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Saturday June 24, 2022

June 27, 2022 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday June 24, 2022

U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, leaving abortion rights up to states

May 6, 2022

The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned the Roe v. Wade opinion that has secured constitutional protections for abortion in the country for nearly 50 years.

The milestone ruling, a draft of which was leaked last month, has the potential to claw back abortion access across the U.S. by allowing states to restrict or outright ban the procedure.

The court, in a 6-3 ruling powered by its conservative majority, upheld a Republican-backed Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The vote was 5-4 to overturn Roe v. Wade, with conservative Chief Justice John Roberts writing separately to say he would have upheld the Mississippi law without taking the additional step of erasing the Roe precedent altogether.

That original 1973 Roe v. Wade decision ruling found that a woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy was protected by the rights that flow from the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects a citizen’s right to “life, liberty and property.”

But Associate Justice Samuel Alito disagreed with that interpretation in Friday’s majority opinion on the case challenging the Mississippi law, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

“The constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” Alito wrote in the opinion, which was very similar to the leaked draft.

May 7, 2022

“It is time to heed the constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

The right to abortion, Alito wrote, is “critically different from any other right that this court has held to fall within the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of ‘liberty.'”

It’s also different, he said, than the rights recognized in the court’s past decisions on matters such as intimate sexual relations, contraception and marriage, because it “destroys” what Roe and a subsequent abortion case that the court also overruled Friday, Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, called “fetal life” and the Mississippi law describes as an “unborn human being.”

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito said. “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”

In Roe v. Wade, the court ruled that states could only interfere with a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy after a fetus reached the “viability” stage, around 24 to 28 weeks of pregnancy, when the fetus could be considered viable outside the womb.

After Friday’s decision, individual state legislatures will now decide how to regulate the medical procedure and to what extent they want to allow, restrict or ban it outright.

May 25, 2019

Twenty-six states asked the Supreme Court to overrule the Roe and Casey decisions and allow them to “regulate or prohibit pre-viability abortions,” Alito wrote in his opinion.

Many of those, largely in the South and Midwest, have already signalled that they will likely move quickly to ban abortion or restrict access to it to some degree.

At least 13 states have so-called trigger laws that ban or severely limit abortion and moved swiftly to enact them as soon as Roe v. Wade was overturned. Some abortion clinics in those states stopped performing abortions immediately in the wake of the ruling as they assessed their new reality.

The Supreme Court decision also overrules the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, which upheld the protection of a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy without undue burdens such as waiting periods and consent and notification requirements but allowed states to add some limitations, including in the first trimester.

Liberal justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan issued a joint dissent.

“Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens,” they wrote. (CBC)

 

Posted in: USA Tagged: abortion, coat hanger, handmaid’s tale, reproduction, reproductive, rights, SCOTUS, states’ rights, Supreme Court, USA, women

Saturday May 7, 2022

May 7, 2022 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday May 7, 2022

Let’s take a deep breath over Roe V. Wade

Could we all take a deep breath?

May 13, 2017

A leaked draft decision from the U.S. Supreme Court about abortion has created a bizarre political firestorm here in Canada. The most dangerous place to be these days is between a live microphone and a Canadian politician wanting to tell us how they will fight until their dying breath to protect Canadian women against the insidious evil emanating from south of the border.

Can we bring a little sanity to the situation?

First, the court has not banned abortions. A draft internal document was leaked on a case challenging abortion law which may or may not reflect the court’s final decision. If the leaked decision stands, abortion will lose its constitutional protection and individual state legislatures will be able to regulate or outlaw it. Although a dramatic change, it would not create a nationwide ban

This case has no effect on Canada where there hasn’t been an abortion law since 1988 when the Canadian Supreme Court found the existing law unconstitutional. No successive government was able to come up with a replacement and no major Canadian political party currently supports reopening the issue. Although several Conservative MPs and a second-tier leadership candidate have tried to raise restrictions, it is simply not on the political radar.

Posted in: USA Tagged: 2022-16, abortion, greeting cards, judge, liberty, Mother's day, mothers, progress, reproduction, rights, Roe vs. Wade, SCOTUS, statue of Liberty, Supreme Court, USA, women

Friday May 6, 2022

May 6, 2022 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday May 6, 2022

The Supreme Court might never recover from overturning Roe v. Wade

October 23, 2020

On Monday, Politico published a draft of a Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling declaring that the Constitution guarantees Americans the right to end their pregnancies. The court later confirmed that the document, written in February, is genuine, but emphasized that it is not the court’s final word. We hope not. If the justices embrace the sweeping document, they will deal a grievous blow to freedom in the United States — and to the legitimacy of the court itself.

