# Georgia governor signs strictest abortion bill in nation **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 8, 2019, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659 "2019-05-08T09:49:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 29
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/561 "2019-05-22T17:08:03Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Yeah, women and men both had plenty of laws saying what we had to do with our respective bodies, back before 1973. > > Not sure how that’s relevant to 2019. No, no, the massive problem with the ‘draft’ argument is that he’s blatantly ignoring that when we impinge in body autonomy we do it for _reasons_. Him trying to divert the discussion _away from_ those reasons to the “okay, but if we _had_ reasons then banning abortion would be totally justified!” is stupid horseshit, and it’s also the whole point of the draft thing. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/562 "2019-05-22T17:10:30Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > At least in the US, the vast majority of abortions are not performed because of severe fetal deformity. Unless you have a cite to the contrary… > > Regards, > Shodan Do I need to come up with cites that roughly the same crowd that’s against abortions has also fought contraception access (e.g. _Hobby Lobby_) and sex ed other than abstinence-only? All those pro-life evangelicals have fought against teens being allowed easy access to contraceptives because the idea of their darling little girl fucking some boy gives them hives. And to them, that’s been consistently more important than all the ‘murders’ that happened because little Janie got knocked up and needed an abortion. Bill Clinton, when running for President in 1992, said he wanted abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare.” And we libruls would love to make sure every American woman and girl of child-bearing age can get whatever form of contraception would work best for her, to minimize the number of abortions that happen because the woman didn’t want to be pregnant in the first place. Where does the resistance to this come from? Not from the left, bro. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/563 "2019-05-22T17:12:44Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I felt it was a relevant rebuttal to the assertion that “There are plenty of laws saying what we can’t do with our bodies, and few, if any, saying what we must do.” You think it supports your position, while the much closer analogy concerning transplants obviously doesn’t. I can see why you don’t want to talk about the latter. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/564 "2019-05-22T17:16:10Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I’m saying it’s a rare enough edge case that, even if I did think it was a good idea, it’s not very common Picking up on this claim to note: Actually, it’s not at all rare for people to die for lack of a transplant that could be provided by a living donor, such as a kidney, part of a liver or lung or intestine, bone marrow, etc. There are at least tens of thousands of people who die in the US each year due to not getting such a transplant. At a conservative estimate, that’s at least 1-2% of the number of abortions that occur annually. So it’s definitely not the sort of minuscule “edge case” likelihood that you’re trying to make it out to be. If you spend, say, a thousand dollars a year on fighting for legally enforced pregnancy continuation, then proportionally you ought to be spending ten to fight for legally enforced live donation of organs, if the saving of lives really does matter to you so much more than bodily autonomy. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/565 "2019-05-22T17:19:24Z")
So there’s no myriad of reasons to breach body autonomy, at all. Your corpse has enough body autonomy that I can’t harvest your organs for donation, (to save numerous lives!), unless you so consented while alive. But it’s okay for the state to breach women’s body autonomy to protect a bundle of cells with only the potential to become a person. And the heartbeat indicator is pure, utter nonsense. It is NOT the measure by which we routinely decide life is over. Lots of beating hearts are disconnected from life support because there is no brain activity. Brain death is the measure. Straight up misogyny to my eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/566 "2019-05-22T17:27:59Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > It seems sort of easy to make that distinction actually. :rolleyes: I’m inferring until further notice that if you **did** actually have a logically and morally consistent way to make such a distinction, you would have stated it, rather than merely insinuating in a ten-word drive-by post that you **could** state one if you wanted to. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/567 "2019-05-22T17:28:57Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > In a democracy we vote on those obligations either directly or indirectly via representatives. The populace won’t be in 100% agreement and some will be unhappy. Do you have a better mechanism? How about, if half the people believe ‘meat is murder’, and half don’t, then you do as your beliefs dictate and leave others to do the same? Any other solution allows one half to be oppressed by beliefs of the other. Half of the population will always be oppressed, whichever side is currently on top. THAT’S unworkable! ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/568 "2019-05-22T17:35:42Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > ISTM that that’s a failure of consistency, or possibly outright hypocrisy, on your part. You apparently found it worth your while to “flesh out a firm position” on the acceptability of legally forcing a woman to provide the use of her blood and organs (often with very damaging physical and psychological consequences) to a fetus she doesn’t want simply because the fetus would otherwise die. In fact, your position on that topic is so firm that you devote substantial “time, money and energy” to the cause of enforcing compliance with your views on the part of everybody else, whether they agree with you or not. > > That being the case, I don’t see how you can possibly justify not having an opinion on the violation of bodily autonomy of people who are not pregnant women to preserve the lives of people who are not _in utero_ embryos or fetuses. If you’re okay with legally requiring continuation of pregnancy to preserve the life of a fetus, but not okay with legally requiring organ donation