I’m not sure there’s ever been a more succinct explanation of tolerance than the first two paragraphs of Scott Alexander’s essay, I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup. In Chesterton’s The Secret of Father Brown, a beloved nobleman who murdered his good-for-nothing brother in a duel thirty years ago returns to his hometown wracked by guilt. All the townspeople want to forgive him immediately, and they mock the titular priest for only being willing to give a measured forgiveness conditional on penance and self-reflection. […]
Although I dislike the anti-choice position, I can have some empathy with those who believe it's murder. It *is* life starting at conception. Does 'God' have a problem with it? I don't know, the Bible isn't clear on it. Jesus never had anything to say about it unless no one bothered to write it down. It was absolutely going on in his time, with herbs rather than physicians.
But, I get what the abortion-is-murder crowd - those who actually believe that, not the ones who say it for political purposes - and I can't fault the logic that it's *always* wrong even if conceived by rape. It's not the baby's fault, right? The Catholic Church goes too far in only mandating (however unobserved by the laity) that sex is *only* for procreation, but it is, in a certain spiritual sense, understandable. However, I think that would fall under a higher morality that most people don't attain unless they're monks, nuns or mystics (generic religious refererence here). Just as I think ascetism is something might strive for if one has dedicated one's life to spirituality and holiness, but it shouldn't be *mandated*.
I do, however, question whether anyone has a 'right to life', and the world is full of many people who've wished their mother had simply had an abortion. Life may be sacred, but it's also damn hard and it can be a real nightmare for many for reasons that have nothing to do with them. So I question whether anyone has a 'right' to be born, and I also argue every child should be a *wanted* child. And that, in a better world, people would think about what they're getting into before they make a baby. And consider whether they're really up to the task, because not everyone is.
I'd like to see abortion made unnecessary which most 'pro-lifers' are unwilling to do. They actually create more abortions with their anti-sex, anti-birth control, anti-education attitudes. Those that fight hard to make sex riskier fight hard to ensure the need for abundant abortion clinics.
"I'd like to see abortion made unnecessary which most 'pro-lifers' are unwilling to do."
Yep, this is also a really important angle that the "pro-lifers" never engage with. Access to contraception seems like it'll come under fire next. And it's like, "what??!! You want to end abortion but you also want to limit access to contraception? Leading to many more unwanted babies?" It's just pure religious fanaticism.
As for the "abortion is murder" crowd, yeah, I also have some empathy with their position. Just as I have empathy with the "meat is murder" crowd. I think these people should be able to make the choices that feel right for them. But I don't think, unless they have some objective, scientific basis for their feelings, that they should be able to dictate how other people live their lives.
I don't think it's a politically feasible plank even if Thomas has wet dreams about rolling this back. It's easy for him to argue that the ruling was a poor one and want to tidy up because he'll never have to face the consequences of living in a state where BC gets outlawed.
What difference does it make? If the Court rolls back Griswold, we'll be as BC-less as we now are largely abortin-less.
I wish the right was as quick to outlaw going to another state to get 'gender affirming care' for one's kid as the were for those seeking legal abortions.
They won't roll it back. The only one who has even hinted at this is Thomas. There are some repubes who would like to see this happen but it's far too regressive. You have to keep in mind whether things are politically feasible or not. This one isn't.
They'll find a way if enough are on board. Remember when we thought Roe was here to stay? Never underestimate how much many men (and not always conservatives) hate female freedom. And freedom from unwanted, life-limiting childbearing lies at the heart of everything 'wrong' with feminism. Never say never.
Interestingly, in my overseas travels, the racks with aspirin and potato chips in hotel lobbies have birth control pills hanging on the racks. You are an adult in Shanghai or Bangkok, but not in New York.
Love this. It's both thoughtful and practical. And yes, self-control is not the best policy to curb abortion since sex isn't rational. Flooding the commons with birth control would be a great approach ( I think the best compromise would be that certain types be dispensed for free, tbh ), but then the anti's wouldn't get to shame women for their promiscuity - which some of them really get off on.
