The Right religious conservatives and who knows who else have today overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the US.
Will this now embolden anti abortionists in this country to fight back?
The US is a cold place for women now.
I don't really get why the concept of education is brought up in relation to abortion. For a lot of people they only care that women have a right to choose what to do with their own body rather than if the number of abortions go up or down.
Regarding misinterpreting messages in posts, I did find it confusing Jack whether you support abortion rights and if so with what restrictions. You just seemed to suggest you were against the yes side of referendum and that was it.
It would cut down on my frequency of having to correct you when you continue to insert your own narrative in place of what I’ve said, when it appears your issue is the frequency of my contributions to a thread which is open to the public.
I never claimed to have opposed the 8th, I said it was bad law, which it was, and I’m well aware that the only way to have it repealed was via a referendum. The Government at the time published draft legislation which would commence should the referendum pass. It didn’t actually change anything as it was a bad idea to have the 12 weeks in there in the first place, and still the penalty of 14 years put medical professionals in a bad situation in terms of how they practice of medicine, similar to how SB. 8 means a penalty of 99 years and the possibility of being struck off*, which is why medical professionals are reluctant to practice medicine as they should.
But hey, like you suggested - pills in the post means providers don’t have to take any responsibility for their actions (not true, but I don’t imagine facts are all that important to your narrative), problem solved!
*Correction: it’s HB1820 makes the provision of abortion that results in the termination of a pregnancy a first degree felony that can mean 99 years in prison -
https://www.courthousenews.com/texas-trigger-ban-on-abortion-goes-into-effect/
I clarified my position on the 8th - should never have been brought into law in the first place, back in 1983 I mean, and the repeal of it was based upon equally flawed reasoning in order to have the referendum pass
Complete and utter nonsense.
If putting the 8th into the constitution was wrong, then the only way to rectify that was to completely remove it.
Which we did. We did not put any conditions into the constitution, nor should we have.
Claiming to have opposed the 8th while then opposing its repeal is hypocrisy of the lowest order.
I believe the passage of the referendum had less to do with the idea that the electorate came down with a sudden bout of feminism, and more to do with the idea of having the opportunity of condemning women deemed unfit to be mothers who choose not to have abortions
It somehow gets worse. Complete trash.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Abbot turned out to be a kinky ol’ bastard. It’s often the case that a person’s degree of public piety is directly proportional to their private perversions 😂
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna24148838
I wouldn’t call it scientific evidence, more just an anecdotal observation 🤔
Shockingly I don't think the amount of porn the US produces tells us much about Greg Abbott's or any other individual's views on women. Not sure their views on porn stars are too high either (publicly at least) !
They’re not a punishment for anyone having sex, they’re a prohibition against anyone providing illegal abortions. It’s a hell of a leap you’re making to try and conflate the two in a country which is the largest producer and distributor of pornography in the world.
I don’t care to call women who don’t share my views on what I believe is best for them hypocrites tbh, I know that abortion is a difficult moral issue for women, I know that towing the party line in public while maintaining their own private thoughts is what they feel they need to do too in order that they’re not ostracised from their communities.
It had little to do with this particular thread but just for the purposes of being civil I clarified my position on the 8th - should never have been brought into law in the first place, back in 1983 I mean, and the repeal of it was based upon equally flawed reasoning in order to have the referendum pass. For what it’s worth, I believe the passage of the referendum had less to do with the idea that the electorate came down with a sudden bout of feminism, and more to do with the idea of having the opportunity of condemning women deemed unfit to be mothers who choose not to have abortions. It didn’t matter that evidence suggests that poorly educated women living in poverty have higher rates of maternal mortality and infant mortality already, higher birth rates and higher rates of abortion already.
I didn’t ever put forward the idea of expecting the pro-choice lobby groups to fix anything, in fact I specifically said I don’t expect them to provide education as it’s not their motivation. I also made the point that the public education system in the US is another political battleground, and I don’t believe trying to emphasise the importance of sex education overrides the importance of access to education in the first place. Sex education wasn’t necessary for example when Nancy cosied up to the Pope to show the Archbishop of San Fran who’s yer daddy! 😂
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/29/1108548298/pelosi-vatican-communion-abortion-rights
Against the 8th repeal. Check.
