Abortion
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HenrySwanson
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Danoff
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It's a little disturbing, ok more than a little, that the elected representatives of so many states are willing to go what looks to me to be full-on religious crazy with abortion bans. It's one thing for the general population to be fairly religious, but legislated religiousness (which abortion bans look to me like they are) by elected representatives for entire states is concerning. And some of these abortion laws are quite far removed from moral reality. For example, preventing abortion of down syndrome fetuses? Preventing abortion in cases of rape? Preventing abortion after 8 weeks?!? This is really quite radical.
If these laws are allowed to stand (and I'm not a state's rights-trump-women's rights type of libertarian), there are going to be some big practical differences between living in those states that ban it and those states that allow it. We could even end up with situations where someone is accused of murder in, say, alabama, and not in say, California, and so they can't cross state lines without fear of incarceration. You could even be accused of murder in Alabama if you had never set foot in Alabama. Is Texas going to have extradition of aborters to Alabama?
Such a mess. And so important for civil liberties. Trump's supreme court nominees (and various states' legislatures) are really trying to set back civil liberties. There are two main reasons (as best I can tell) why people want abortion to be illegal. One is because their religion says it's murder. And the other is to stigmatize sex. And I think both of those are at play, and both are horrible reasons to legislate anything in the United States.
If these laws are allowed to stand (and I'm not a state's rights-trump-women's rights type of libertarian), there are going to be some big practical differences between living in those states that ban it and those states that allow it. We could even end up with situations where someone is accused of murder in, say, alabama, and not in say, California, and so they can't cross state lines without fear of incarceration. You could even be accused of murder in Alabama if you had never set foot in Alabama. Is Texas going to have extradition of aborters to Alabama?
Such a mess. And so important for civil liberties. Trump's supreme court nominees (and various states' legislatures) are really trying to set back civil liberties. There are two main reasons (as best I can tell) why people want abortion to be illegal. One is because their religion says it's murder. And the other is to stigmatize sex. And I think both of those are at play, and both are horrible reasons to legislate anything in the United States.
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- NewAesthetic
- SlipZtrEm
What the actual 🤬
Also, nothing says you value a fetus' life quite like referring to it as evidence:
Can we all agree that Alabama's governor signing this in under the pretence of "every life is a sacred gift of God" is incredibly hypocritical in a state that still employs the death penalty?
Also, nothing says you value a fetus' life quite like referring to it as evidence:
Can we all agree that Alabama's governor signing this in under the pretence of "every life is a sacred gift of God" is incredibly hypocritical in a state that still employs the death penalty?
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Republicans are wielding abortion in an increasingly precarious way. If they manage to overturn Roe, it could be there undoing for a long time.
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- TexRex72
What a peculiar confluence of legislation, what with an inbound all-but-absolute ban on abortion; though I suppose that assistance may not stick around because that's just how the GOP...erm...'P's.
Do once expectant mothers/parents owe in the event of a miscarriage? Childbirth is by no means guaranteed at conception, even if you remove the possibility that a fetus gets sucked out.
Heck, in light of such uncertainty, why such a conservative definition of when life begins? Every sperm is a life, right? I mean...I know there are nutters who oppose contraception*, but I wonder why that's not more widespread. If a mere chance is enough, why is the legislation limited to a woman's body?
*I'd sure hate to cross paths with one of them, what with my having undergone a vasectomy--♪awkward♪. Surely that must constitute false imprisonment to some.
Do once expectant mothers/parents owe in the event of a miscarriage? Childbirth is by no means guaranteed at conception, even if you remove the possibility that a fetus gets sucked out.
Heck, in light of such uncertainty, why such a conservative definition of when life begins? Every sperm is a life, right? I mean...I know there are nutters who oppose contraception*, but I wonder why that's not more widespread. If a mere chance is enough, why is the legislation limited to a woman's body?
*I'd sure hate to cross paths with one of them, what with my having undergone a vasectomy--♪awkward♪. Surely that must constitute false imprisonment to some.
Danoff
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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ew-abortions-so-why-all-attention/1211175001/
Article strongly implies that discussion of exception for rape and incest when it comes to abortion is a distraction since there are so few cases. Basically why are we talking about this if it's so few people... well I can answer that, because states are legislating how those cases get handled. They're not just legislating this abortion or that abortion, they're legislating all of it, including those cases. And we have a duty to get those cases right (and all of the others too).