Such a leak from the court’s typically tight inner sanctum is itself astonishing. The court works on trust among justices and staff, so that the justices can deliberate frankly. Whether the document leaked from a conservative justice’s chambers, in an effort to lock in the support of others on the right for its far-reaching language, or from a liberal’s, in an effort to mobilize outside pressure against such a ruling, the leak represents a dire breakdown in norms and another dramatic sign of the court’s political drift.

Posted in: International, USA Tagged: 2022-15, abortion, judge, liberty, progress, reproduction, rights, Roe vs. Wade, SCOTUS, statue of Liberty, Supreme Court, USA, women

Tuesday July 16, 2019

July 23, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

July 17, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday July 16, 2019

New air passenger protections kick in today

Airline passengers have new rights starting today, as rules from the Canada Transportation Agency that have prompted backlash from industry and consumer advocates kick in.

January 8, 2016

The Air Passenger Protection Regulations require airlines to meet certain obligations, including clear communication to passengers about their rights and timely updates for delays or cancellations. Passengers will also be compensated up to $2,400 if they’re bumped from a flight.

In addition, passengers are now entitled to a certain standard of treatment when stuck on the tarmac. People will be allowed to leave the plane in certain situations if the delays exceed three hours — though that’s twice the time the Senate committee that studied the rules recommended.

Time spent on the tarmac became a huge point of contention when two planes were stranded for up to six hours on the tarmac at the Ottawa airport in 2017 due to bad weather. The passengers were kept on board with no air conditioning, food or water.

Air Transat was fined after the CTA found the airline broke its agreement with passengers. Transportation Minister Marc Garneau used the example to illustrate why the new bill of rights — then in the Senate — should be a priority.

April 23, 2014

Lost baggage procedures have also been updated to allow for compensation of up to $2,100. There are also clearer policies for transporting musical instruments.

The regulations will apply to all flights to, from and within Canada, including connecting flights. Large airlines, those that have serviced two million passengers or more in the last two years, will have a slightly different regulatory regime than smaller airlines in some cases.

Smaller airlines, for example, will have to pay less compensation for delays or cancellations that are within the airline’s control but are not related to safety issues.

April 3, 2014

Two advocates are also challenging the tarmac delay rules, saying they violate the charter rights of some Canadians with disabilities who may not be able to sit for extended periods.

Bob Brown, a disability rights advocate who is quadriplegic, says the rules reduce the distance he can travel by air without putting his health at risk by up to 2,000 kilometres. The case is currently before the Federal Court of Appeal.

These are only some of the changes coming in. Starting in December, airlines will also have to adhere to standards about flight disruptions and seating passengers with children. Compensation for cancelled flights and delays are part of phase two of the rollout. (CBC) 

 

Posted in: Canada Tagged: 2019-25, airline, Canada, Human rights, Passengers, regulation, rights, sardines, travel

Wednesday May 15, 2019

May 22, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 15, 2019

Niagara MPP Sam Oosterhoff shows his inexperience with two bad stumbles in a week

Maybe it was youthful exuberance. Maybe youthful hubris. But it came off as youthful ignorance.

November 5, 2016

Two times in one week, Niagara West PC MPP Sam Oosterhoff blew a chance to show statesmanship and instead demonstrated his inexperience.

On May 7, staffers in his Beamsville riding office called the cops on a group of protesters: senior citizens, most of them women, some belonging to book clubs, who were gathered in silent protest against provincial cuts to libraries. The cuts affect interlibrary loans, which are especially important in small-town areas where books are not readily available and must be borrowed from other libraries.

Oosterhoff wasn’t in the office that day. But the library system in his riding is one of those dependent on interlibrary loans. How many copies of “Where the Crawdads Sing” do you think are hanging around the Grimsby library? If you guessed three, you’d be correct. But three isn’t enough to feed a book club. Oosterhoff showed in a small way he’s out of touch with an important segment of his riding.

November 18, 2016

Two days later, Oosterhoff was definitely present for a Queen’s Park anti-abortion protest where he said it was time to make abortion “unthinkable.”

What is unthinkable is that in 2019 this discussion is still happening. What is unthinkable is that a newbie backbencher would paint his boss, Doug Ford, into a corner. In the end, Ford missed an opportunity to say he supports a woman’s right to choose. Instead, he said the government would not “reopen” the debate on abortion and, in any case, the PC party tent is large enough to hold a number of opposing views.

At a time when polling shows more than three-quarters of Canadians support abortion rights, Oosterhoff showed how out of step he is. It’s not a good look. (Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Posted in: Ontario Tagged: 2019-18, abortion, can, can opener, Conservative, Doug Ford, Ontario, pro life, reproductive, rights, Sam Oosterhoff, social, steamroller, women, worms
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This website contains satirical commentaries of current events going back several decades. Some readers may not share this sense of humour nor the opinions expressed by the artist. To understand editorial cartoons it is important to understand their effectiveness as a counterweight to power. It is presumed readers approach satire with a broad minded foundation and healthy knowledge of objective facts of the subjects depicted.

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