In favor of abortion bans but would like some modifications in some cases that poster knows are impossible. Check.
Includes men's rights and other distractions to derail discussion. Check.
Just another forced birther doing the RCC's bidding.
Yes. It is a punishment for women having sex. Otherwise they would do as you say and help education funding. They would call a fetus a child on principle and give child support for it.
Yes many who receive abortions are hypocrites. They simply believe their own case is special and they don't deserve punishment. I would bet a lot of money that in countries with more explicit anti women laws there are many who defend laws against sex outside of marriage for women while also breaking that law.
Not sure what your issue with the repeal the 8th. You have issues with the law drafted but no law that you approve could be drafted at all without changing the constitution.
Sex education is a vital tool for the population at large and in reducing the need for abortions. I believe you are asking a bit much for pro choice to fix all issues going.
Nothing has actually changed? such rubbish.
What would "drafting the legislation properly" look like, exactly?
Be precise.
Well obviously it’s in my opinion, I didn’t claim it to be anyone else’s?
It’s also my opinion (didn’t imagine it needed to be specified, but just for you), that you’d win that wager, as it was argued at the time that the 12 week limit was a compromise in order to have the referendum passed. They should have gone back to the drawing board, IMO, and drafted the legislation properly, so they wouldn’t end up later in exactly the same situation as before where in reality, nothing has actually changed:
https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2023/0421/1378311-politics-abortion/
The legislation which replaced it isn’t any better
In your opinion. Which I'd wager isn't very widely shared...
The point wasn’t whether or not men suffer, it was to refute the idea that abortion bans are introduced with the idea of punishing women specifically, I may have been mistaken, but I figured where you might be coming from is the idea of punishing women for having sex?
I was making the point that the same specious rhetoric is employed in making the argument that men are somehow punished for having sex by being obligated by laws to provide for their children. It’s not an argument I’d make, hence the reason I don’t subscribe to the notion that abortion bans are about punishing women either.
Sex education isn’t the kind of education I was referring to, I was referring to a more comprehensive education, as opposed to the type of education which may only prove useful if one is seeking a career in the sex industry.
I’d like to believe you’d argue in good faith, but see where our beliefs have gotten us? I’m familiar with the concept of forced, which is why I rejected your proposition of “forced birth” outright. I wasn’t splitting hairs over your use of the term, I was pointing out that while you’re entitled to make it, I’m not obligated to accept your characterisation.
I’m sure you know well enough by now too that the most likely women to have an abortion aren’t just women who have children and understand the impact of another child, they also happen to regurgitate a lot of RCC propaganda; public opinion surveys suggest they aren’t in favour of abortion bans, and yet they encourage condemnation of women within their own communities who have had abortions.
Personally, I’d prefer if it were enshrined in law that it be a physicians duty to make the decisions and take the appropriate action they deemed necessary in whatever circumstances they were presented with, based upon their medical knowledge and judgment as opposed to their own personal moral code. That’s a nice idea, but I’m sure we both know it has no grounding in reality - they’re obligated by law to adhere to their employers code of practice, and in the US it’s the RCC are the dominant players in terms of education and healthcare provision, so it’s hardly a coincidence that my opposition to abortion would coincide with the RCC’s view. One could say the same of anyone who expresses opposition to abortion, that their views coincide with RCC propaganda. It’s an obvious point though.
EDIT: I’m not sure if you’re misremembering, I have no idea what way you’re reading my posts in the first place, but my opposition to the recent referendum to repeal the 8th amendment in Irish law was that it was based upon bad law in the first place - a knee-jerk reaction to the decision in Roe v Wade. Should never have been introduced in Irish law as it had the similar effect of hamstringing the medical profession in how they practiced medicine that inevitably led to some of the most ghoulish and unnecessary outcomes ever observed in Irish society. The legislation which replaced it isn’t any better in that it appears some people believe pregnancy only lasts 12 weeks. Cue more piecemeal legislation over the next 50 years.
