On abortion

[Northwestcoug]

A lot of the GOP will be ardent states’-rights champions until roe v wade is overturned. Then they will immediately convert back to federal power, baby:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...t-mississippi/

get used to the culture wars. On both sides.

[Uncle Ted]

Y'all remember When Joe Biden Voted to Let States Overturn Roe v. Wade?...

When Joe Biden Voted to Let States Overturn Roe v. Wade

It was a new era in Washington in 1981, and abortion rights activists were terrified.

With an anti-abortion president, Ronald Reagan, in power and Republicans controlling the Senate for the first time in decades, social conservatives pushed for a constitutional amendment to allow individual states to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that had made abortion legal nationwide several years earlier.

The amendment — which the National Abortion Rights Action League called “the most devastating attack yet on abortion rights” — cleared a key hurdle in the Senate Judiciary Committee in March 1982. Support came not only from Republicans but from a 39-year-old, second-term Democrat: Joseph R. Biden Jr.

“I’m probably a victim, or a product, however you want to phrase it, of my background,” Mr. Biden, a Roman Catholic, said at the time. The decision, he said, was “the single most difficult vote I’ve cast as a U.S. senator.”
[...]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/u...on-rights.html

Yeah, I don't think Grandpa Joe remembers either.

[All-American]

Wait a minute. I haven't called anyone "morally reprehensible".

But you've thought it. Don't lie.

[Uncle Ted]

Like the majority of americans, I believe there should be some limits on abortion.

Yeah, like abortions only for babies that will grow up to be pro-choicers... They wouldn't object to being aborted.

[Northwestcoug]

Wait a minute. I haven't called anyone "morally reprehensible". I am just attempting to illustrate that it is isn't nearly as simple as you are implying when it comes to identifying the good guys vs the bad guys in this case.

Like the majority of americans, I believe there should be some limits on abortion.

You’ve completely misread my posts. Nowhere have I said it is simple. There is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in this argument, just less good or more bad. Although I favor more abortion rights than you, I am fully aware and empathetic to those whose morals are different than mine. It is a moral spectrum, and I shared what I think are instances that are more on the ‘reprehensible’ side of that spectrum than others. Your reprehensible trigger is different than mine.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Well if you’re not ok with abortions to protect the health of a woman, then you’re morally reprehensible. See how easy that is?

cmon dude. You’re usually better at framing other peoples’ arguments than this. I trust your personal thoughts on abortion or more nuanced than what you are trying to frame mine as. I’ve done my best trying to frame mine, on my phone while in the back of a car. Care to tell us what abortions are ok in your world?

Wait a minute. I haven't called anyone "morally reprehensible". I am just attempting to illustrate that it is isn't nearly as simple as you are implying when it comes to identifying the good guys vs the bad guys in this case.

Like the majority of americans, I believe there should be some limits on abortion.

[Northwestcoug]

If you are OK with abortions for any reason, you might want to be a little more circumspect about labelling your idealogical opponents as "morally reprehensible".

Well if you’re not ok with abortions to protect the health of a woman, then you’re morally reprehensible. See how easy that is?

cmon dude. You’re usually better at framing other peoples’ arguments than this. I trust your personal thoughts on abortion or more nuanced than what you are trying to frame mine as. I’ve done my best trying to frame mine, on my phone while in the back of a car. Care to tell us what abortions are ok in your world?

[Applejack]

Texas can't stop heroin. It won't stop the morning after pill.

They haven't tried allowing bounty hunters (ie lawyers) to punish heroin users; they are going to try bounty hunters on abortion.

[SeattleUte]

Some of these crazy states (eg, Texas) are making it illegal to send the morning after pill thru the mail. The thing Roe was good for was that it kept the crazy states (eg, Texas) in check on their crazy. Now there will be a proliferation of cruel bills that are just to score political points.

