Something I have been pondering since the leak about the pending ruling. Front page of The Wall Street Journal:
===================================

Kansas Vote Signals Abortion Could Emerge as Top Political Issue in November

By Laura Kusisto , Aaron Zitner and Jennifer Calfas

Politicians around the nation were assessing the potential impact of abortion in this fall’s elections after Kansas voters across the political spectrum contributed to Tuesday’s strong rejection of a proposed state constitutional amendment that would have eliminated abortion rights in the state.

Some 60% of Kansas voters rejected an amendment that would have explicitly stated there is no right to abortion in the state’s constitution. The ballot measure lost by 18 percentage points in a state that former President Donald Trump, a Republican, carried by nearly 15 points two years ago.

Some Republican analysts saw a flashing yellow warning sign for their party, which generally backs abortion restrictions, from the first statewide test of abortion sentiment since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. With voters agitated by inflation and unsatisfied with President Biden’s job performance, most analysts say the election environment favors GOP candidates. But the high turnout for the referendum—which drew about twice the number of votes as in the state’s 2018 primaries— suggested to some that the abortion fight could energize Democrats and sway independent voters who tend to favor fewer restrictions on the procedure.

“I think this will alter traditional turnout models, mostly likely in the Democrats’ favor,’’ said John Truscott, who served as communications chief for former GOP Gov. John Engler in Michigan, where an abortion referendum is also likely to be on the ballot this fall. In some close races, he said, renewed attention to abortion could tip the balance toward Democrats.

The Supreme Court’s ruling said the U.S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee the right to an abortion and that states can determine its legal parameters. Since then, a number of states, especially in parts of the South and Midwest, have moved to ban or heavily restrict abortion, while others have looked to widen access or enshrine abortion in their constitutions. Abortion opponents said the result in Kansas was a significant defeat in their efforts to further limit it.

The Kansas amendment was rejected or received a mixed reception in several rural counties that had given Mr. Trump 60% and even 70% of their vote in 2020, suggesting that a substantial number of Republicans opposed the measure. Independents also turned out in large numbers, and about a fifth of those voting on the referendum— more than 180,000 people— didn’t vote in the day’s Republican or Democratic primaries for governor.

The results were parsed for their implications in states such as Michigan, one of the nation’s most closely contested battlegrounds. A proposed constitutional amendment enshrining abortion rights is likely to be on the ballot there—if approved by elections officials—while voters are also choosing between Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who supports abortion rights, and her new Republican opponent, Tudor Dixon, who doesn’t.

California and Vermont will vote on similar amendments in November. In Kentucky, which has enforced an abortion ban, voters will weigh an amendment stating there isn’t a right to an abortion protected in the state’s constitution.

Coming gubernatorial and legislative races in states such as Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin could determine the future of abortion access in those states. Abortion also could be an issue in U.S. House races in suburban districts, poised to be some of the most competitive in the country.

The Kansas results showed a wariness of changing abortion law but didn’t test whether that will motivate voters to choose Democratic candidates, said nonpartisan pollster Bernie Porn, president of EPIC-MRA in Michigan. Still, the GOP “may have miscalculated the intensity of the support for abortion rights, not only nationwide but in Republican areas,’’ Mr. Porn said.

Others argued that it wasn’t clear that abortion would weigh more heavily on voter decisions than other issues. “I still think the biggest issue is going to be the economy,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.).

Still, many Democrats say the issue will play to their advantage in races.

“If it’s going to happen in Kansas, it’s going to happen in a whole lot of states,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.). “The strong pro-choice turnout we saw last night in Kansas will continue well into the fall, and Republicans who side with these extremist MAGA policies that attack women’s rights do so at their own political risk.”

State election records show that women accounted for 70% of Kansans who registered to vote after the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling, according to Tom Bonier, a Democratic voter-data analyst.

