Don’t sell Nixon short; at least he admitted that rape exists.
Not that much. People may have thought a “mixed-race baby” would have a harder life, but the belief it would be “necessary” to terminate the pregnancy was not a common belief. Nixon, you will remember, was a peculiarly unpleasant person.
She also could not legally get an abortion.
Nope.
“Commenting privately on the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling Roe vs Wade, …”
Yeah, and that’s always been such an insurmountable barrier.
Nevertheless, it’s a 60 year-old guy venturing an opinion in a fairly visceral topic. I venture his opinion was in formation years before, if not decades before 1973. Similarly, ask a modern 60 year-old about a modern equivalent issue (gay marriage, maybe) - I venture their opinion will be affected by how they felt about it in the early 1980s.
Please share with us your experience in trying to safely terminate a pregnancy in 1933, the time you mentioned.
Where there techniques that made a perforated uterus much less likely if one attempted a mechanical termination?
Was the uterus so much stronger, or bleach and lye so much weaker, that a caustic douche was less likely to end sterility at best and quite possibly death?
Or where the poisons used as abortifacients so much better targeted that one was less likely to die puking and cramping in agony?
Do tell.
Nixon was specifically referring to Roe v. Wade, suggesting at that time aborting mixed-race babies would be “necessary”, and no, that was NOT a commonly held belief.
Even with all that, women who wanted abortions did in fact seek them.
Do tell where I said it was common.
Read the OP.
Yes, women sought abortions. Some found them.
Some were left sterile. Some died from them.
Don’t trivialize the danger women were in.
I didn’t even mention the danger women were in, let alone trivialize it. My point was merely that it’s not particularly shocking that a 60 year-old man in 1973 would have said something like that.
Any additional motives you want to attribute to me… be my guest.
Stop that. You are mischaracterizing your statements. You implied the lack of legal abortions was of little consequence.
You also mischaracterized one of my statements; it think it was clear I was responding to the OP, WhyNot, and Little Nemo who appeared to believe Nixon’s attitude would not have been anathema to most of the U.S. at the time, in the '70s.
(And I will apologize to Suppery, WhyNot, or LittleNemo if I have mischaracterized one of their positions.)
Re-reading the article, I wonder if Nixon even assumed women would be making the decision, or if the man would do so, and she would acquiesce. The statement to Bush about women candidates does not indicate much respect for women, does it?
I think it interesting that there is no reference to immorality, murder, or God’s Will in his stated opposition.
j666, Bryan made an off-hand comment that might not have been well thought out. You have now turned it into a major point of contention (including imputing thoughts to him that he has not expressed) that are really off-topic for this thread. You are also getting dangerously close to accusing him of lying, a point both against the rules and inaccurate.
Just drop it.
[ /Moderating ]
Could it be that the legalization of abortion was one of the reasons why interracial relationships became more acceptable? This might be a strange supposition, but please hear me out. Prior to abortion being legalized, interracial relationships, as are all sexual relationships both then and today, were likely to lead to a pregnancy. The fetus would obviously be mixed-race. If abortion is not an option, then all mixed race couplings would result in mixed-race children.
On the other hand, if abortion is legal, then interracial relationships not including marriage that produced a pregnancy with the fetus being a mixed-race child need not be carried to term (pregnancies resulting from interracial marriage could also be terminated, but there is no reason why such a couple would wish to do so unless they just didn’t want to have children), which means that the consequences of an interracial relationship are entirely under the participants’ control, rather than potentially long-term…
This would lead to more interracial couplings since conception wouldn’t mean mandated birth; i.e. one could have one night stands, experiment with “different” people, etc. (I am assuming that there is a natural tendency for members in all “races” to have sex with each other, and that social taboos merely attempt to suppress this natural feeling; mind you, I’m not saying that individuals prefer other races, merely that people will have sex with anyone more or less =D) The more interracial couplings occur, the more the social taboo concerning them breaks down, which in turn leads to more interracial couplings, and voila, a generation loses its racism in a virtuous or vicious cycle, depending on whether or not you are a racist.
I am hypothesizing that without legalized abortion, this might not have happened to the extent that it (possibly) did?
Abortion was legalized in 1973.
The birth control bill was approved by the FDA in 1960.
I suspect that even if your general concept has merit, (and I don’t actually find it persuasive), the introduction of a pill to prevent pregancies 13 years earlier would overwhelm any minor actions of subsequent abortions in your scenario.