Are Fetal Heartbeat Laws Constitutional? (and the History of Roe v. Wade) -- Real Law Review 

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I’m sure the comment section will be civil and rational.

"offering mandatory counselling" Its not much of an offer then

Comstock: Having fun? The people: Yes! Comstock: Well, that ends today!

I wish my law lecturers were as articulate and interesting as you when I was in college.

A wish for an episode of Real Law Review: Sovereign citizens. Would love to watch your head explode dismantling their arguments like: "I'm not driving, I'm travelling". Or why Black's Law Dictionary might not be the best source for what you are and are not allowed to do.

Thank you for keeping the comments section open!

Okay, I know you're not an immigration lawyer, but I'd love to see your take on this: Is Superman an illegal immigrant?

"Fetal heartbeat" here meaning electrical activity can be measured coming from differentiated pacemaker cells in the human embryo at about six weeks (they create the rhythmic contractions in cardiac muscles). Not that there is any cardiac muscle to contract at that point. The fetal heart won't differentiate into four distinguishable chambers until sometime early in the second trimester, and cardiac muscle won't begin to rhythmically contract to actively pump blood through the fetus' circulatory system until sometime in the fifth month.

Gotta love people saying things like “ho this is gonna be a toxic comment section” not realizing that basically everyone else is just posting the same thing.

Are people really surprised he has an opinion on the matter and expresses it? Given the clear breaches and constrictions of women's rights, it isn't unreasonable to be alarmed about the consequences of these laws.

"Alabama's law contains no exception for pregnancies that were the results of rape or incest." Sweet home Alabama!

I honestly don't care what side of this debate you're on. Legal eagle has balls just for talking about this issue. Awesome.

Can you do a video about laws broken in a spy movie, and hold Stella like a Bond villain as you do it? Please

"How we did get here?" Legal Eagle: Let's start with the Big Bang

quick question. If life is codified as a having a heartbeat would that also lead to end of life medical decisions like removing someone clinically dead, but with a heartbeat from life support also potentially murder?

I'm going to share my opinion. It is intended only for those who can be respectful. It is NOT meant to start arguments, although civil discussions are fine. People say abortion is a complicated issue, but I don't see what's so complicated about it. In the US we have a right to bodily autonomy; this means that even in life or death situations we can not be forced to let someone else use our body. It's why we can't be forced to give blood or be an organ donor. Again, this still applies in life or death situations. You don't owe someone your body even if they will die without using it. This is a simple concept. Your body, your decisions. To take away that right from anyone gives them fewer rights than a corpse. "But what about the baby's rights?" Well a fetus/unborn baby doesn't get to have more rights than anyone else. The same law that prevents people from being forced to give blood when a disaster hits means women don't have to let someone grow inside them. I encourage anyone reading this to look up the dangers of pregnancy, but I'll provide some links. Here is an article about a more extreme situation in which someone (a child in this case) was forced to carry to term: www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2015/8/21/9183529/pregnancy-risks This article has a video showing how pregnancy compresses the mother's organs and how they suddenly drop (life long problems from this are fairly common) after giving birth: www.parents.com/pregnancy/my-body/heres-what-really-happens-inside-your-body-during-pregnancy/ And this article goes over some of the most common size effects of pregnancy: www.womenshealth.gov/pregnancy/youre-pregnant-now-what/body-changes-and-discomforts I'm on mobile right now, but I may add more from my computer another time. Mobile websites are a pain to deal with. Of course there are also women who want their baby but find out it's already dead, dying, it will live a short/painful life with a medical condition like cystic fibrosis, or they themselves will die if they carry to term. I read a particularly emotional story about a women who was pressured into carrying to term by her church after finding out she and the baby would both die. The story was writen by her husband, who after losing his wife and watching his baby die over the course of a few painful hours was left a single parent to his already born daughter. That is what happens when women are expected to put their unborn baby above everyone else. If you're against abortion I suggest you focus on what's been proven to reduce abortions; comprehensive sex ed (abstinence only has been proven to increase teen pregnancy btw) and easy access to birth control. If no one got pregnant when they didn't want to abortions would only happen when the life of the mother is at risk, the baby is (as mentioned above) dead/dying, or in cases of rape. In conclusion, no one owes their body to someone else and preventing unwanted pregnancy is the best way to reduce abortions. Civil discussion is fine but as mentioned at the beginning of this comment arguments (name calling, ignoring facts, trying to merge religion and law despite their being a seperation of church and state, etc.) are not. Edit: something I forgot to mention. It's true that one method of abortion is to rip the fetus apart piece by piece. This is because pro-life actisitist got the standard method of removing the in tact fetus banned. Now women who wanted their babies do not get to hold the body and mourn. This is an example of anti-abortion laws doing more harm than good.