The referendum was soundly rejected in the state’s suburban and metropolitan areas, losing by 16 percentage points in the Wichita area and by 36 points in the area around the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park.

Support for the amendment was stronger in the state’s rural communities. Still, the results suggested that some Republicans opposed it. In Cowley County, on the southern border with Oklahoma, Mr. Trump drew 68% support in 2020, but voters there narrowly rejected the referendum on Tuesday, 52% to 48%.

Some Republican legislatures have been enacting laws that curb or ban abortion access, sometimes with an exception only if the patient’s life is in danger. Political analysts said Tuesday’s result in Kansas suggests voters may be wary of having such far-reaching laws in their state.

“We’ve found that many voters who would define themselves as pro-life still embrace several exceptions,” said Tony Fabrizio, lead pollster for Mr. Trump’s two presidential campaigns. “Conversely, many voters who would define themselves as pro-choice would embrace certain time limits.’’

Abortion opponents cautioned against reading too much into Tuesday night’s results, which they said were influenced by millions of dollars that poured into the campaign from large donors and wall-to-wall media coverage of the abortion issue since the Supreme Court’s decision.

At least $12 million in advertising poured in to sway voters, split roughly equally between supporters and opponents.

The Kansas vote could motivate abortion-rights supporters to try to take the issue to voters directly in more states in future years, said Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law.

“It’s going to make ballot initiatives seem like a promising tool for Democrats, and especially abortion-rights supporters, who are not sure how this is going to translate into Democratic victories at the polls,” she said. —Teresa Mettela contributed to this article.

It was the first statewide vote on abortion since Roe was overturned.

LINK

But, there are some restrictions.

RESTRICTIONS ON ABORTION
In Kansas, the following restrictions on abortion were in effect as of June 28, 2022:

A patient must receive state-directed counseling that includes information designed to discourage her from having an abortion, and then wait 24 hours before the procedure is provided.
Private insurance policies cover abortion only in cases of life endangerment, unless individuals purchase an optional rider at an additional cost.
Health plans offered in the state’s health exchange under the Affordable Care Act can only cover abortion in cases of life endangerment.
Abortion is covered in insurance policies for public employees only in cases of life endangerment.
The use of telemedicine to administer medication abortion is prohibited.
The parents of a minor must consent before an abortion is provided.
Public funding is available for abortion only in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest.
A patient must undergo an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion; the provider must offer the patient the option to view the image.
An abortion may be performed at 20 or more weeks postfertilization (22 weeks after the last menstrual period) only in cases of life or severely compromised physical health. This law is based on the assertion, which is inconsistent with scientific evidence and has been rejected by the medical community, that a fetus can feel pain at that point in pregnancy.
The state prohibits abortions performed for the purpose of sex selection.


REFERENCES
1. Jones RK, Witwer E and Jerman J, Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2017, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2019.

2. Fuentes L and Jerman J, Distance traveled to obtain clinical abortion care in the United States and reasons for clinic choice, Journal of Women’s Health, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1089/jwh.2018.7496.
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REPORT
Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2017
POLICY ANALYSIS
The U.S. Abortion Rate Continues to Drop: Once Again, State Abortion Restrictions Are Not the Main Driver
Guttmacher Policy Review
FACT SHEET
Induced Abortion in the United States
RESOURCE
Evidence You Can Use
STATE FACTS ABOUT ABORTION


https://www.guttmacher.org/fac...bout-abortion-kansas

^^^^^THIS will be the deciding factor for Election 2022, all else is smoke-and-mirrors, slight-of-hand, and distraction.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Something I have been pondering since the leak about the pending ruling. Front page of The Wall Street Journal:
===================================

Kansas Vote Signals Abortion Could Emerge as Top Political Issue in November

As usual, there was a little more to that bill that what either side was covering. The text of the bill that didn’t pass the sniff test was this:

quote:

A vote for the Value Them Both Amendment would affirm there
is no Kansas constitutional right
to abortion or to require the government funding of abortion, and would reserve to the people of Kansas, through their elected state legislators, the right to pass laws to regulate abortion.