To me, it comes down to this: I am the one paying the cost of the bringing the life into the world - particularly if the father has abdicated the responsibility, which is all too common. I should have the right to review my resources and capabilities and make a rational decision about whether I can support this human being for 18 years or not. Animals in the wild will kill their young if resources or conditions are lacking. Why can't I have these same rights? Because humans are different? Or answer to a higher power? (Prove it.) Or, because it's squicky? I still haven't heard a good reason why the government has the right to reduce my rights during pregancy and take control of my body by leveraging force of law and gun to coerce me to do something I don't wish to do. Do I own myself or not? I know this is a loaded question with so many caveats and edge cases that it's almost ridiculous.
And every child should be wanted. I know the cost of bringing unwanted children into the world. I was one of them and I never once had a parent that championed my welfare in a healthy way and I've endured/survived all the types of parents there are - bio, foster, adoptive. I have suffered greatly from the canard that all life is sacred. It's not if you don't belong to a tribe, and even then, this perk is provisional - based on whether you follow the rules or not. People just don't care about progeny that isn't their blood. I'm looking at you Sophie Lewis! Community rearing of children indeed. The fights over who pays would be monumental, particularly once the child reaches college age. It always boils down to cash.
I would relent to some degree on this somewhat hardcore position if men were held accountable for their part in procreation. But, they aren't, for the most part, outside of some nasty custody battles - but that's the ones that want their children (and to be fair, some women are horrible mothers). It's not a tidy formula. But, many, many men do not take responsibility and face zero consequences for this choice.
And finally, because it's so complicated, because their are no pat answers, because the stakes are so high, because people's morality is all over the map, because we can't agree, because bringing an unwanted child into the world has a seriously high cost - especially for the child, I think it boils down to the choice of the people with actual standing on the issue - the mother and father of the potential child. Everyone else needs to butt out. We can futz and compromise over how far along it can occur, but the window needs to stay open.
I can't express how much this irritates me. "Life began" billions of years ago in the primordial ocean. Are gametes dead? Do they acquire a mystical "life force" upon union? I don't share your determination, Steve, to find some way to respect nearly everyone, but the compulsive expression of idiocies like this ensures I will never have cause to change my mind.
Second, I have zero moral qualms about abortion. I just don't see any issue for one simple reason: there is no consciousness being eliminated. I see vastly greater sin in euthanizing a healthy cat than in ending the life of a fetus that is months away from self-awareness, or even mindless taxic response. It is consciousness, experience, and thought, that is the fundamental immorality of murder, not the fact of its species. This is my firm belief.
Yet most people wouldn't have a moment of reflection at having a cat PTS because treatment costs a few more dollars.
In the end, "pro-life" is founded on "humans are special." Since I do not share that view (go to a mall or a bowling alley if you doubt), I find the "sanctity of human life" to be a religious absurdity. OK, I am not religious and I am savagely misanthropic but I have almost ever had reason to change my mind about either.
Legally. I have to accept five-minutes-before-birth, because that is a clear and clean division. Morally, not so much, not with the evidence that infants in the womb respond to sounds and to music. I would much rather all abortions were while the fetus has a tail.
But anyone who passionately opposes abortion and who would leave a pet to starve in the woods is someone I wouldn't throw a life preserver to.
"I have zero moral qualms about abortion. I just don't see any issue for one simple reason: there is no consciousness being eliminated."
Yeah, here's the sticky point for me and I think most people who are pro-choice but also kind of centrist on the issue. I completely agree with you that the issue of murder is about consciousness rather than the species. But consciousness is a pretty slippery concept.
I think most people would agree that a baby is conscious. And most would equally agree that a fertilised egg isn't. Something mysterious happens between those two points and I've never heard a good answer as to *when* it happens.