Texas can't stop heroin. It won't stop the morning after pill.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Yeah I suspect your and my versions of ‘convenience’ are quite different. But let’s first stipulate you said abort ‘a viable fetus because it’s inconvenient.’ In my moral spectrum, yeah it represents a ‘wrong’ but shouldn’t be outlawed.

I presume your version of ‘convenience’ includes the mental health of the woman, any unwanted teenage pregnancy, or really just the wishes of a woman who otherwise isn’t ready to have a baby. So yeah I’m sure the majority of abortions fall under this distinction of ‘convenience’. And I’m ok with that. Once the fetus is viable, it gets murkier for me.

If you are OK with abortions for any reason, you might want to be a little more circumspect about labelling your idealogical opponents as "morally reprehensible".

[Applejack]

For most people it will still be relatively easy to get an abortion after Roe is overturned. Only the very poor and/or dysfunctional who have no help will not get one if it's not legal in their state. It's not hard to cross state borders.

Moreover, the need for abortions has practically evaporated among most people because of effective contraception including morning after pill. The number of abortions have been crashing except among the dysfunctional and poor and some religious who reject contraception.

As much as conservatives loath progress, it's technological progress that has largely solved this awful problem. If there's not a massive outcry against overturning Roe, and I'm not convinced there will be, these will be the reasons.

Some of these crazy states (eg, Texas) are making it illegal to send the morning after pill thru the mail. The thing Roe was good for was that it kept the crazy states (eg, Texas) in check on their crazy. Now there will be a proliferation of cruel bills that are just to score political points.

[SeattleUte]

Great article by Alexandra Desanctis on how most Americans don't understand Roe v. Wade.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...bout-abortion/

The Supreme Court decisions that generate the most controversy often have little practical effect. Like whether a football coach can pray on the field after a football game if his players are not required to participate.

Everybody needs to calm down. We are not on the verge of a Christian takeover. Christianity is nearly extinct compared to its historical power and wealth.

[Northwestcoug]

Whoa. Wait a minute. Are you seriously under the impression that abortions for convenience are "very rare"?

Yeah I suspect your and my versions of ‘convenience’ are quite different. But let’s first stipulate you said abort ‘a viable fetus because it’s inconvenient.’ In my moral spectrum, yeah it represents a ‘wrong’ but shouldn’t be outlawed.

I presume your version of ‘convenience’ includes the mental health of the woman, any unwanted teenage pregnancy, or really just the wishes of a woman who otherwise isn’t ready to have a baby. So yeah I’m sure the majority of abortions fall under this distinction of ‘convenience’. And I’m ok with that. Once the fetus is viable, it gets murkier for me.

[SeattleUte]

Couldn't possibly be sanctity of life, right?

What I'm saying is that I don't believe conservatives value the lives that are being aborted now and won't be still aborted if Roe is overturned. That is the very irony I'm raising.

So don's sanctity of life me, Reverend.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Great article by Alexandra Desanctis on how most Americans don't understand Roe v. Wade.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...bout-abortion/

The public lack of knowledge about Roe — and its conflict with actual public opinion on abortion — was captured well by a Fox News poll last September, which found that 65 percent of Americans said they oppose reversing Roe. But, absurdly, the same survey found that respondents were perfectly split on whether abortion should be legal, tied at 49 percent. A substantial number of Americans, in other words, both want abortion to be illegal and want to preserve jurisprudence making it essentially impossible to prohibit abortion. This outcome was possible only because a sizable percentage of the population doesn’t know that abortion can’t be regulated at all until Roe is gone.

Meanwhile, polls that ask Americans for their views on specific abortion policies tend to find that most Americans disagree with the status quo created by the Court in Roe and Doe v. Bolton and bolstered in Casey — namely, that abortion must be legal across all 50 states, for nearly any reason, and at nearly any time in pregnancy.

For instance, a Gallup poll from a few years back found that only 28 percent of Americans favor allowing abortion in the second trimester, and only 13 percent of Americans favor allowing it in the last three months of pregnancy — compared to 60 percent who would allow it in the first trimester.