OBJECTION! Anthony Comstock never served as US Postmaster General, he was only a Postal Inspector 4:36

The question I've seen, with regards to the legal personhood of an unborn fetus, is if the fetus is given legal personhood are the parent(s) allowed to take out a life insurance policy on said fetus and in the event of a miscarriage are they able to cash in that life insurance policy?

One of my ex-girlfriends was pregnant with her previous boyfriend. That time she had to take serious medication for other reasons. They told her that the baby would be grievously sick and or stillborn. Her boyfriend left her when he heard this. After that She decided to have an abortion. When we met she only told me her story when we were together for a year. It took me almost six months to convince her that she is not a monster and above all: she is not a killer. She is just a person who had to make an inhumanly hard decision alone. So this is my opinion on the subject: until the point where it’s safe to do the procedure it is the woman’s decision. No matter of the circumstances of the conception. The state, the country or the church (any church) can NOT have a say in this matter. Only the woman can decide. No one else has the right to do so. No one.

This is even scarier after RBG passed away and was replaced by Barrett.

The death penalty for having an abortion. Irony at its finest.

1:24 objection, stella has no more screen time

i find it ridiculous that "pro life" people justify the death penalty for someone who gets an abortion, especially when they claim that the law is to protect human life. like, are we just going to let them ignore the fact that pregnant people are people too?

as a native born Georgia boy i am firmly disgusted by these laws and in fact any law that violates anyone's bodily autonomy.

LegalEagle: "Well, how did we get here? It's a warm summers evening, circa 600BC. You've finished your shopping at the local market, or agora..." xD

1:59 Objection. All week counts in these court decisions refer to gestational age, not time since fertilization. Gestational age is calculated based on the first day of the last period that the mother had. That begins roughly two weeks prior to fertilization.

sometimes you can just to smell the demonetization

1:56 Objection: [heartbeat] "can happen as early a 6 weeks after fertilization" - Not 6, only 4! 6 weeks of "pregnancy" is 4 weeks after fertilization, because pregnancy is measured from last menstrual period. For a woman with clockwork cycles, that is 2 weeks after a missed period. Most women don't have precise 28-day cycles. it's perfectly normal for a woman for have a 23-day cycle followed by a 35-day cycle.

Thanks for actually explaining what RvW and PPvC actually did. For the longest time, listening to both sides of the debate, I had assumed both cases simply allowed for abortion, no limits allowed. I was under the impression that laws which restricted access to abortion in any way (apart from laws about funding/insurance) were not allowed (or that, if they were passing XYZ abortion law in my state, that it would only apply if RvW were overturned) And I got that impression both from the right and the left while in a student/intern position with the state senate(!?) So, thank you for making what these cases actually did so clear!

All hail the Queen of the comment section, Stella! May her Reign Last for a thousand years

"anti-sex crusaders" Guys... Who hurt you?

A couple of scientific issues that you did not cover in the video are that 6 weeks post-fertilization is still the embryonic stage (the fetal stage is basically the one that looks distinctly human) and that although the area where electrical activity is detected *is* where the heartbeat will eventually originate from, at 6 weeks, the heart itself has not yet formed.

Oh boy the legal beagle is going to have drop a lot of ban hammers on this one...

This is a good presentation - very concise and to the point. This is worth watching no matter which side of the issue you support.