Morally speaking, I'd like to err on the side of "definitely not conscious" side of things (which is why I have no qualms about dismissing the "5 minutes before birth" people). But alongside that, I want there to be as much leeway as possible for women to control their destinies and their bodies.
Again, the frustrating thing is that Roe had all of this pretty well balanced in my opinion.
I am going to reveal something I don't talk about much.
I remember becoming self-aware. At this point I am remembering the remembering but there was one time when I was breast-feeding and crying when I suddenly had the thought, translating to words, "why am I crying?" A moment before I had been nothing but drives. Suddenly there was someone there. I was put on the floor and I crawled and began to lay down memories.
I am not making this up. I clearly remember awakening to self-awareness. I won't call it consciousness.
When I search for fMRI (functional MRI) and fetuses, I get the impression that your magic consciousness point is around 4-5 months, depending upon exactly what parts of the brain a particular study is examining.
Not to badmouth my Christian anti-abortion crusader friend but it is interesting that when he was in the Navy he served in a nuclear submarine with a mission, if ordered by the government, to launch nuclear missiles to wherever.
Nukes are not a precision, they kill everyone in their radius, including pregnant women. I don't know if that generated cognitive dissonance in him. Thou shalt not kill unless the government says so.
The issue from my perspective is that everyone wants their moral perspective enshrined in federal law.
Morality does not come from the top (i.e. law) down. Morality is defined by the culture and laws are created to align with that culture.
The divided states does not have a common culture that can support the overbearing federal government the country has today. The only answer is to get morality out of the federal government and have states and ideally communities define laws based on their culture.
Assume that their is a path to keep the broken federal government and constitution is the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing and expecting different results. Its no wonder the country is going insane.
"The issue from my perspective is that everyone wants their moral perspective enshrined in federal law."
Yeah, I think this is broadly the problem. What needs to be enshrined in law, especially on issues like this, is tolerance. I understand people who feel a moral objection to abortion. I just don't think they should be able to dictate, on purely moralistic grounds, how other people get to live their lives.
So if the argument is that it should be illegal to get an elective abortion at 6 months because the baby objectively an independent lie form at that stage, I can get behind that. But if it's that abortion should be illegal in all cases because "my friend in the sky says so" that's a different matter.
It seems reasonable to me to allow elective abortion until coordinated brain activity can be detected in a fetal brain; this is apparently around 20 weeks in.
That's for completely elective abotion. But critically, continuing even a wanted pregnancy can sometimes endanger a woman's health, so permitting abortions to preserve the health of the mother throughout pregnancy is important.
AFAICT, once viability is reached, at 24 weeks or so, healthy fetuses don't get aborted, they get delivered. All this talk about aborting babies 5 minutes before their due date is just made up BS.
IOW, there are reasonable compromises, which actually don't look very different from Roe -- elective abortion is OK in the first 4 months, or to preserve the health of the mother. If something goes wrong with the pregnancy and the fetus is past viability, deliver the baby (unless this is impossible, which I've never heard).
It is important when writing laws that a doctor performing a medically necessary abortion is protected if *the doctor* believes that an abortion is necessary. Some red state "exceptions" don't specify who makes this determination, allowing prosecutors to second guess doctors. This is how the anti-choice legislators make exceptions that look good on paper but that doctors can't actually make use of.
"That's for completely elective abotion. But critically, continuing even a wanted pregnancy can sometimes endanger a woman's health, so permitting abortions to preserve the health of the mother throughout pregnancy is important."
Oh yeah, absolutely. Life-of-the-mother and foetal abnormality exceptions are just no-brainers as far as I'm concerned. It's shocking to me that anybody would argue otherwise.
I think there's lots of room for good-faith disagreement around viability vs brain activity vs foetal heartbeat. That could be a sane, science based conversation. The problem is the people who think their subjective feelings should be allowed to govern other people's lives.