It’s basically, “We’re the government, trust us! We could get replaced next year by Democrats and do what ever we wanted with troubling you pesky voters…” That would make me vote no if I was in Kansas.

Hmm ....
Are we aware that legislators pass laws to regulate virtually everything that can be regulated?
That’s what they do most places they have such elected people.

Or was there something else you objected to?

I simply do not care what anyone’s opinion about abortions is; I’m not planning to get one and I don’t have to worry about getting anyone pregnant who might want or not want one contrary to my wishes. It will nevertheless be enlightening to see whether the “red” landslide in November is as overwhelming as the one that was confidently predicted here prior to November 2020. When the BS media predicts something that we like, such as the economy will be the deciding factor in the elections, then we can’t get enough of them. When, however, they predict something we don’t like, such as “Maybe it’s not that simple,” then: “What do they know?”

*UPDATE* on the leak investigation.

I just recently was thinking that this investigation had disappeared from the news and, thinking it had quietly been concluded with no public report, was mildly surprised to learn the investigation was ongoing, and that the list of suspects has, reportedly, been narrowed.

=================

Supreme Court’s Probe Into Leaked Roe V. Wade Opinion Narrows To “Small Number”


Brian Bushard
Forbes Staff
Jan 13, 2023,03:30pm EST

TOPLINE

Supreme Court investigators reportedly narrowed their investigation into the monumental leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion in favor of overturning Roe V. Wade last May, which tipped off the public to its stunning reversal of the landmark decision that had protected abortions for nearly 50 years.


KEY FACTS

• The investigation, which is being overseen by an internal committee, has dwindled down their list of potential suspects to a “small number of suspects,” the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing unnamed people familiar with the probe.

• That list includes recent law school graduates serving as law clerks to Supreme Court justices, the Post reported, without naming any of the suspects in the investigation—Supreme Court clerks had been asked in May to turn over private cell phone data and sign affidavits, sources told CNN.

• Interviewers relied on public information about court employees to develop working theories about possible suspects in the investigation, sources told the Post, with investigators at times asking them simply: “did you do it?”

• A Supreme Court spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Forbes inquiry for further details, and the court has not released any information on the case.


TANGENT

Although the draft opinion is not a classified document and does not automatically prompt a criminal investigation, the person behind the leak could face charges for stealing federal government property for personal use, University of California, Berkeley criminal law professor Orin Kerr told Reuters. The leaker could also face charges related to hacking an unauthorized government computer, depending on how the copy of the draft opinion was obtained, Reuters reported.


KEY BACKGROUND

The leak of the draft opinion to Politico in May, which Chief Justice John Roberts called a “betrayal of the confidences of the court,” was the first instance of a draft Supreme Court document reaching a news organization, putting the nation’s highest court in a precarious situation of how to address the information, and leaving questions about whether the court’s conservative majority would follow through by overturning the landmark case. The court overturned it just over a month later, leaving the legality of abortion up to states. One day after Politico’s bombshell report, Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the opinion was authentic, calling it a “singular and egregious breach of trust, and saying the court would investigate it. Roberts assigned Gail Curley, a former U.S. Army attorney and the Supreme Court’s marshal, to lead the investigation, and later brought in outside federal investigators to assist with it. In September, Justice Neil Gorsuch announced the court was planning to release a report on the investigation, adding that Roberts had also appointed an internal committee to oversee the probe.

quote:

recent law school graduates

What a surprise. Not!

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:

quote:

recent law school graduates

What a surprise. Not!

Apparently ethics is not a subject now taught in law school.

flashguy

https://hotair.com/ed-morrisse...ith-a-fizzle-n524959

The Supreme Court announced on Thursday that an internal investigation had failed to identify the person who leaked a draft of the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that had established a constitutional right to abortion.

