Here's my problem with that: if they were really interesting in "coming closer" to achieving their goal, they would support those things that reduce the need for abortion.

Obama went to Notre Dame and argued, at least we can all agree that we want to reduce the number of abortions, right? And the answer was no. They don't want to "reduce the number of abortions." They have to eliminate all of them. That's why they can't accept compromises that would merely "reduce" the number of abortions. It does not achieve their goal

No, she doesn't. Which is why terminating a non-sentient entity should be left up to the woman.

I think that's true of some, but I also think that what is at issue here is not the rational idea of achieving a goal, but the idea of getting a law passed, and the very idea of a right destroyed, and for that, compromise may be necessary even if you have to hold your nose, especially if you're just inserting the thin end of the wedge.

I am quite willing to consider the anti-abortion activists as lacking in quality of thought, imposing sexual bigotry and muddled morals, and often enough just insincere and hypocritical.

The actual elimination of abortions is only part of the goal. After all, many on the far right are ready to go after birth control and sex education too, and not to belabor the obvious, but from the anti-abortion standpoint, there is little more effective than gay sex. The other part, getting a patriarchal sectarian government, might be (at least for some) worth tossing the victims of rape and incest a lagniappe, especially since, if the job is done right, it can be manipulated, and if not simply withdrawn, made so cumbersome and embarrassing and punitive that it might as well be.

I've argued before and will still: this to me signals that many are more interested in punishing women for having abortions than they are in stopping abortions. "for having abortions" can probably be removed without altering its accuracy.

Even simpler explanation. They want to control women.

Exactly. People forget that a fetus is a parasite. It is an organism that takes a toll on its host. Women pay a health price almost from day one upon getting pregnant. And the act of delivery takes another toll.

It should never be up to anyone other than the person with this organism inside them to decide what to do about it. I'm one of those people who believe women should have the right to terminate right up to 9 months. It's all about bodily autonomy. Making abortion illegal is stealing a woman's right over their own body.

If it is a parasite, then it seems the government could mandate abortions as part of a public health initiative.

Which is why I'm a little uneasy over states voting on abortion laws. A right should not be voted on. We don't do it for other rights. Can you imagine voting on the rights in the Bill of Rights?

Nonsense. What do you think is the definition of a parasite?

parasite noun

par·​a·​site | \ ˈper-ə-ˌsīt , ˈpa-rə- \
plural parasites
Definition of parasite
1: an organism living in, on, or with another organism in order to obtain nutrients, grow, or multiply often in a state that directly or indirectly harms the host.

Some women want to have children and are willing to share their body with this organism. They should have that right too.

I understand that. But what is the choice? Keep in mind that the founders were more than willing to take that right from people of color.

What do you mean by "right" here? I think I heard the historian David Starkey talking about them the other day as something like privileges (I'm getting that word wrong, but I can't remember the correct one) that we believe in so passionately that we are unwilling to put them up for debate. The difficulty of course is what to do when a supposed right is contentious.

The US government has had campaigns to destroy things like parasites regardless if a person wanted it


ETA: viruses are parasites

ETA2: except for COVID unfortunately.

True enough, but the simplistic answer is that they were wrong to do so. The choice then is, perhaps, as simple as not dong the wrong thing again.

Uh-oh. Now you've done it...

Cue righteous indignation.

I know. It's like I've crossed the line.

But the simple fact is a fetus is dependent on the woman it inhabits for all its necessary nutrients. It's a simple fact that a woman's body is changed forever by pregnancy.

Who am I to tell a woman to go through all that? Who am I to tell a young girl, that she must deliver it and raise it when maybe she doesn't want it? Who am I to dictate her future?

An anti-choice advocate.

"More restrictive abortion laws don't make the number of abortions go down" is one of those facts that the other side has to deny in order to maintain viable.

Well it ain't me.

This is the proverbial example of the dog that chases the car catching it. It's not what they expected. The GOP has been always been in theory pro-life for 45 years when in reality many people who have voted Republican are not. But they never really had to concern themselves with the issue. They got the votes without having to deal with any political ramifications. It was an unholy alliance with one issue voters. Same as it is with guns.

Many Republicans didn't want to "win on abortion" but they want the issue. They're a scene in The West Wing that explains in an offhand way.

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I AGREE

Lots of Republicans said "Hell No" in Kansas on making abortion illegal. The GOP just did more to divide its party than the Democrats could ever do.

Yep. And Pandora's box is open with easy travel and pharmaceutical abortions.

I agree. There are many Republicans who did not want R v W overturned, but they loved the issue to be used as a political cudgel against the Dems.

"The Public Religion Research Institute is out with one of the first big polls testing abortion views in a post-Roe world. The big takeaway is that caution is the watchword for Republicans who are newly empowered to severely restrict abortion rights."

The poll shows that:

61 percent of Republicans oppose making it a felony to seek an abortion.

48 percent of Republicans oppose making it a felony to perform an abortion.

64 percent of Republicans oppose making it illegal to cross state lines to get an abortion.

39 percent of Republicans oppose banning abortion after the 6th week of pregnancy.

56 percent of Republicans oppose laws making it explicitly illegal to order abortion pills by mail.