The problem with those who don't support "health of the mother" exceptions is that they claim that they *do* support those exceptions, but when you read the text of the laws, you find that instead of a doctor's being able to rely on their own best judgement, the laws in the red states leave out exactly who's judgement is determinative. Which means that a prosecutor can supply their own opinion of how to treat a medical emergency. On top of that, some red states allow these exceptions not as part of the definition of an illegal abortion, but only as an affirmative defense, meaning the doctor is guilty of the crime, but once present in a court, can raise this as a defense; that increases the cost of defending oneself significantly.
As for fetal heartbeat bills, there are two problems. First, they frequently require a decision by 6 weeks, which is before many women know they're pregnant. More importantly, a fetus has a heartbeat way before it is conscious or has any real brain activity. And while a heartbeat *sounds* vaguely like an interesting developmental stage, it really has no connection to anything like feeling pain, being conscious, or having high level brain activity. After all, when someone has a heart transplant we don't treat it as assisted suicide. The heart is just one more organ, although an important one.
Part of the problem is reaction to disingenuous arguments. "It's about the woman's body." That would be called suicide. Abortion doesn't stop the woman's heart. Pro-abortion people hate pictures of fetuses or aborted babies precisely because they look like babies. Undeniably so. Yet I am pro-choice, within the reason you spoke of. The issue isn't just the nine months of pregnancy, there is also eighteen years of responsibility. A responsibility that many are not ready for, with disastrous results. As for the aborted baby pictures, I see them as a loathsome effort to emotionally torment women who have had abortions because for all but a very few, it is a painful emotional choice that in some cases brings lifelong regret. It is cruel. What forgiveness is in that?
When we adopted our niece since it was an international adoption, we paid for the services of an adoption organization. They were about adopting healthy Chinese girls during China's one child policy or wanting a baby (white) that looked like them, Russian babies that had health issues in orphanages. Why not adopt in the US? The birth mother, depending upon the State, have a certain amount of time to change their mind and taking a baby out of an adoptive parent's arms to give it to the birth mother who changed her mind is heart wrenching. You also must deal with the social workers who burrow into your past. My wife was in tears having to dredge up her horrible childhood with the social worker. Nothing is as clean and simple as we wish it to be.
I truly get MXM's lack of trust issue. Like with the gun control people with "We only want..." until they get it. And then the Arab story of the camel's nose comes to mind. With a rebel yell, they cry more, more, more! With 3rd rail issues there is no trust. The only way to solve it is for the two sides to choose a champion and throw them into a pit with a machete in their hand to settle it with a death match. Tolerance is in short supply.
Dave Murray: " Yet I am pro-choice, within the reason you spoke of. The issue isn't just the nine months of pregnancy, there is also eighteen years of responsibility. A responsibility that many are not ready for, with disastrous results."
You echo my dad, who was an LA County criminal prosecutor and for 17 years a Superior Court criminal judge. He saw those "disastrous results" every working day.
And you are absolutely right, even if your comment says "pro-abortion." Nobody is "pro-abortion." It's a "painful emotional choice" that necessarily needs to be available for the reasons you and my dad articulated. The only really sound arguments against it are religious and those don't belong in the political sphere in a secular government.
Nobody is telling pro-life people to get an abortion. The truth with the pro-life movement is, at bottom, that it doesn't believe in a secular government.
Correct on "pro-abortion." While there are attention seekers like the idiot actress with a shirt boasting her multiple abortions. For most it is a painful decision that they keep to themselves.
I think there is something insane in demanding that a woman be forced to give birth. Nasty diatribes about "inconvenience" and "keeping her legs together" .. have these people no experience with sex?
Never mind that last part.
If she can't afford to have a child, that's as good a reason as fetal deformity.
Besides, we 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 err on the side of lower birth rate.
Although I dislike the anti-choice position, I can have some empathy with those who believe it's murder. It *is* life starting at conception. Does 'God' have a problem with it? I don't know, the Bible isn't clear on it. Jesus never had anything to say about it unless no one bothered to write it down. It was absolutely going on in his time, with herbs rather than physicians.