"I’m not sure whether you mean to say there that abortion bans are about punishing women, but if I were to take it at face value, I’d agree, abortions are often more about punishing women who become and lack the resources to be able to provide for themselves and their families; mountains of research has concluded that the most common reason given by women seeking an abortion are socioeconomic circumstances, and to that end yes, improving access to education would mitigate the effects of adverse socioeconomic circumstances, as it does for well educated women who have been able to access education."
Education's a lovely idea; I'd recommend some on what 'forced' means. Abortion BANS are about FORCING women to have babies they don't want. It's not due to lack of education, there are myriad justifiable reasons. It's just tyranny of the minority in the US southern states that causes them to be enacted. The most likely person to have an abortion in fact is one who has children already and understands well the impact of another child.
I'd like to believe you know this by now, but you seem to regurgitate a lot of RCC propaganda in your posts and bring in men's-rights nonsense like 'male abortion' so I wonder... Can you clarify you're in favor of abortion bans, or against them? As I recall you were in favor of repealing the 8th in Seattle, am I misremembering?
It's not just education though many pro abortion bans states promote abstinence and are against the use of contraceptives. Taking the right to have an abortion is punishing women more than men for obvious reasons. It actually gives more power to potential fathers by limiting the chance of the mother terminating their pregnancy.
Apologies, I did mean abortion bans are a method of punishing women. Should check these better.
Men don't suffer near as much from this and it tends to be far easier for them to skip out on the bill (whether the child was wanted or not). Plus just the financial side of things ignores the health implications of pregnancy.
Many places interested in giving access to education as well. However they are not going to solve the education issues without help from the state. It is their motivation.
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/for-educators
Abortion are just about punishing women as if they actually cared they would improve the education system.
I’m not sure whether you mean to say there that abortion bans are about punishing women, but if I were to take it at face value, I’d agree, abortions are often more about punishing women who become pregnant and lack the resources to be able to provide for themselves and their families; mountains of research has concluded that the most common reason given by women seeking an abortion are socioeconomic circumstances, and to that end yes, improving access to education would mitigate the effects of adverse socioeconomic circumstances, as it does for well educated women who have been able to access education.
I’m not going to go so far as to suggest the enormously powerful lobby groups promoting abortion as a means of alleviating poverty should focus their efforts on education instead, that’d be unrealistic and something they’re unlikely to do anyway - it’s just not their motivation, which is fair enough.
Now as for the idea that abortion bans are just about punishing women, I’m not going to pretend I don’t know what you mean they’re being punished for, but using that line of reasoning, it would be just as logical to conclude that abortion bans are equally about punishing men too by ensuring they don’t skip out on their obligations toward their children. The idea that the State has any interest in punishing either men or women is nothing more than a specious argument, one which it’s generally easy to find… in political terms, a ‘useful idiot’ who will put forward that accusation and attempt to justify it with specious rhetoric -
Melanie McCulley, a South Carolina attorney coined the term male abortion in 1998, suggesting that a father should be allowed to disclaim his obligations to an unborn child early in the pregnancy. Proponents hold that concept begins with the premise that when an unmarried woman becomes pregnant, she has the option of abortion, adoption, or parenthood; and argues, in the context of legally recognized gender equality, that in the earliest stages of pregnancy the putative (alleged) father should have the same human rightsto relinquish all future parental rights and financial responsibility—leaving the informed mother with the same three options.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_support_in_the_United_States
The Courts weren’t entertaining that one, for obvious reasons -
Dubay's claim that a man's right to disclaim fatherhood would be analogous to a woman's right to abortion rests upon a false analogy. In the case of a father seeking to opt out of fatherhood and thereby avoid child support obligations, the child is already in existence and the state therefore has an important interest in providing for his or her support.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubay_v._Wells
No more than they should ever have entertained the idea that abortion is a private matter that is only of concern to women, knowing that they would generally require physicians to facilitate the procedure, as the absence of someone who knows that they’re doing generally leads to adverse consequences for all involved.
