It's time we start using the 13th Amendment to fight abortion bans.

[LonePirate]

We all know Roe will be history once 45 replaces Kennedy. Red states will hold special legislative sessions to ban abortion in all circumstances in order to expedite the court process that will conclude at the Supreme Court. For women, these bans are de facto involuntary servitude as they are state mandates requiring pregnancies be carried to term. Involuntary servitude is explicitly prohibited by the 13th Amendment.

We need to use every tool at our disposal to fight these fascists and our best tool is the Constitution itself.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

1. Why not?...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_servitude


The Libertarian Party of the United States and other libertarians consider military conscription to be involuntary servitude in the sense of the Thirteenth Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed with that interpretation in Arver v. United States, relying on text of Article I and the prerequisites of sovereignty. Some libertarians consider compulsory schooling involuntary servitude. John Taylor Gatto, a retired schoolteacher and libertarian activist critical of compulsory schooling writes of what he terms "The Cult Of Forced Schooling".[3] Many libertarians consider income taxation a form of involuntary servitude. Republican Congressman Ron Paul has described income tax as "a form of involuntary servitude,[4] and has written, "... things like Selective Service and the income tax make me wonder how serious we really are in defending just basic freedoms.[5]

Some have also argued that, should Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), be overturned by the United States Supreme Court, a constitutional right to abortion could still be sustained on the basis that denying it would subject women to involuntary servitude contrary to the Thirteenth Amendment.[6] However, no U.S. court has yet accepted such an argument.[7] Differing views have been expressed as to whether the argument is so unpersuasive as to be "frivolous".[8] One major difficulty with the argument relates to the claim that pregnancy and child-bearing are within the scope of the term "servitude".[9]

[CrispyQ]

2. Here's the best paper I've found on the topic:

The 13th Amendment

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1031&context=facultyworkingpapers

2010
Forced Labor, Revisited: The Thirteenth
Amendment and Abortion
Andrew Koppelman
Northwestern University School of Law, [e-mail]

I. The basic argument
The Thirteenth Amendment reads as follows:
1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,
shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their
jurisdiction.
2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.

My claim is that the amendment is violated by laws that prohibit abortion. When women are compelled to carry and bear children, they are subjected to "involuntary servitude" in violation of the amendment. 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."6

Such laws violate the amendment's guarantee of equality, because forcing women to be mothers makes them into a servant caste, a group which, by virtue of a status of birth, is held subject to a special duty to serve others and not themselves.

This argument makes available two responses to the standard defense of such prohibitions, the claim that the fetus is a person. The first is that even if this is so, its right to the continued aid of the woman does not follow. As Judith Jarvis Thomson observes, "having a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the use of or a right to be allowed continued use of another person's body -- even if one needs it for life itself."7

Giving fetuses a legal right to the continued use of their mothers' bodies would be precisely what the Thirteenth Amendment forbids. The second response is that since abortion prohibitions infringe on the fundamental right to be free of involuntary servitude, the burden is on the state to show that the violation of this right is justified. Since the thesis that the fetus is, or should at least be considered, a person seems impossible to prove (or to refute), this is a burden that the state cannot carry. If we are not certain that the fetus is a person, then the mere possibility that it might be is not enough to justify violating women's Thirteenth Amendment rights by forcing them to be
mothers.

When you take away a woman's control of her body, you take away her control of her life. That is what these vile (mostly) men want. This isn't about precious babies, it's about taking women's control of their life away.

The most important decision a woman can make isn't yours.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Most people on the choice side of the argument

would agree that forced child bearing is involuntary servitude. However, the anti-choice people simply don't see it that way. They see it as protecting the life of the unborn. Two completely different and entirely separate arguments. There simply is no common ground between the two.

And don't forget that for a long time sincere Christians used Biblical quotes to support slavery.

[Recursion]

4. Guess what body will adjudicate those 13th amendment claims?

That's right...