But, I get what the abortion-is-murder crowd - those who actually believe that, not the ones who say it for political purposes - and I can't fault the logic that it's *always* wrong even if conceived by rape. It's not the baby's fault, right? The Catholic Church goes too far in only mandating (however unobserved by the laity) that sex is *only* for procreation, but it is, in a certain spiritual sense, understandable. However, I think that would fall under a higher morality that most people don't attain unless they're monks, nuns or mystics (generic religious refererence here). Just as I think ascetism is something might strive for if one has dedicated one's life to spirituality and holiness, but it shouldn't be *mandated*.
I do, however, question whether anyone has a 'right to life', and the world is full of many people who've wished their mother had simply had an abortion. Life may be sacred, but it's also damn hard and it can be a real nightmare for many for reasons that have nothing to do with them. So I question whether anyone has a 'right' to be born, and I also argue every child should be a *wanted* child. And that, in a better world, people would think about what they're getting into before they make a baby. And consider whether they're really up to the task, because not everyone is.
I'd like to see abortion made unnecessary which most 'pro-lifers' are unwilling to do. They actually create more abortions with their anti-sex, anti-birth control, anti-education attitudes. Those that fight hard to make sex riskier fight hard to ensure the need for abundant abortion clinics.
"I'd like to see abortion made unnecessary which most 'pro-lifers' are unwilling to do."
Yep, this is also a really important angle that the "pro-lifers" never engage with. Access to contraception seems like it'll come under fire next. And it's like, "what??!! You want to end abortion but you also want to limit access to contraception? Leading to many more unwanted babies?" It's just pure religious fanaticism.
As for the "abortion is murder" crowd, yeah, I also have some empathy with their position. Just as I have empathy with the "meat is murder" crowd. I think these people should be able to make the choices that feel right for them. But I don't think, unless they have some objective, scientific basis for their feelings, that they should be able to dictate how other people live their lives.
They've already gone after contraception. Monsieur Thomas, take it away...!!!
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/24/thomas-constitutional-rights-00042256
I don't think it's a politically feasible plank even if Thomas has wet dreams about rolling this back. It's easy for him to argue that the ruling was a poor one and want to tidy up because he'll never have to face the consequences of living in a state where BC gets outlawed.
What difference does it make? If the Court rolls back Griswold, we'll be as BC-less as we now are largely abortin-less.
I wish the right was as quick to outlaw going to another state to get 'gender affirming care' for one's kid as the were for those seeking legal abortions.
They won't roll it back. The only one who has even hinted at this is Thomas. There are some repubes who would like to see this happen but it's far too regressive. You have to keep in mind whether things are politically feasible or not. This one isn't.
They'll find a way if enough are on board. Remember when we thought Roe was here to stay? Never underestimate how much many men (and not always conservatives) hate female freedom. And freedom from unwanted, life-limiting childbearing lies at the heart of everything 'wrong' with feminism. Never say never.
Interestingly, in my overseas travels, the racks with aspirin and potato chips in hotel lobbies have birth control pills hanging on the racks. You are an adult in Shanghai or Bangkok, but not in New York.
Love this. It's both thoughtful and practical. And yes, self-control is not the best policy to curb abortion since sex isn't rational. Flooding the commons with birth control would be a great approach ( I think the best compromise would be that certain types be dispensed for free, tbh ), but then the anti's wouldn't get to shame women for their promiscuity - which some of them really get off on.
To me, it comes down to this: I am the one paying the cost of the bringing the life into the world - particularly if the father has abdicated the responsibility, which is all too common. I should have the right to review my resources and capabilities and make a rational decision about whether I can support this human being for 18 years or not. Animals in the wild will kill their young if resources or conditions are lacking. Why can't I have these same rights? Because humans are different? Or answer to a higher power? (Prove it.) Or, because it's squicky? I still haven't heard a good reason why the government has the right to reduce my rights during pregancy and take control of my body by leveraging force of law and gun to coerce me to do something I don't wish to do. Do I own myself or not? I know this is a loaded question with so many caveats and edge cases that it's almost ridiculous.
