Ponnuru’s Brain

Remnant fan favorite and National Review stalwart Ramesh Ponnuru returns today for a thorough discussion ...

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Remnant fan favorite and National Review stalwart Ramesh Ponnuru returns today for a thorough discussion of the jurisprudence of abortion and state of the pro-life movement. Although it’s easy to talk about overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in the abstract, the real-world consequences can be difficult to envision. Jonah and Ramesh explore what a post-Roe United States could look like, touching on laws, the two parties, and public opinion. Along the way, they also examine the horrors of inflation and rise of common good originalism. Plus, all of this happens to remind Jonah of a certain Star Trek episode. 

Show Notes:

– Ramesh’s author page at National Review

– Ramesh on overturning Roe v. Wade

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Thanks for having Ramesh on. He’s probably right that short-term overturning Roe would be politically bad for Republicans because the pro-life movement has been so powerful. However, in the long term, failing to overturn Roe would be disastrous because it would cause evangelicals and Catholics and others to grow completely disillusioned with the conservative legal movement and conservatism more generally.

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  2. MWS

    I can't get this specific episode to load on overcast. Overcast says the episode is only one second long.

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  3. Maddmac

    Did Mr. Ponnuru ever answer the question about rape or incest exceptions? I was totally confused during his "answer".

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  4. Lori Meldrum

    Women do not lose autonomy by becoming pregnant. What happens following conception may take more than one path, but how exactly do other parties immediately have a say in the next steps? This has long been a mystery to me.
    Government at any level should not have the power to determine the next steps, any more than government has any right to force doctors to perform abortions.

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    Victor Clairmont

    Ponnuru does not have a brain:

    He has a computer chip that makes him an artificial Mentat from Dune. He is more computer than machine!

    Hah, you thought I was insulting him! But I was complimenting his logical and Vulcan-esq qualities!

    Mwhahaha!

    Thank you for the podcast. Bring Ponnuru on anytime.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Silvertide

    Jonah on your example of the Texas legislation not getting upset when the law was first passed I think you are overlooking the fact that no one thought this law would stick. Both sides thought this would be struck down just like normal and so until that changed it was not something they needed to worry about.

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      Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

      Respectfully, I disagree.

      The lawyers who drafted the law, and the state legislators who passed it, certainly didn't think that: The entire point of the putting the enforcement mechanism into private-party hands was designed to frustrate the "just like normal" routine.

      The abortion providers and their lawyers who delayed filing suit for weeks, and then delayed asking for preliminary injunctive relief for weeks before that, were very stupid indeed if they saw this as "normal."

      I don't believe they're that stupid; I suspect that they were engaged in calculated brinksmanship, attempting to generate urgency artificially by waiting until just before the effective date of the law before asking for their injunction, and they miscalculated.

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      1. Anonymous

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          Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

          Oh, yes.

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  7. anonvet

    ISTM we talk about Roe as if the relevance of it's overturning is as significant as it would have been in 1980. Or even 2000. A number of things make me think overturning Roe would...not have that much impact on the number of abortions (and thus why, at this point in my life and I am more interested in creative policy thinking that would reduce abortion as much as possible by addressing the major reasons for abortion).

    So...because of polarization, sorting, etc, blue states are bluer and red states are redder (roughly) than they were even in 2000. As a result, we have a decent idea of which states would allow abortion and which ones wouldn't. The hardcore pro-choice activists in the blue states would no doubt create a kind of underground railroad to assist women in red states to get abortions. Social media makes it easy for a woman in a red state to connect with out of state folks. Someone will arrange for her to get a ride to a neighboring state. Or someone will help her get Plan B mailed to her. And so on.

    TL;DR: with advances in medical and communications technology, I'm just not sure, today, that overturning Roe would have *much* more effect than winning a debate.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Silvertide

      The problem with this "solution" is like in the past those with resources would not have a problem finding a way to an abortion at first and the poor would be the ones who suffer at the hands of back alley doctors. The second issue is that once Roe is overturned the pro life crowd would not say job well done lets go home they would then work to make it illegal for women to go to a state that has legalized abortion. The next step would be to make it a federal law to ban abortion across the board because that is what the pro life crowd wants.

      This is exactly why Jonah and others upset me by saying the pro choice side overreacts to every little thing. Go back and listen to pro choice pundits before the last supreme court seat was filled saying it's no big deal the left is over reacting then less than a month later turn around and say okay now that we got the seat how do we overturn Roe. Now it's well if Roe is overturned don't worry abortions will still be legal in blue states and then the next month it will be how do we block off these abortions.

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      1. anonvet

        I didn't offer a "solution." I don't have any. I just made a couple of observations....

        You didn't interact with anything I said, but...ok. two responses:

        How would a state make it illegal for one of its citizens to travel to another state?

        Congress is so broken it can't do much beyond budget reconciliation. It's in both parties' political interests to retain the filibuster so I think the notion of a federal van on abortion is the least of anyone's worries. Activists on both sides will continue vto try to scare their people with worst case scenarios, but..really? Have you looked at congress lately?

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    Adicesa14

    This was an enjoyable and educational conversation. Will Boltzmann be a future guest?

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  9. R. James

    The fundamental question is whether a fetus is a living human being? And a syllogestic argument would grant that all human beings are or should be persons under the law. If the answer to the fundamental question is no, then Roe et al should continue. If however, the answer is yes, then abortion should be abolished throughout the land. If the fetus is a living human being then justice would prevent the killing of a human being without due process of law. Therefore, the federalist position on the question of a fundamental civil right is nothing more than a Kansas Nebraska Act of legal fiction, it dodges the fundamental question and will not keep the house standing in the long run.

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    1. GregS

      That is not the question.