I'll never understand the human inability to separate oneself from the collective whole. While *I* am personally "pro-life" I'm also a strong supporter of "Pro-choice" for everyone who is NOT me, and seeing as how I'll never be pregnant I feel woefully ill-equipped to make this kind of decision for someone who IS capable of bearing children regardless of whether or not they want to. Rest assured that anyone who is TRYING to get pregnant is not likely to then seek out an abortion, this leaves the people who are NOT trying to get pregnant, and it's definitely not my place (or anyone else's) to FORCE someone else to do anything they don't want to do with their bodies. PERIOD. I'm disgusted by the idea that anywhere in America it may even be POSSIBLE for a rapist to force their victims legally to bear their child.

Thank you for doing this. This is one of the best breakdowns of the history of the issue at hand I think I've ever heard. Not surprisingly, though inconvenient, solid data on this subject is hard to come by unless someone is really good at research which, in a legal sense, I am not. Your time, it should be noted, is quite valuable and I sincerely hope that you find compensation commensurate with your skills and professional investment. I normally am very much on one side of this issue, but your thorough and appropriately neutral description has, at once, both challenged and inspired me to remain the same - at least here. However, what I will do is use your video to help (hopefully where appropriate and acceptable) educate and bring light to exactly what you have - the matter at hand. I seriously wish I had found this back when the comments were less enumerated (so... within the first 20 seconds) so I'd have a better chance at getting this read - not for any other reason except my request. What I've never understood is how the U.S. (as compared to other nations) decides citizens' rights vs. human rights with regard to people who break the law who are either non-citizens or in-process to become citizens. It's not necessary to get too much into other nations laws, but I know that some places have (it appears) a much more strict application of certain laws towards non-citizens as opposed to citizens. Here in the U.S., I don't see it as clearly. What I promise to do is subscribe and (maybe just once) 'release stalk' you so I can ask the question again. I know that immigration is a volatile subject - perhaps an impartial breakdown of some of the more basic legal principles would help in the same manner as this video, I judge, has. Thank you.

Quite a current issue and a much needed topic to be covered by an actual lawyer.

I loved your explanation of the history on the subject.

I look at pro choice the way they did on Star Trek: The Next Generation. As the senior staff argued about whether or not to terminate Deanna Troi's mysterious pregnancy, she said, "Do what you have to do to protect the ship. But know this; I'm having this baby. CAPTAIN PICARD: Then the discussion...is over. It is the WOMAN'S choice whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term or not, in consultation with her doctor, and maybe her chosen deity. That is all.

This was an excellent overview of the issues at play and reminded me of my class on Constitutional Law. I highly recommend reading the underlying decisions for those wanting a deeper understanding of Griswald, Roe, and Casey.

Glad to see a video from you on this topic. I needed to hear about this from someone who understands the legal aspects of this stuff to understand it better.

Not to get political, but...could you do a video about the Hatch Act and whether speech from a federal employee disparaging a political party is a violation of the law or whether it is protected free speech? I'm sincerely wondering about the interpretation, based on my reading of the act. Seems like the intent of the law was to prohibit "campaigning", which seems like a different thing.

I feel like those that find abortions to be distasteful or objectionable shouldn't get them, but also shouldn't prevent other people from having access to an important medical procedure.

I'm not even from America, but i'm happy to see an excellent review of a situation that seriously needs more discussion, and from a man who knows the law through and through, no less :)

Well done on doing a very controversial topic

Oh man. Poor Stella. She’s gonna need some good belly scratches after reading the comments that are gonna pop up on here.

The fact that anti-family planning laws were enforced as late as 1961 is mind-boggling.

And then Comstock build a flying city.

In my opinion, I don't support abortions due to my religious beliefs. I believe that adoption is a much better alternative. But, my beliefs should never prevent another's choice that involves their own life and body. I highly encourage birth control though to prevent a situation from ever arising in the first place. And of course, abortion should always be legal in cases where there is a high chance of the mother dieing, the person is underage, rape, and incest.

Really great video. Learned a lot from this one. One of the better Real Law reviews and good on you for having the guts to make such a video at a time like this!