to preserve the life of a born person, on what grounds do you make that distinction? Is it that you think the lives of fetuses are somehow more valuable than the lives of adults with organ failure, or that you think the bodily autonomy of pregnant women is somehow less important than the bodily autonomy of potential organ donors, or what? > > Your refusal to examine the moral consistency of your position is coming across as not wanting to look too closely at your beliefs for fear you might have to confront some hypocrisy in them. I’ve said previously in this thread that there are already a variety of ways that the government violates the bodily autonomy of its citizens. I don’t agree with all of them, but I don’t have an issue with others. To the extent that you think someone who opposes some forms of violation of bodily autonomy but not others is a hypocrite, I suppose I’m guilty as charged, but I submit to you that I’m hardly unique in that regard. It’s a not uncommon view. For example, looking just at the issue of abortion, the viewpoints that it should be illegal in all circumstances and legal in all circumstances are minority positions. The most common position is that it should be legal in some circumstances and illegal in others. Are those people all hypocrites in your eyes because they find “forcing a woman to provide the use of her blood and organs” acceptable in some circumstances and unacceptable in others? Is a generally pro-choice person who nevertheless opposes partial birth abortions a hypocrite? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/569 "2019-05-22T17:44:19Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > That abortion at week seven should be banned based on the thingy in the tummy being a human person that shouldn’t be murdered. Ahhh, I think I see where your confusion lies. My position is not that “the thingy in the tummy” shouldn’t be “murdered”, but that it shouldn’t generally be killed absent some really good reason. I don’t regularly use the word “murder” to describe the act of killing the “the thingy in the tummy” because: 1. “murder” is a legal definition for a particular form of ending a human life that I don’t think is applicable to the act of abortion, and 2. “murder” is a word laden with connotations that tend to draw a lot of emotion into a debate. For example, elbows’ “meat is murder” position. ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/570 "2019-05-22T17:46:08Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I’ve said previously in this thread that there are already a variety of ways that the government violates the bodily autonomy of its citizens. I don’t agree with all of them, but I don’t have an issue with others. To the extent that you think someone who opposes some forms of violation of bodily autonomy but not others is a hypocrite, I suppose I’m guilty as charged, but I submit to you that I’m hardly unique in that regard. It’s a not uncommon view. For example, looking just at the issue of abortion, the viewpoints that it should be illegal in all circumstances and legal in all circumstances are minority positions. The most common position is that it should be legal in some circumstances and illegal in others. Are those people all hypocrites in your eyes because they find “forcing a woman to provide the use of her blood and organs” acceptable in some circumstances and unacceptable in others? Is a generally pro-choice person who nevertheless opposes partial birth abortions a hypocrite? Where are you at on birth control? I don’t mean to derail the thread, but I think it is pertinent to the discussion. The people sponsoring these types of bills in Ohio also seem to want to remove coverage for certain forms of birth control. Birth control seems to prevent the evil abortion thing from being a thing. > [@](#): > > OHIO: A bill to stop insurance from covering abortion could affect birth control, too. > > Ohio also recently passed a “heartbeat” ban, but its legislators are now debating yet another abortion-restriction bill, to stop most insurance companies from covering abortion services unless the procedure is necessary to save the mother’s life. The bill defines this kind of abortion as a “nontherapeutic abortion.” And as in Georgia’s bill, there’s some curious language: This one says that so-called nontherapuetic abortion “includes drugs or devices > > used to prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum.” > > Such a broad definition could include common birth control methods like the pill and IUDs, Jaime Miracle, deputy director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, told the Statehouse News Bureau. An IUD can cost as much as $1,300, according to Planned Parenthood. > **[Imprisoning Women and Not Covering Birth Control Are Now on the Table in the...](https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwnw4n/imprisoning-women-and-not-covering-birth-control-are-now-on-the-table-in-the-abortion-fight)** > > Anti-abortion legislators are no longer just trying to chip away at Roe. They’re going after it with an ax. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/571 "2019-05-22T17:46:24Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > How about, if half the people believe ‘meat is murder’, and half don’t, then you do as your beliefs dictate and leave others to do the same? Especially in cases where, as on the issue of abortion, the prohibitionist view is based purely on religious/spiritual belief. The idea of full personhood with full legal rights (in addition to its unique and massive “right” to be physically sustained by using an existing person’s body) inhering in a fertilized ovum from the instant of fertilization onward has no basis other than doctrines of faith. These may be theological doctrines of “ensoulment” by a deity, or arbitrary claims about what’s owed to the ovum’s “potential” as a person. All other arguments for prohibiting abortion—that it will be better for women’s physical or mental health, that it will make women better and more caring mothers, that it will improve our morals as a society—are completely unsupported by evidence (and in some cases, directly contradicted by evidence). Ultimately, the anti-abortion position rests on nothing more than the personal beliefs _“I think this is what God wants”_ or _“I choose to regard a non-sentient cluster of cells as a fully human person”_. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/572 "2019-05-22T17:47:52Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Ahhh, I think I see where your confusion lies. My position is not that “the thingy in the tummy” shouldn’t be “murdered”, but that it shouldn’t generally be killed absent some really good reason. And who gets to decide how good the reason is?? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/573 "2019-05-22T17:50:46Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Ahhh, I think I see where your confusion lies. My position is not that “the thingy in the tummy” shouldn’t be “murdered”, but that it shouldn’t generally be killed absent some really good reason. I don’t regularly use the word “murder” to describe the act of killing the “the thingy in the tummy” because: > > 1. “murder” is a legal definition for a particular form of ending a human life that I don’t think is applicable to the act of abortion, and > > 2. “murder” is a word laden with connotations that tend to draw a lot of emotion into a debate. For example, elbows’ “meat is murder” position. Fair enough. So you would in fact disagree with the idiocy in the laws under discussion where they say that say that fetuses are people, then? Also, why shouldn’t the thingy be killed? Does it owe you money that won’t be paid back if it’s killed? Because that would be a good reason not to want it killed. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/574 "2019-05-22T17:51:48Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > And who gets to decide how good the reason is?? Politicians, of course! ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/575 "2019-05-22T17:59:42Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > And who gets to decide how good the reason is?? As **octopus** has pointed out, we live in a democracy, so we all do, or at least we should all get to if a handful of judges hadn’t taken it upon themselves to decide for us. ---
**Author:** ![Unreconstructed\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/76d3ee/32.png) [@Unreconstructed\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unreconstructed_Man)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/576 "2019-05-22T17:59:43Z")
Not that this really matters, but… [Alabama Public Television Refuses To Air Episode Of ‘Arthur’ With Gay Wedding](https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/444688-alabama-public-television-wont-air-arthur-episode-with-gay-wedding?amp#click=https://t.co/rwfcCFS6sW) The takeaway here is that the Great State of Alabama will vigilantly shield children from gay cartoon mice, but if they get knocked up by a rapist they can go piss up a rope. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/577 "2019-05-22T18:01:58Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > As **octopus** has pointed out, we live in a democracy, so we all do, or at least we should all get to if a handful of judges hadn’t taken it upon themselves to decide for us. So every time a woman wants to get an abortion, the whole US gets a vote on whether or not she has a good reason? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/578 "2019-05-22T18:07:24Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > So every time a woman wants to get an abortion, the whole US gets a vote on whether or not she has a good reason? Yeah-Let’s have a National Abortion Election every month. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/579 "2019-05-22T18:08:46Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > To the extent that you think someone who opposes some forms of violation of bodily autonomy but not others is a hypocrite, I suppose I’m guilty as charged, but I submit to you that I’m hardly unique in that regard. Sure, but usually when we find ourselves supporting positions that seem contradictory, we have reasons that explain our support in a more consistent way. Or else we just acknowledge that our positions are somewhat inconsistent and arbitrary because that’s just how we feel about it, and we don’t really care whether it’s rational. In the case of forced continuation of pregnancy versus forced live donation of organs, you don’t seem to have bothered to try to establish even a shred of consistency. You’re completely in favor of violating pregnant women’s bodily autonomy to preserve the existence of embryonic or fetal cells that have little to none of the capabilities of a human person. Yet you’re completely apathetic about accepting the loss of tens of thousands of lives annually, lives of indisputably human persons, to avoid violating the bodily autonomy of potential organ donors by forcing them to donate organs. Are you admitting that that’s just irrational and you don’t care, or are you saying you have rational justification for it? Because from where I’m sitting, your position looks like a typical baked-in response to the assumptions of a traditionally patriarchal and religious culture: namely, a fetus is a baby, a woman is a vessel to bear a baby, God made woman to be a mother and rejoice in bearing her baby, and so on and so forth. ISTM that most people holding such views don’t really take forced continuation of pregnancy seriously as a violation of bodily autonomy, the way they’d take forced kidney or even bone marrow donation seriously as a violation of bodily autonomy. Because a woman being pregnant is just fulfilling her nature, and if she only stopped being so selfish and started appreciating this precious gift from God she wouldn’t want an abortion anyway. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659/580 "2019-05-22T18:27:34Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Fair enough. So you would in fact disagree with the idiocy in the laws under discussion where they say that say that fetuses are people, then? > > Also, why shouldn’t the thingy be killed? Does it owe you money that won’t be paid back if it’s killed? Because that would be a good reason not to want it killed. Here’s what I posted earlier in this thread: > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > My personal belief is that life begins at conception. My understanding about the “when does it become a person?” debate is that we’re really trying to decide, as a society, when and to what degree we bestow that life with legal rights. My preference would generally be to see it happen earlier in the pregnancy than usually happens today, but I am not particularly wedded to the idea that it must be at the point when our current medical instrumentation is capable of measuring the heartbeat (~6 weeks). Does that help you understand my view? Or do you still have questions? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659.md?page=28) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/georgia-governor-signs-strictest-abortion-bill-in-nation/833659.md?page=30)