Yes, of course. The GOP sucks. No dispute about that. But Democrats can put themselves in a stronger electoral position if they are a little more open to restrictions on later abortion, while adamantly standing up for the right to first trimester abortion. Kirsten Gillibrand has flatly declared that people who support any restrictions at all should not be welcome in the party. Bad move.
Think of it like this -
if you want to decrease (or increase) use of a service, you can work on the supply side of the equation or you can work on the demand side of the equation. You are more likely to be successful if you address both.
Many “pro-life” advocates target all of their energy on the supply side. If no one is around to provide an abortion, then it will become more difficult to have one. However, it seems that if someone’s true goal was to eliminate abortions, they would also work toward a world where no one (or at least substantially fewer women) wanted to have one. To me, that includes reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies through better and cheaper access to birth control (exceedingly few non-pregnant women have abortions). My guess is that a woman who was less worried about economic catastrophe after having a child (due to the very real costs of child rearing) would be more likely to elect to keep her child - so, lessening the economic burdens would likely result in lowering the abortion rate. &tc. &tc.
When I do run across someone whose policies don’t do anything to reduce the number of desired abortions (and in some cases actually will increase the number of unwanted pregnancies and more women who might consider the benefits of an abortion), I have to wonder what their underlying motives really are when they fight against reproductive rights.
How about going with principle? How about doing what’s right instead of following polls?
Yep, exactly.
Incidentally, Canada has no abortion laws at all, and due to relatively sane social policies the abortion rate of 13.7 per 1000 circa 2010 is significantly lower than in the US in the same period (19.6 per 1000) and is roughly in line with the UK and Australia (both at 14.2).
ETA: Forgot the link: Facts About Abortion: Worldwide Abortion Statistics
:dubious:
I understand all that, but it just seems as if this debate is for another thread. I simply do not see how an attitude of “You shouldn’t be permitted to murder you child” (as that is what the pro-life side believes is happening) equals I must now pay more to care for that child that I stopped you from murdering. Whether we should have a social safety net and more accurately, the extent of that safety net is for another thread.
Taken to its logical conclusion, a lot of people would be on the hook for paying for a lot of things.
If you call yourself Pro-life and you are:
anti abortion
anti death penalty
pro gun control
pro universal tax-based health care
pro tax-based support networks
and anti proactive war
then, respect.
Otherwise, cool it with the patting yourself on the back. It ain’t fooling anyone.
This has been stated in this and other threads. “Pro-life” is shorthand for being against legal abortion in most instances. It does not mean life always and forever without exception. It is not a general commentary on a person’s overall moral philosophy anymore than “pro-choice” is.
As I said above, is it wrong to call yourself pro-choice unless you support every choice at all times? Or is it just shorthand for your support for legal abortion?
Add anti-police brutality to the list.
It would be a terrible strategy. Democrats wouldn’t gain pro-life voters; they’ll never be able to find a more pro-life position than the one the Republicans have already established. And they would lose pro-choice voters.
“Pro-life” is absolutely a commentary on a person’s moral stance, as it means that they’re willing to suppress the principles of reason and give primacy to their religious beliefs or other unscientific superstitious claptrap as the basis for the law of the land, despite all the societal damage that it obviously causes. It’s no different than the ideas underlying Sharia law, or the basis of any other theocracy.
As I said earlier, Canada abolished all legal restrictions on abortions decades ago, yet has a structurally healthier society with a substantially lower abortion rate than the US yet with better health care and social services for actual children. So which approach to abortions leads to the more moral outcomes?
Pro choice is also on the nose, as a general label for their group.
I have no problem with the label. But the “choice” that they are “pro” is the choice for women to have legal abortions and nothing more. The label doesn’t mean that they are in favor of a woman choosing to carry a concealed weapon or to use recreational drugs. It is abortion related only and it would be unfair for someone to say that they are not really pro-choice if they do not support the latter.
That is my problem with the “how can you say that you are pro-life if you support the death penalty?” arguments. The label is not universal.
Well, that is the point in more civilized developed nations. There are a lot of reasons why a woman can end a pregnancy and taking one big reason away, like the one a woman with very little economical or family support has, does help with the issue when most people still think that even if abortion is a right, it should be rare.
GIGO, are you under the impression that what you posted contradicted me somehow? 
That’s terrible political strategery, that will usually get you further from your goal rather than closer. But in this case, it’s not relevant to me, because I believe protecting the right to first trimester while banning it thereafter IS the right thing on principle.
Did you actually read what I proposed? Gallup consistently finds that <30% support abortion being legal in the second trimester (not third, second). That means a lot of Democrats are already in that camp. Others may uneasily vote Republican, but would happily vote Democratic if our brand was only to camp out in the first trimester and guard that like a fortress.
And we’d lose pro-choice voters to…whom?
You can believe whatever you want, as is your privilege, but the balance that always has to be struck in a representative democracy is between leadership toward doing what is right versus blindly following polls, especially when it comes to matters of fact rather than opinion or religious superstition. The facts in this case relate to the kinds of societies that result and the tangible impacts on real people of various forms of abortion prohibitions. These are things that can actually be empirically studied around the world. In the face of empirical evidence “beliefs” are worthless.
That was a super quick pivot from “let’s do what’s right instead of following polls”.
The abortion issue is really almost the prototypical issue where you can’t establish *any *position as empirically “right”. It’s a value judgement about which tradeoffs people feel outweigh others.
But people who are somewhere in the middle of the abortion issue aren’t likely to vote based on a candidate’s position on abortion. Some people will only vote for candidates who promise to stop all abortions and some people will only vote for candidates who promise to protect full abortion rights. But nobody is saying “I only vote for candidates who seek out a position in the middle.” People who are one-issue voters don’t have moderate views on the issue in question.
To “Fuck both parties. I’m staying home on Election Day.”
I agree. I’m pro-choice because I’m not sure what the correct answer is. So I feel it’s an issue where individuals need to decide for themselves. I don’t feel there’s an obvious answer that everyone should have to follow.
I’m sorry, but this just doesn’t make sense. There are many other kinds of voters besides one-issue voters. If both parties represent an individual’s views poorly/incompletely, a shift in an issue, or in multiple issues, can sway such individuals without their needing to be super dedicated one-issue voters. Otherwise, how do you explain the people who shifted from Bill Clinton, to George W. Bush, to Barack Obama, to Donald Trump?
ETA: I also believe it is hard for people on one end or the other of this issue to understand that there are many of us who really do lament how extreme BOTH sides are. I’m not “in the middle” because I’m just “eh, whatever” about this issue. I think telling a woman she can’t use a morning after pill, or go immediately to the clinic to expel the zygote as soon as she discovers it, is heartless and cruel. I also think later term abortion (once the baby has a recognizably human babyface) is heartless and cruel. The people who push for an uncompromising position at either end arouse my ire.
Where did you see a “pivot”? That was a restatement of the same principle.
Ultimately, sure, that’s what it amounts to. But the objective part comes in observing the outcomes of different strategies, and then making value judgments based on factual data. If a particular strategy with the least abortion restrictions (none at all, in fact, as in my recent example) results in (a) fewer abortions, and (b) better health care and social support for actual children, it’s hard to argue that this is not a preferred strategy. The second point is that when dealing with an issue which is extremely personal and entails moral ambiguity, you would think that this is the last place you’d want inflexible government regulations intruding, yet the “minimal government” and “maximum freedom” crowd is precisely the political sector clamoring for the strictest abortion laws. Their stance is neither rationally nor morally supportable. There’s a reason that anti-abortion campaigns rely entirely on appeals to emotion instead of facts.