I don't care if it's just 1 person, the law should treat that person morally. So no, it's not a distraction, it's morality.
I think the rape and incest scenarios are really interesting ones that challenge people to think critically about their moral views on abortion. It's these cases where pro-lifers tend to realize how horrible it is to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term and ultimately bring a baby (or not depending on biology) into the world. The essential question is whether we can force women to use their bodies to carry the pregnancy to term. And the details here, cases that threaten the life of the mother, cases of rape, etc. are important recognition that this isn't a topic you can just waive your hands at as some sort of sin or bad behavior.
Let's combine those for a second. Let's consider a scenario where someone was raped by her father, and will die if she carries the child to term. Some pro-lifers are saying that she should die. I think that's an important test of the principle, even if it represents a minuscule fraction of the cases. Do we want this to happen once? Do we want to force this little girl to die of the crime her father committed? Because that's where some of these laws are headed. I don't care how many times it happens, that's a bad law.
The human mind partially exists in the future (because of natural selection). We have a sometimes bad tendency to map present conditions straight to the future without any consideration for the developments that could or will occur in the interim. It leads to a number of cognitive biases. Abortion is the result of that on display. The current condition of a pregnant woman with an embryo of dividing cells in her uterus is not a current condition of two individuals with rights. It's a single woman with dividing cells in her uterus. You might want to map forward to the future, but that future depends on a million variables, and regardless, that future is not now.
If you really want to map forward to the future, map all the way to death. We all die anyway. So none of us should have rights, because our future state is to be dead. At least that state is guaranteed.
Article strongly implies that discussion of exception for rape and incest when it comes to abortion is a distraction since there are so few cases. Basically why are we talking about this if it's so few people... well I can answer that, because states are legislating how those cases get handled. They're not just legislating this abortion or that abortion, they're legislating all of it, including those cases. And we have a duty to get those cases right (and all of the others too).
I don't care if it's just 1 person, the law should treat that person morally. So no, it's not a distraction, it's morality.
I think the rape and incest scenarios are really interesting ones that challenge people to think critically about their moral views on abortion. It's these cases where pro-lifers tend to realize how horrible it is to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term and ultimately bring a baby (or not depending on biology) into the world. The essential question is whether we can force women to use their bodies to carry the pregnancy to term. And the details here, cases that threaten the life of the mother, cases of rape, etc. are important recognition that this isn't a topic you can just waive your hands at as some sort of sin or bad behavior.
Let's combine those for a second. Let's consider a scenario where someone was raped by her father, and will die if she carries the child to term. Some pro-lifers are saying that she should die. I think that's an important test of the principle, even if it represents a minuscule fraction of the cases. Do we want this to happen once? Do we want to force this little girl to die of the crime her father committed? Because that's where some of these laws are headed. I don't care how many times it happens, that's a bad law.
The human mind partially exists in the future (because of natural selection). We have a sometimes bad tendency to map present conditions straight to the future without any consideration for the developments that could or will occur in the interim. It leads to a number of cognitive biases. Abortion is the result of that on display. The current condition of a pregnant woman with an embryo of dividing cells in her uterus is not a current condition of two individuals with rights. It's a single woman with dividing cells in her uterus. You might want to map forward to the future, but that future depends on a million variables, and regardless, that future is not now.
If you really want to map forward to the future, map all the way to death. We all die anyway. So none of us should have rights, because our future state is to be dead. At least that state is guaranteed.
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- RoLnD79
Thanks for posting this, I was just going to post a link to the same article.
I am not religious, so that has no bearing on how I feel about abortion. I absolutely believe that if a woman has been raped, the baby has major medical issues, or if there’s any chance at all that childbirth will bring a her harm in any way, then she should 100% have that right for an abortion.
However, I think the rape card gets played way too much in the abortion debate, when statistically it’s a super small percentage of the abortions that occur. Rape/health concerns for the mother or baby, they should have that option for an abortion, but not because it would be an “inconvenience” or financial burden. If you can abort a baby, for those last two reasons, then we should be able to put down old people as well.
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It has now been repealled as was discussed earlier in this thread but the eight amendment in Ireland ensured the right to life of the unborn and resulted in several cases where the mother died because of the doctor's legal obligation not to abort a foetus. The most notable and notorious case was that of the death of Savita Halappanavar; at just 17 weeks pregnant she suffered an incomplete miscarriage but under Irish law doctors were not allowed to perform an abortion. She eventually died of sepsis and cardiac arrest due to the miscarriage; had she been given an abortion as she requested, Halappanavar almost certainly would have lived.