52 percent of Republicans oppose an abortion ban that would provide an exception only for the life of the pregnant individual.

48 percent of Republicans oppose making it a felony to perform an abortion.

21 percent of Republicans oppose making it illegal to obtain an abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy

"In some ways, a post-Roe world was more beneficial to the GOP politically as a hypothetical. But now that hypothetical is reality. And Republicans will face pressure from some in their base to go down some of these roads, after years of activists dreaming about just such an opportunity."

The choice seems to be one of body autonomy. I would word it similar to the other enumerated rights. Something like "The government shall not infringe the right of people to do what they want with their bodies."

Hell, that could take care of abortion, sex work, and euthanasia in one fell swoop.

Before the Roe v Wade decision came down in the 1970s, the GOP as a party wasn't pro-life. Some were, some weren't, but it wasn't anywhere near the universal stance it was after the 1980 election. Ronnie changed all that. He made an alliance with the evangelicals and this despite that Ronnie hated Paul Weyrich, Jerry Falwell etc. He thought they were nuts.

Now the politicians have to deal with the political effects of saying a raped ten year old can't get an abortion or throwing doctors in jail.

Yes, but it does cause a problem with vaccinations. Not a free lunch.

But isn't that the case already? As many people have demonstrated by dying of Covid, catching measles and polio and so on, if you're willing to pay the price, you can opt out of the lunch. The right not to vaccinate is not the same as the right to do other things in society, like going to school or entering a theater or working in a hospital, many of which are inherently conditional.

People are going to do what they are going to. The question is the law.

People will obtain abortions despite the law in their particular state. I've heard of states possibly creating laws that prevent someone traveling for the purpose of obtaining an abortion but that seems grotesquely unconstitutional. It isn't explicit but Interstate has been considered a constitutionally protected right. Even the turd Kavanaugh has said that.

I get all that. My point is simply that slyjoe's suggestion of establishing the right of bodily autonomy does not, inherently, seem to cause a problem with vaccination requirements, as those involve what you may not do if unvaccinated. While in terms of leading a normal life in society, these requirements virtually force vaccination, technically they do not.

I imagine that it's true that there can be no law that prevents interstate travel, though I don't trust various states not to try it anyway, perhaps using the civil suit dodge of Texas. But what I'm less sure of is what laws might be possible if you come back.

If that were established, and if I were a lawyer filing against vaccination requirements, I would argue that the extent to which choosing not to vaccinate shuts a person out from public gatherings and spaces, has a chilling effect on their right to bodily autonomy. It does not matter if you have the technical right if exercising it is onerously impractical due to government actions. That kind of argument is a vital defense of other rights, such as those in the First Amendment.

This does not mean I am against such mandates, but there's no way around confronting the question of the limits of bodily autonomy when it affects others, as it does with contagious diseases. We ultimately need to establish those boundaries, not leave them unspoken and count on technicalities.

I agree. We could propose that bodily autonomy is everyone's right but not when a decision such as non-vaccinating would negatively affect the physical health of other people. However, the GOP would simply declare that a fetus is a 'person', therefore abortion negatively affects other 'people'. We'd have to come to a legal consensus of what a 'person' is and that isn't going to happen:

YES! YES! YES! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

The courts have probably always been partisan to some degree, but they weren't totally stupid until recently.

But I agree. We should have national laws based entirely upon scientific expertise regarding vaccines for infectious diseases. Appeals for exemptions of any kind should go through medical boards not the courts.

It's the same group that advocates abstinence-only education....They don't care that it doesn't work and actually increases teenage pregnancy.

Just make bodily autonomy inviolate except when public health is at stake. Maybe also exceptions based on mental health. It then doesn’t matter if we declare a fetus a person. A person does not have the right to use another person's body absent consent. An unwanted fetus does not have consent.

I'll go along with that. You are of course correct in that vaccination is not only a choice of one's own bodily autonomy but a social one in which individual rights are not the only consideration. I'm playing the technicality here.

This.

When anything, literally one single action, they do actually makes sense within the context of protecting the precious widdle unborn babies and doesn't make 100% perfect sense within the context of "punishing women for having sex" then... okay then maybe compromise or "meet halfway" or something like that can at least go back on the table.

As it stands though? No. They are not honest agents in this discussion and should not be treated as such.

And that they view children as punishment.

Nvm. Not worth the response on a religious forum.

I think you might have been confused as to where you were posting.

The very suggestion of any valid comparison between vaccine mandates and abortions rights is dishonest lying.

There's no equivalent to "herd immunity" with pregnancy. A woman getting an abortion doesn't increase the chances of other women around her having miscarriages. There is no comparison.

This is not difficult to understand, so nobody put on a big show of pretending it is.

I suppose the idea of "my body, my choice" only makes sense in the latter context?

It does, for the most part, because with vaccinations, it's not just your body, is it? Your decisions have an effect on your entire human being community's bodies, or more if the disease in question is virulent enough. The burden of taking a vaccine on you is quite small and the benefit is huge.

With abortion, at most, you're talking about a potential human being. The burden on the mother is quite large and prolonged with huge potential drawbacks.

It's not quite the same, is it?

"my body my choice" contains no such qualifications.