In a 20-page report, the court’s marshal, responsible for overseeing the inquiry, said that investigators had conducted 126 formal interviews of 97 employees, all of whom had denied being the source of the leak. Investigators also found no forensic evidence by examining the court’s “computer devices, networks, printers and available call and text logs,” the report said.

Several employees of the court did admit to investigators, the report said, that they had told their spouses or partners about the draft opinion and the vote count in violation of the court’s confidentiality rules. But the investigation did not determine that any of those discussions led to a copy of the draft opinion becoming public.

Gee, what a surprise

If they didn't (or don't) subject the 'Small Number of Suspects' to a Polygraph, then they don't want to know who did it!

It would be too embarrassing to actually name the perp, so blame it on Space Aliens and let’s have done with it and move on to more important matters.

They will never find out who did it because they don’t want to find out and I honestly believe it was Kagan or Sotomayor themselves that did this.

If this had been a situation where the offender had political leanings to the right instead of the left, that person would be in a bag at the bottom of the Potomac.

Just a feeling. I have no idea why this thought occurred to me.

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
If they didn't (or don't) subject the 'Small Number of Suspects' to a Polygraph, then they don't want to know who did it!

I have no way of knowing what polygraph rules may apply to this investigation, but in my job there was a rule that polygraph exams could not be used for broad screening like that. The rule was that 1. there (supposedly) had to be probable cause to believe an individual was guilty and therefore could be examined, and 2. it had to be limited to one exam at a time. Therefore if the person was read as “no deception indicated,” then it was acceptable to go to someone else, but not before. If deception was indicated, then that was either accepted as enough to believe their guilt or not, but that was usually the end of the polys.

The reason for the “no screening” rule became apparent to me during the investigation of the theft of three M60 machine guns in Germany. In desperation at the lack of any other leads or indication of which GI(s) could have committed the theft, the no screening rule was suspended, and numerous individuals were given polygraph exams. Five came up as “deception indicated” about knowledge of the theft, including one whose failing score was the worst the examiner had ever seen. It was later conclusively proved that the theft had been committed by Germans who climbed over the fence of the compound and stole the guns that had been left unsecured and mounted on vehicles. None of those who failed their poly exams had anything to do with the theft or so much as any knowledge about it.

That incident put the nail in the coffin for any trust I had in the examinations, and my later experiences didn’t change my opinion as I’ve expressed before that for just fishing around to find someone to focus on, examining chicken guts for signs of someone’s guilt would be as effective and valid.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Gee, what a surprise

This ^^^^^

They know exactly who it was. Unfortunately, it was one of the leftists' clerks, or one of the leftists themselves.

quote:

Originally posted by Pyker:
They know exactly who it was. Unfortunately, it was one of the leftists' clerks, or one of the leftists themselves.

The practical effect of this is less trust between the justices themselves.
This makes it less likely that draft opinions will circulate between them before they are released.

quote:

Originally posted by 2BobTanner:
It would be too embarrassing to actually name the perp, so blame it on Space Aliens and let’s have done with it and move on to more important matters.

That doesn't make any sense. They wouldn't mind burning down a law clerk in the slightest.

Even the lefty judges don't want their clerks doing this.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
That doesn't make any sense.

There is no unsatisfactory outcome relating to anything that cannot be blamed on machinations of the evil leftists.

If it were discovered that a dinosaur-killer size asteroid was going to hit the Earth tomorrow, someone here would offer the explanation for why it wasn’t discovered in time to divert its path was that some “green” leftist had convinced everyone on the planet with a telescope to remain silent so that the planet could be cleansed of us horrible humans.

And as a recommendation for those who worship at the alter of the infallible polygraph, look up its use in catching spies. I know of at least two who were actively spying for Communist regimes and managed to “pass” the ones they were given. So not only do they falsely accuse the innocent, they exonerate the guilty and thereby help derail efforts to catch them—something else I personally witnessed.