Using the same reasoning employed by your logic, States which limit the conditions under which an abortion is permissible must really, really hate physicians, or perhaps they just seek to deter rogue physicians by making it prohibitive for them to perform abortions without compelling reasons that they have to be able to justify.
Not going to delve too much into the education system in the US itself, suffice to say that has always been, and will continue to be just another political battleground.
Not everyone has the means to go to a safe state. Especially when the demonisation of abortions might cut down on their support network as well.
Yeah education correlates with less abortions. The best way for anyone to prevent abortions is to improve the education system. Abortion are just about punishing women as if they actually cared they would improve the education system.
On the contrary - I get what you’re trying to do, I just don’t agree with your characterisation, that’s all. Just like a medical professional can’t be forced to dispense medication, or forced to perform a medical procedure just because the patient wants them to, or forced to carry out a procedure in accordance with the patient’s wishes.
Forced birthing - impossible without incarceration, not something anyone has to consider when States aren’t incarcerating pregnant women solely for the purposes of forcing them to give birth. Certainly you may wish to portray circumstances that way, and nobody is going to stop you doing that either. Most people just won’t entertain it.
Hairsplitting on what 'force' means. If you remove all options to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, that's forcing. Oh, and some states want to incarcerate.
And again, you seem not to be getting this. These women wanted a healthy baby. When faced with a prospect of carrying a fetus to term that will die horribly at birth, they are being f o r c e d to have the child. Forced forced forded. Forced birthing, obviously not impossible.
I thought I’d made myself perfectly clear?
Personally, I’m not in favour of those laws which don’t allow for physicians to be able to use their best judgment in determining what is an appropriate course of action, but I’m even less concerned about the idea of forcing women to give birth, that’s impossible in any case without some form of incarceration.
I do find it tragic that some states are trying to ban legally approved time proven safe medicine in abortion pills but are happy to wing it when enacting the death penalty using lethal injection.
Well that's shag-all use to anyone who finds themselves in a crisis pregnancy situation.
Innit crazy how the more well educated a woman is, the less likely she is ever to find herself in a crisis pregnancy situation? I don’t think that’s a coincidence. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen, it’s just far, far less likely.
Their hands are clean. They are supplying drugs legally, if clients lie to them (just as I could lie to a doctor to get e.g. strong painkillers by saying I have bad pain when I don't) that's not their responsibility.
It was obvious 20+ years ago that abortion pills would make forced birth laws unenforceable, it was just a matter of time.
Your analogy doesn’t hold up because if anyone is attended to by a medical professional, the medical professional is required to provide them with a standard of care, and can be held liable for the consequences of their actions.
The availability of abortion pills didn’t, and doesn’t make abortion laws unenforceable, it’s why the doctor in your previous scenario may be reluctant to dispense medication or to prescribe medication knowing that they could be liable for anything which happens either to you, or to anyone you give the medication to.
What you’re attempting to argue is like suggesting that because people attempt to circumvent and violate existing laws, those laws are unenforceable. They’re not.
All the women with nonviable pregnancies were intentionally pregnant. So, that's not interesting to you? You're OK with forcing them to give birth?
I’m more interested in preventing unintended pregnancies in the first place
I’m more concerned about abortion pill providers exploiting women, because they won’t be prosecuted or held accountable for the consequences of their actions, their hands are clean as far as they’re concerned,
It’s more unlikely anything will come of it simply because trying to get clarity like that will mean that physicians will be in an even worse position to be able to use their judgment to determine an appropriate course of action in those circumstances, and I don’t expect politicians or lawmakers to be in any position to be writing nuance like that into law.