0:13 Objection: a court ruling can't grant a Constitutional right. It can only make declarations about what rights already exist in law (whether that law is the Constitution or other laws).

But if a fetus is to be regarded as a legal person, does that not mean that they are liable to indictment for mental and physical damages to the mother through negligence?

No comments or objections. That was an incredibly informative, balanced, and spot on legal analysis of the history of abortion laws and what’s going on right now. Well done.

OBJECTION! You made no mention of the "Right to Bodily Integrity", which gives woman access to abortion WITHOUT LIMITATION.

I love the way you bring the facts and not really politize it. Also the way you can make it understandable is great. Keep up the good work.

Thank you for doing your best to elaborate on the specifics of the law while also providing essential context on a controversial topic

Thank you. This is an excellent video explaining this situation.

Well handled video. This is an extremely sensitive subject and you did an incredible job of explaining the situation as it stands from a legal perspective. You show a very calm demeanor and discipline in keeping the comments section open - particularly after the visceral reaction to your last video (Capt. Marvel). After the vitriolic response to that... I shuddered at what I may see here. Though so far.... I have hope yet. :)

Wow I loved this video. I thought the history of this legal issue was explained so well and in an unbiased way and I feel better informed than I did before.

I’m new to your channel and definitely not a lawyer but I’ve always enjoyed learning about the law. This channel makes me feel like I’m getting my learn on even tho I’m in the house all day now even for work. Thanks to covid. Great work on this channel !

When are we getting a ''top 10 law documentaries you must watch''?

Lets not try to demonetize Legal Eagle for telling impartial facts RU-vid.

I really appreciate that you presented the facts with almost no personal opinions. It's a difficult topic but it's so helpful to hear the facts and that is rarely what people want to talk about. Thank you!

In an attempt to lighten the mood after such a heavy topic, I'd like to recommend that you do a review of Thomas Sanders' video "Selfishness vs. Selflessness | Sander Sides". I'd like to see what you think of Sanders clearly making a courtroom scene for the sake of entertainment while at the same time showing that he has some understanding of how courts operate.

Thank you for discussing Casey. Whenever people ask me about Roe, I always direct them to Casey instead. It is a much better reasoned decision.

law is so convoluted… I feel like I have to watch these videos several times to completely comprehend everything discussed. Things get pretty complicated

Great video as always. Not as fun as when you take on television shows like Suits (need to do more episodes), but very informative. I wish everyone would watch this video to understand this topic better. Thanks for making these informative videos along with you entertaining videos like the aforementioned Suits

My take on abortion is simple: her body, her choice. Her life, her choice. As far as I'm concerned, abortion is society's last desperate attempt to suppress women by controlling their fertility.

Always look forward to your videos!

Thank you for such an informative, rational, and calm explanation on a very controversial issue. I never thought I'd watch videos on US law, but your channel is fantastic! Keep up the good work :)

No man should decide how a woman lives her life.

I really enjoy your videos and thank you for making them. It’s always helpful to get an educated perspective on the law, even in the context of fiction. Would it be possible to get your view on the Alex Jones depositions as many of the questions were very leading. I realise that it’s acceptable in a deposition but it seemed that most responses were stated to be “objection refused to answer” regardless of how the question was answered. Your perspective would be welcomed.

when politicians knowingly write and pass laws that are illegal, against the Constitution they should personally be held financially responsible for the expenses when the suits are filed. I am talking about the many laws struck down because they are blatantly against many laws, and the politicians openly admitted they knew the law was going to get struck down.

Can you talk about what's happening in Hong Kong?

"How did we get here?"- "Do you have 90 minutes?"

So, I live in Georgia. Let's say these new laws stay. If I were to get pregnant this year, wouldn't I be able to collect 2019 tax returns for having a dependent? I'm assuming I'd have to be at least 6 weeks pregnant by December 31, and it would definitely be considered a dependent and a citizen by then. I mean, if we're going to have to suffer through these laws, might as well make the government pay, am I right? Lol

Ah, the ban gavel. And now the comments section makes sense.

