuts? Do they actually understand that? Without those little old sperm - there is no pregnancy! Perhaps a little sex education is called for.

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A man who has sex for fun is a "great guy"...a woman who has sex for fun is slut.

I grew up in the '50's...when a girl wasn't supposed to like sex too much...... a little but not a lot.

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Yes, of course, solo sex.....and, some might seriously consider other women. ...Those men on the SCOTUS should think twice about depriving men of what they most desire.

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I grew up in the 50's too, Judith.

I think the to the men on the SCOTUS depriving MEN of anything is NOT what they are about.

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I am dying for women to get smarter and start hiring lawyers to take those bad daddies to the cleaners. Deprive men of their privileged life style and then find female lovers.

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