And every child should be wanted. I know the cost of bringing unwanted children into the world. I was one of them and I never once had a parent that championed my welfare in a healthy way and I've endured/survived all the types of parents there are - bio, foster, adoptive. I have suffered greatly from the canard that all life is sacred. It's not if you don't belong to a tribe, and even then, this perk is provisional - based on whether you follow the rules or not. People just don't care about progeny that isn't their blood. I'm looking at you Sophie Lewis! Community rearing of children indeed. The fights over who pays would be monumental, particularly once the child reaches college age. It always boils down to cash.
I would relent to some degree on this somewhat hardcore position if men were held accountable for their part in procreation. But, they aren't, for the most part, outside of some nasty custody battles - but that's the ones that want their children (and to be fair, some women are horrible mothers). It's not a tidy formula. But, many, many men do not take responsibility and face zero consequences for this choice.
And finally, because it's so complicated, because their are no pat answers, because the stakes are so high, because people's morality is all over the map, because we can't agree, because bringing an unwanted child into the world has a seriously high cost - especially for the child, I think it boils down to the choice of the people with actual standing on the issue - the mother and father of the potential child. Everyone else needs to butt out. We can futz and compromise over how far along it can occur, but the window needs to stay open.
"life begins at conception"
I can't express how much this irritates me. "Life began" billions of years ago in the primordial ocean. Are gametes dead? Do they acquire a mystical "life force" upon union? I don't share your determination, Steve, to find some way to respect nearly everyone, but the compulsive expression of idiocies like this ensures I will never have cause to change my mind.
Second, I have zero moral qualms about abortion. I just don't see any issue for one simple reason: there is no consciousness being eliminated. I see vastly greater sin in euthanizing a healthy cat than in ending the life of a fetus that is months away from self-awareness, or even mindless taxic response. It is consciousness, experience, and thought, that is the fundamental immorality of murder, not the fact of its species. This is my firm belief.
Yet most people wouldn't have a moment of reflection at having a cat PTS because treatment costs a few more dollars.
In the end, "pro-life" is founded on "humans are special." Since I do not share that view (go to a mall or a bowling alley if you doubt), I find the "sanctity of human life" to be a religious absurdity. OK, I am not religious and I am savagely misanthropic but I have almost ever had reason to change my mind about either.
Legally. I have to accept five-minutes-before-birth, because that is a clear and clean division. Morally, not so much, not with the evidence that infants in the womb respond to sounds and to music. I would much rather all abortions were while the fetus has a tail.
But anyone who passionately opposes abortion and who would leave a pet to starve in the woods is someone I wouldn't throw a life preserver to.
"I have zero moral qualms about abortion. I just don't see any issue for one simple reason: there is no consciousness being eliminated."
Yeah, here's the sticky point for me and I think most people who are pro-choice but also kind of centrist on the issue. I completely agree with you that the issue of murder is about consciousness rather than the species. But consciousness is a pretty slippery concept.
I think most people would agree that a baby is conscious. And most would equally agree that a fertilised egg isn't. Something mysterious happens between those two points and I've never heard a good answer as to *when* it happens.
Morally speaking, I'd like to err on the side of "definitely not conscious" side of things (which is why I have no qualms about dismissing the "5 minutes before birth" people). But alongside that, I want there to be as much leeway as possible for women to control their destinies and their bodies.
Again, the frustrating thing is that Roe had all of this pretty well balanced in my opinion.
I am going to reveal something I don't talk about much.
I remember becoming self-aware. At this point I am remembering the remembering but there was one time when I was breast-feeding and crying when I suddenly had the thought, translating to words, "why am I crying?" A moment before I had been nothing but drives. Suddenly there was someone there. I was put on the floor and I crawled and began to lay down memories.