As a general rule, forcing someone who doesn't want to be a parent to be a parent is a bad idea. While I'm sure there are exceptions, that's just not a winning formula creating happy, healthy childhoods, and - by extension - well-adjusted, productive adults.

18:59 Do you have the text for that in the Georgia law? I didn't see it myself when reading it. If the law doesn't state it, is it fair to characterize it that way? Maybe you could link to all these laws?

Thanks for doing the breakdown of this. But I would add one point, the abortion issue was did not become one until Regans strategist needed the votes. Since then it kind of ebbs and flows , but this is as close to reversal as I’ve seen in 30+ years. It’s dangerous, if someone is pro-life then don’t have an abortion, but to try control the very personal decision is madness. As a final thought, if states want fewer abortions they ought to open their minds to comprehensive sex Ed.

Oh buckling up and getting some popcorn ready for this one. 🍿

Sadly the rich and well off will never suffer from these laws. People with money will just go to states or countries where abortion is legal. It’s the poor that will suffer because they have fewer options.

It breaks my heart. My workplace feels hostile because my coworkers are very vocal (bringing up their moral beliefs of anti abortion) to the point I don't want to even go into work anymore. I am military so I cannot just up and quit.

I’m so glad you made a more important video first, but i would really like to see you break down the daredevil trial of the punisher, i think it would be interesting

Hey, could you teach my history class? I'd gladly listen to you talk about the constitution for hours. You make it bearable somehow

You know...I'm subscribed because I like your content. I wasn't really sure that I cared to listen to 26 minutes about this, and yet found myself willing to listen to your entire presentation. Congratulations! and thank you. :)

Um, yeah. As passionately as I feel about this topic, I’m not gonna debate with a lawyer. However, that being said, I found this video to be educational and informative. Now, if only I could retain all that information.

*Please review "Anatomy of a Murder" with James Stewart. My favorite is "Inherit the Wind" with Spencer Tracy. Please proceed with these at your earliest convenience.*

All of your videos are entertaining, but this real law segment is important. Thank you for making these sometimes esoteric cases digestible in a fun and unbiased way.

Best explanation of the legal remifications of abortion I've heard. Very professional and makes me think more critically about my pro-life possition.

As an adult with Developmental Trauma Disorder (A.K.A Childhood Complex PTSD), I am very concerned (and pretty angry) about the terrible damage that parents often cause. So, I have to wonder (and fear) what kind of inadequate nurturing these children will get. And, it worries me the political perspective of those involved in these debates. Just think of which factions support the kind of social programs that protect children versus those who want to force children into a world with weak to non-existent social programs. (Oh, and it's known that these kinds of things do affect higher crime rates among those raised with inadequate nurturing.)

I'd say it's more accurate to say anti-abortionists are more concerned with establishing precedent of what legally qualifies as life than they are of overturning Roe v. Wade. To my knowledge, it's not something that SCOTUS has ruled on.

Can you do a video on the meaning of the separation of church and state? Because wouldn't a legal choice based on the personal religious beliefs of a lawmaker or other official be unconstitutional?

I would like to see you cover in the future any of the following Courtroom films: Inherit the Wind Judgement at Nuremberg The Verdict Anatomy of a Murder Witness for the Prosecution 12 Angry Men to name a few. If one or any are possible I would greatly appreciate it!

I am grateful that you tried to keep your opinions out of the video, even though I could definitely see which side you came down on. I wish you had also covered laws recently passed by other states that violated current precedent by making partial birth abortion legal. This is not just a matter of southern states wanting to make abortion less accessible, but it is a tug-of-war between various states with opposing ideals. Yes Alabama went really far one way, but Illinois went just as far in the opposite direction and that should be addressed.

A great breakdown of a super tricky topic - both ethically and legally. Thank you.

Is there a mobile app extension for Tabs for a Cause? I don’t have WiFi, I only use my phone or tablet for browsing the internet, but I do appreciate the concept of it.

Every comment here is preparing for the war, but nobody is willing to fire the first shot

Spousal notification is not the same thing as notifying the father. The father might be someone other than her spouse, or she might not have a spouse at all.