Texas law doesn’t criminalise a woman for having an abortion, it places limitations on what physicians can do in any given circumstance. Personally, I’m not in favour of those laws which don’t allow for physicians to be able to use their best judgment in determining what is an appropriate course of action, but I’m even less concerned about the idea of forcing women to give birth, that’s impossible in any case without some form of incarceration. I’m more interested in preventing unintended pregnancies in the first place, but also preventing people from exploiting women seeking to end their pregnancy.
I’m more concerned about abortion pill providers exploiting women, because they won’t be prosecuted or held accountable for the consequences of their actions, their hands are clean as far as they’re concerned, and they can sit around sipping tea and discussing how to get abortion pills into the hands of women in Red States and tell themselves they’re doing it for the benefit of women. We’ve seen how that works out in the case in Nebraska, and we all know who won’t face prosecution either. They’ll happily accept payment for their services, but none of the responsibility for their actions.
"What’s actually obvious is that if there is an increase in the number of infants are born, there will be an increase in the number of infants who die, when all factors are taken into consideration, rather than limiting explanations to just one factor which just so neatly happens to coincide with the explanation you prefer."
Actually, what's actually obvious from the link I posted earlier (unfortunately via phone so no chance to comment,) is women are being forced to carry unviable pregnancies until the child is born and quickly dies. So, more forced births, more baby deaths. Rescinding bans, or as in the case in question asks, getting the conditions clarified, is the only way to fix that. My feeling is nothing will come of the case because it's Texas, where the lone star is a review.
And, of course, more risky pregnancies forced to go through like ectopic, tubal, caesarean scar pregnancies, risks both women and children. But, that's o.k. with the forced birthers like yourself.
That 12% Christy refers to about 227 out of the 2,200 infants that died in 2022, in Texas alone. So we’re not even looking at 1% of the population, but a very specific set of the population, and while it definitely skews younger, that definitely doesn’t correlate to acceptance. One of the reasons for the higher rates of unintended pregnancies among LGBT youth is the lack of acceptance, and because of that lack of acceptance, there is a lack of access to all sorts of services, including but not limited to education, healthcare, housing, just generally poorer outcomes all round really -
https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/human-rights-campaign-fact-sheet-lesbian-bisexual-queer-women-who-have-been-pregnant-are-more-likely-to-need-abortion-services-demonstrates-impact-roe-reversal-would-have-on-lgbtq-people
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna27383
Now obviously if all you’re looking for is to overturn abortion bans, you’re inclined to propose access to abortion, or lack thereof, as the cause of, and solution to an issue where the research is purposefully written to be as vague as possible in order to inflate the numbers. My comment was more about the difficulty in untangling research conducted by advocacy groups proposing to overturn the overturning of Roe (and if you’re familiar with Roe, the original case, you’re familiar with the outcome for Jane Roe. Spoiler - it’s not good). They’re doing exactly what you’re suggesting in using the terms interchangeably, and then referring to them all as one homogeneous group of women. They’re not the worst offenders in attempting to inflate the figures though, that honour goes to the tangled mess which refers not to women, but to “black, brown bodies” as though it were a text written in Colonial times.
Hospital services and access to healthcare didn’t drop in a single year, it’s been in decline for years, which is why it would be silly to suggest that the rise in infant deaths in a single year was down to abortion bans when it was already predicted that there would be an increase in the number of infants born at the tail end of the pandemic, which there was. An increase of 10,000, which is not a lot in a single year when the average number of infants born is around 300,000 anyway. The increase in the number of infants who die shortly after birth corresponds to the increase in the numbers of infants born; an increase of 227 on 2,000, in that context, isn’t even approaching 1% -
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/06/health/texas-abortion-law-births/index.html#:~:text=Follow%20CNN-,Under%20strict%20abortion%20law%2C%20Texas%20had%20nearly%2010%2C000%20more%20births,months%20of%202022%2C%20research%20suggests&text=From%20April%20to%20December%202022,births%20in%20Texas%2C%20researchers%20found.
What’s actually obvious is that if there is an increase in the number of infants are born, there will be an increase in the number of infants who die, when all factors are taken into consideration, rather than limiting explanations to just one factor which just so neatly happens to coincide with the explanation you prefer.
