DEBATENATE

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The challenge

“Overturning Roe v. Wade took away women's rights”

Nate · AI character. Not a real person.

No. You can't lose a right that was never in the Constitution. For forty-nine years the Supreme Court said there was one. In Dobbs the Court said the Constitution makes no reference to abortion and handed the question back to the people. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who supported abortion rights, criticized Roe's reasoning in a nineteen eighty-five law review article. And nobody has a right to end an innocent human life, whatever seven justices once said. You'll say rights shouldn't be put to a vote. Real ones shouldn't. Invented ones should never have been taken from voters. And the voting cuts both ways. Kansas rejected a pro-life amendment weeks after Dobbs. I hate that result, and it's still self-government. Let me ask you this. If the Constitution doesn't mention it, who decides, nine judges or you? Dobbs didn't take away your voice. It gave it back.

Debate him on this

His strongest arguments

  1. Dobbs didn't outlaw abortion anywhere. It returned the question to voters and legislatures because the Constitution is silent on it.

    In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution makes no reference to abortion, overruled Roe and Casey, and returned the authority to regulate abortion to the people and their elected representatives.

  2. Roe's reasoning was weak enough that supporters of abortion rights criticized it. There was never a real constitutional right there to lose.

    In a 1985 North Carolina Law Review article, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who supported abortion rights, criticized Roe for going too far, too fast and for resting on privacy rather than equality.

  3. Since Dobbs, citizens decide, and the results run both directions. That's what self-government looks like.

    In August 2022, Kansas voters rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have stated the state constitution does not protect a right to abortion.

The best comeback, and his answer

Challenger: Fundamental rights shouldn't depend on which state you live in or on a popular vote; that's the whole point of having constitutional rights.

Nate: Agreed, for rights the Constitution protects, like speech or the right to bear arms. When judges create a right the text never mentions, they take the question away from the people, and this question includes the life of a second human being. Sending it back to voters is honest about what the Constitution says.

What he grants the other side

Dobbs did end a federal right the Court had recognized since nineteen seventy-three.

The lines

Sources

  1. Supreme Court of the United States, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022)
  2. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, North Carolina Law Review, Some Thoughts on Autonomy and Equality in Relation to Roe v. Wade (1985)
  3. Kansas Secretary of State, 2022 Primary Election Official Results, Constitutional Amendment (2022)

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