It's one case in particular which I have always found disgusting and really makes me wonder how anyone feels they can force a woman to carry a foetus against her will, even when it is literally killing her. Right to life? What about the life of the mother? I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to be in the presence of a woman who is literally dying right in front of you because she cannot have an abortion. Or how can you be that doctor who must look that woman in the eye, a dying woman, and tell her, essentially, that you can't do anything to save her life even though you know what the procedure is?
I will clarify that doctors in Ireland at that time had a legal obligation to not perform an abortion and thusly they themselves might also feel the same way, powerless to do anything even though they want to and otherwise could.
It's one case in particular which I have always found disgusting and really makes me wonder how anyone feels they can force a woman to carry a foetus against her will, even when it is literally killing her. Right to life? What about the life of the mother? I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to be in the presence of a woman who is literally dying right in front of you because she cannot have an abortion. Or how can you be that doctor who must look that woman in the eye, a dying woman, and tell her, essentially, that you can't do anything to save her life even though you know what the procedure is?
I will clarify that doctors in Ireland at that time had a legal obligation to not perform an abortion and thusly they themselves might also feel the same way, powerless to do anything even though they want to and otherwise could.
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- TexRex72
So...I'm actually going to agree that it's a distraction, but not in the same way.
I think far too many people are getting hung up on the idea that consideration for instances of rape, incest and emergencies makes the whole thing okay...but it's not okay.
Civil rights take precedence over religious rites.
Don't support abortion? Don't have a ****ing abortion!!! But stop legislating away a woman's right to do as she wishes with her own ****ing body.
Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! All of the yes!
It isn't enough to "Like" this; I want to "Like Harder". No...I want to "Yippy-ki-yay".
Danoff
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...victims-rapists-parental-rights-a8951751.html
There are a bunch of news outlets covering this story. Here's the scoop, in Alabama rapists don't lose custody rights for a child born from the rape. That's abhorrent enough, but mix it with their abortion stance where you can't get exemption for abortion in cases of rape and you've got some kind of crazy third world sharia law backwards nonsense that is almost unthinkable in the US.
Turns out it's not so unthinkable, Alabama law really is in that kind of backward state.
There are a bunch of news outlets covering this story. Here's the scoop, in Alabama rapists don't lose custody rights for a child born from the rape. That's abhorrent enough, but mix it with their abortion stance where you can't get exemption for abortion in cases of rape and you've got some kind of crazy third world sharia law backwards nonsense that is almost unthinkable in the US.
Turns out it's not so unthinkable, Alabama law really is in that kind of backward state.
Danoff
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I'm with you 100%. It took me re-reading and re-reading... and after you posted this I went back just to make sure one more time because it just doesn't seem like it could possibly be right.
Here's what the article says:
article
And they're not the only ones printing that story.
Edit:
So which is the other state?
Here's an article from 2017 which says
https://www.foxnews.com/us/in-7-us-states-rape-victims-can-be-legally-forced-to-share-custody-of-their-children-with-their-rapist-fathers
My money is on Mississippi.
Edit 2:
Oh darn... Minnesota.
http://www.citypages.com/news/alaba...esulting-children-so-does-minnesota/511082891
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I'm not too surprised considering what a mess family courts are in this state. Having said that, it's hard enough for a loving, supportive father to get time with his kids, so I can't imagine a rapist would have a snowballs chance in hell of accomplishing anything.
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Things like this make me really want to get out and vote. Shame my vote has no effect on Alabama politics.
The census debacle, I'm afraid, could entrench the Theological-Republic mode of governing in the US for decades to come. Who knew 'Sharia law' would actually manifest itself via it's most hysterical phobics. We need a grand millennial-dispersion, take the deep red tint off the map of the US.
The census debacle, I'm afraid, could entrench the Theological-Republic mode of governing in the US for decades to come. Who knew 'Sharia law' would actually manifest itself via it's most hysterical phobics. We need a grand millennial-dispersion, take the deep red tint off the map of the US.
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Incorrect. You can't be forced to care and support an old person financially or physically, in the same way that forcing a woman to have a baby forces a burden of financial and physical care. If an old person says "prousonhairy is going to assume all responsibility for my care and costs", all you have to say is "nope". You don't have to kill them.
If you feel that you have a moral imperative to take care of your elderly family members, that's lovely and admirable. But as far as I'm aware it's not a legal requirement.
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