Naturally one is inclined to use cases which make their point, but it’s reaching to try and suggest cases where the laws were not relevant are at fault, especially when those laws permit exemptions in the cases one is trying to portray as being an outcome of the restrictions, which were in fact a consequence of a lack of medical intervention on the part of physicians who are willing to put women at risk in order to make a broader political point, or cases where young girls aren’t being penalised for seeking healthcare, they’re being penalised for attempting to hide the evidence that they purposely sought to avoid contact with healthcare professionals who under the law have a duty to report such cases.
It’s her mother is being penalised for providing an abortion, and there’s no evidence her mother is a healthcare professional - there would have been no record of events had things gone really sideways, other than their chat logs from social media detailing their intentions before they acted upon them. That’s why they’re not being punished unfairly, and abortion bans aren’t the issue, it goes back further than that, before a woman is ever pregnant in the first place.
I really don't think the difference between pregnant people and pregnant women will be close to enough to describing a difference of 12%. The numbers of trans people is just not there. I mean you are looking at about half of about 1% of the population. Never mind that it skews younger as well due to a higher acceptance and so are less likely to have children. Plus pregnant people vs pregnant women may well just be counting them all and labeling them as women.
How much did hospital services drop in a single year, noting the death had been dropping in previous years? From the linked article "The spike in infant deaths caused by genetic and birth defects was even steeper than the rise in infant deaths as a whole: Between 2021 and 2022, such deaths increased by 21.6 percent." It seems pretty obvious if you are forcing people to carry pregnancies which have no hope of surviving you are going to increase infant deaths.
They don't view it as healthcare but all that can be done about that is to highlight cases their laws don't work for and show the general suffering their laws create.
It isn’t happening, and States rolling back on abortion laws isn’t going to make it happen any faster. They’re not a direct relationship. The point was that in order to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place, access to education should be the priority, as opposed to imagining access to abortion will change anything. It hasn’t done in the last 50 years since Roe.
12% even, isn’t a dramatic increase when all factors are considered, as opposed to an organisation hoping to overturn abortion bans, putting an increase in infant and maternal mortality rates down to abortion bans. That seems a rather obvious correlation, as opposed to determining the actual cause of the increase. Given what we know of the broader circumstances and the declining availability of healthcare and hospitals in rural areas, that would seem an altogether more reasonable explanation for the rise in infant and maternal mortality rates. I’m reluctant to throw the cat among the pigeons but I’d be remiss if I didn’t suggest one explanation for an increase is due to how the statistics are being gathered and presented - depending upon your sources, some researchers refer to pregnant women, some refer to… pregnant people. Obviously if you’re accounting for more than just pregnant women, it tends to inflate the figures.
The point I was making about the people who introduced abortion bans is that rather like yourself - they don’t particularly care what anyone thinks does or doesn’t constitute healthcare, they don’t view the provision of elective abortion services as healthcare. Neither your perception, nor your declarations, has any influence on that reality.
The comparison I was making was in terms of how they chose to dispose of human remains, by covering up the evidence, and they have been roundly criticised and condemned for doing so, yet in this particular case, there are some who would prefer to overlook that fact and pretend the State of Nebraska is trying to punish young women for having an abortion, as opposed to what the mother and daughter were actually charged with, related to how they chose to dispose of human remains in an attempt to cover up the evidence. That’s why pro-choice advocates in the US are trying to bend reality beyond all recognition in order to support their narrative. It actually doesn’t take a genius to figure out their motivations in doing so. That’s why I said this particular case is not a good example to be using to support their narrative.
The majority of states, and even European countries have gestational term limits on abortions though. 29 weeks is well past this. This was still the case before the ruling on roe vs Wade and they arent specific to Nebraska or "red states". What they did would have been illegal regardless of that, and isn't related to any changes the law. Would have been illegal in most of Europe too
To add, I am pro choice. I just don't see this case as an attack on abortion rights but is more to do with their subsequent actions.