I am not making this up. I clearly remember awakening to self-awareness. I won't call it consciousness.
When I search for fMRI (functional MRI) and fetuses, I get the impression that your magic consciousness point is around 4-5 months, depending upon exactly what parts of the brain a particular study is examining.
Not to badmouth my Christian anti-abortion crusader friend but it is interesting that when he was in the Navy he served in a nuclear submarine with a mission, if ordered by the government, to launch nuclear missiles to wherever.
Nukes are not a precision, they kill everyone in their radius, including pregnant women. I don't know if that generated cognitive dissonance in him. Thou shalt not kill unless the government says so.
Partitioning. How many pastors who rant against gays from the pulpit do you think ever reflect on their hypocrisy as they pay for male prostitutes?
Love your brutal honesty here. It's refreshing.
The issue from my perspective is that everyone wants their moral perspective enshrined in federal law.
Morality does not come from the top (i.e. law) down. Morality is defined by the culture and laws are created to align with that culture.
The divided states does not have a common culture that can support the overbearing federal government the country has today. The only answer is to get morality out of the federal government and have states and ideally communities define laws based on their culture.
Assume that their is a path to keep the broken federal government and constitution is the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing and expecting different results. Its no wonder the country is going insane.
"The issue from my perspective is that everyone wants their moral perspective enshrined in federal law."
Yeah, I think this is broadly the problem. What needs to be enshrined in law, especially on issues like this, is tolerance. I understand people who feel a moral objection to abortion. I just don't think they should be able to dictate, on purely moralistic grounds, how other people get to live their lives.
So if the argument is that it should be illegal to get an elective abortion at 6 months because the baby objectively an independent lie form at that stage, I can get behind that. But if it's that abortion should be illegal in all cases because "my friend in the sky says so" that's a different matter.
It seems reasonable to me to allow elective abortion until coordinated brain activity can be detected in a fetal brain; this is apparently around 20 weeks in.
That's for completely elective abotion. But critically, continuing even a wanted pregnancy can sometimes endanger a woman's health, so permitting abortions to preserve the health of the mother throughout pregnancy is important.
AFAICT, once viability is reached, at 24 weeks or so, healthy fetuses don't get aborted, they get delivered. All this talk about aborting babies 5 minutes before their due date is just made up BS.
IOW, there are reasonable compromises, which actually don't look very different from Roe -- elective abortion is OK in the first 4 months, or to preserve the health of the mother. If something goes wrong with the pregnancy and the fetus is past viability, deliver the baby (unless this is impossible, which I've never heard).
It is important when writing laws that a doctor performing a medically necessary abortion is protected if *the doctor* believes that an abortion is necessary. Some red state "exceptions" don't specify who makes this determination, allowing prosecutors to second guess doctors. This is how the anti-choice legislators make exceptions that look good on paper but that doctors can't actually make use of.
"That's for completely elective abotion. But critically, continuing even a wanted pregnancy can sometimes endanger a woman's health, so permitting abortions to preserve the health of the mother throughout pregnancy is important."
Oh yeah, absolutely. Life-of-the-mother and foetal abnormality exceptions are just no-brainers as far as I'm concerned. It's shocking to me that anybody would argue otherwise.
I think there's lots of room for good-faith disagreement around viability vs brain activity vs foetal heartbeat. That could be a sane, science based conversation. The problem is the people who think their subjective feelings should be allowed to govern other people's lives.
The problem with those who don't support "health of the mother" exceptions is that they claim that they *do* support those exceptions, but when you read the text of the laws, you find that instead of a doctor's being able to rely on their own best judgement, the laws in the red states leave out exactly who's judgement is determinative. Which means that a prosecutor can supply their own opinion of how to treat a medical emergency. On top of that, some red states allow these exceptions not as part of the definition of an illegal abortion, but only as an affirmative defense, meaning the doctor is guilty of the crime, but once present in a court, can raise this as a defense; that increases the cost of defending oneself significantly.