      For example, it is clear that you and I are living human beings. Suppose we both wake up one day and find that your lungs have stopped working, and your circulatory system has been connected to mine in an effort to keep you alive. Disconnecting you will kill you. If we just wait 9 months your lungs will recover. There is a 0.02% chance that I will die because of this, and a 22% chance that I will have to be hospitalized. After 9 months I will now be responsible for your care.

      Do I have an obligation to let you stay connected to me? What if you only need a month before you're healed? What if it's another 6 months? What if it's the full 9? What if I have a device that will stop you from ever getting connected to me in the first place - so you will die immediately? Is it OK to use this device?

      The difficult questions are not resolved by answering the question of whether the fetus is a living human. The mother is also a living human, and you can't ignore her in this ethical calculation.

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      1. R. James

        Your analogy does not work for this issue because in your analogy you have not done anything that would have caused me to live or become reliant on you, nor have you created a parental duty, that is not true of 99% of abortions. The right to life also trumps any right to privacy so the question of whether the fetus is a living human being is paramount to this issue.

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        1. GregS

          So you think that killing a living human being is fine as long as it was rape?
          What if I went on a vacation and stayed at a hotel where I knew there was a 1% chance I might wake up with someone connected to me? What if that chance was 0.01%?
          Why should these factors play into the question if whether you, an innocent living human being, should be killed?

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          1. Anonymous

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          2. R. James

            You want to talk about the 0.01 percent of abortions instead of the 99.9% of elected ones that end a pregnancy resulting from consensual sex? I'm pointing out that your analogy really only works for that 0.01% of aborted pregnancies resulting from rape. The analogy does not follow for pregnancies that result from consensual encounters which don't involve just "wake up with someone connected to me". The analogy ignores the free choice involved in consensual sex that leads to the pregnancy. As for the 0.01% cases of abortion of pregnancy resulting from rape, it is a most difficult issue as it does not result from a consensual choice. However, as you say, should a living human being be killed because of the situation? Considering we do not execute rapists in this country, how could we consider killing the children of rapists as lawful? Its a most difficult situation, but I would tend to agree that the innocent life should be preserved.

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    2. anonvet

      IIRC, roe didn't dodge the question. It was asked directly and part of the reason it ended up where it did was because no one could successfully argue that there was either a scientific or religious/moral consensus either way.

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      1. R. James

        I didn't say Roe dodged the question. I said to assume a federalist position would dodge the question. It's also worth noting that we know a lot more about embryology and DNA then we did in the 1970s. The question of when human life begins is scientifically settled.

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        1. anonvet

          I didn't say you said roe dodged the question. You brought up an issue and I merely said what I remembered about how it was addressed in roe.

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  10. GregS

    Ponnuru won't, of course, say what he wants about abortion. And Jonah won't press him.
    But listen to what he says: he wants abortion to be absolutely illegal at all stages including contraceptives that can be argued to prevent implantation of the zygote, he wants harsh penalties for anyone who performs an abortion (like a loss of license to practice medicine), and he wants the federal government to intervene in states that allow abortion.
    He talks about how reasonable the 15 week time frame is because it's like Europe, and because that's where most people are in their desires, and in the next breath reveals that once Roe is out, that 15 weeks will immediately be replaced by an absolute ban.
    Slavery is an interesting analogy. Because a woman who has been told she cannot make choices about her own bodily autonomy is more like a slave than not.
    Jonah was allowed to make medical decisions for his brother. But in the brave new world Ramesh wants, those decisions would be entirely out of Jonahs hands and in the hands of the same government bureaucrats that Jonah and Ramesh hate so much.

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    1. R. James

      Slavery is an interesting analogy, because slaves were also denied legal personhood and protections under the law despite the fact of their humanity.

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      1. GregS

        Yes that was Jonahs analogy.
        There are obvious and highly relevant differences.
        Slaves were not inseparably biologically attached to their owners for 9 months (or 6 if you go with Roe) following which they gained protections essentially equivalent to a person.

        This biological fact has many implications that make Jonahs analogy poor. I don't have time to go through all of them right now, but I'm sure you can see what they are.

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        1. R. James

          I think Jonah's analogy is more defensible than you may think, even with the issue that you raised. Both the issue of slavery and abortion are grounded on the debate over personhood and who enjoys legal protections under the law. They both also raise secondary issues of location of the individual (your example, Dred Scott case in the Slavery debate), dependency, and the conflict of asserted rights of both parties. Is it a perfect analogy, no. But analogies are not meant to be perfect, but to illustrate comparisons and to explain.

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          1. GregS

            Let me clarify then.
            Treating the slave as a human being with independent rights did not require the slave owner to lose their own bodily autonomy. It also did not require the government to step in to pretend to know what the slave wanted- the slaves could decide for themselves.
            The fetus is not an independent human being as a matter of biological fact. This is why intuitively we all know that an abortion at 6 weeks is very different from one at 34 weeks. The 34 week fetus is practically an independent being - or at least is capable of being an independent being.
            I understand that analogies are not meant to be perfect, but when they fail in a critical basic manner, they cease to be useful.

            Let me spin another hypothetical. If a 6 week old fetus could be removed from its mother at minimal risk (i.e. risk no higher than that if abortion), and incubated artificially, would that affect how we see abortion?
            I contend that it would - and that opposition to abortion would skyrocket. Nothing has changed jn this scenario except that the mother's loss of autonomy has been resolved.
            The point here is that for the government to act on behalf of the fetus to control the mother's decisions subjugates her autonomy about her own bodily functions. This is inseparably related to the fact that the fetus is a part of her body. Mother and fetus are slaves to each other. The government can certainly point out that at some point in pregnancy the potential value of the fetus outweighs the period of remaining loss of autonomy for the mother, but that is not what a slavery analogy does.

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