As for fetal heartbeat bills, there are two problems. First, they frequently require a decision by 6 weeks, which is before many women know they're pregnant. More importantly, a fetus has a heartbeat way before it is conscious or has any real brain activity. And while a heartbeat *sounds* vaguely like an interesting developmental stage, it really has no connection to anything like feeling pain, being conscious, or having high level brain activity. After all, when someone has a heart transplant we don't treat it as assisted suicide. The heart is just one more organ, although an important one.
90% of "pro-life" women will have a Down Syndrome fetus aborted.
"enjoy the movies of Adam Sandler. "
Pushing tolerance to its limits!
I gave up on trying to figure out who Adam Sandler is and why his movies would be controversial. Google failed me. What's the buzz?
I'm not sure they are controversial so much as they are painfully unfunny. The "controversy" is the mere existence of people who find him humorous
Ahh! Thanks.
Part of the problem is reaction to disingenuous arguments. "It's about the woman's body." That would be called suicide. Abortion doesn't stop the woman's heart. Pro-abortion people hate pictures of fetuses or aborted babies precisely because they look like babies. Undeniably so. Yet I am pro-choice, within the reason you spoke of. The issue isn't just the nine months of pregnancy, there is also eighteen years of responsibility. A responsibility that many are not ready for, with disastrous results. As for the aborted baby pictures, I see them as a loathsome effort to emotionally torment women who have had abortions because for all but a very few, it is a painful emotional choice that in some cases brings lifelong regret. It is cruel. What forgiveness is in that?
When we adopted our niece since it was an international adoption, we paid for the services of an adoption organization. They were about adopting healthy Chinese girls during China's one child policy or wanting a baby (white) that looked like them, Russian babies that had health issues in orphanages. Why not adopt in the US? The birth mother, depending upon the State, have a certain amount of time to change their mind and taking a baby out of an adoptive parent's arms to give it to the birth mother who changed her mind is heart wrenching. You also must deal with the social workers who burrow into your past. My wife was in tears having to dredge up her horrible childhood with the social worker. Nothing is as clean and simple as we wish it to be.
I truly get MXM's lack of trust issue. Like with the gun control people with "We only want..." until they get it. And then the Arab story of the camel's nose comes to mind. With a rebel yell, they cry more, more, more! With 3rd rail issues there is no trust. The only way to solve it is for the two sides to choose a champion and throw them into a pit with a machete in their hand to settle it with a death match. Tolerance is in short supply.
Dave Murray: " Yet I am pro-choice, within the reason you spoke of. The issue isn't just the nine months of pregnancy, there is also eighteen years of responsibility. A responsibility that many are not ready for, with disastrous results."
You echo my dad, who was an LA County criminal prosecutor and for 17 years a Superior Court criminal judge. He saw those "disastrous results" every working day.
And you are absolutely right, even if your comment says "pro-abortion." Nobody is "pro-abortion." It's a "painful emotional choice" that necessarily needs to be available for the reasons you and my dad articulated. The only really sound arguments against it are religious and those don't belong in the political sphere in a secular government.
Nobody is telling pro-life people to get an abortion. The truth with the pro-life movement is, at bottom, that it doesn't believe in a secular government.
"The truth with the pro-life movement is, at bottom, that it doesn't believe in a secular government."
🎯
Correct on "pro-abortion." While there are attention seekers like the idiot actress with a shirt boasting her multiple abortions. For most it is a painful decision that they keep to themselves.
I think there is something insane in demanding that a woman be forced to give birth. Nasty diatribes about "inconvenience" and "keeping her legs together" .. have these people no experience with sex?
Never mind that last part.
If she can't afford to have a child, that's as good a reason as fetal deformity.
Besides, we 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 err on the side of lower birth rate.
I'm so sorry for your wife. I hope that the ensuing joy of raising a child helped heal that retraumatization to some degree.
Yes.