It’s actually not hard to argue against it. First, there is no reason to believe my proposal would result in “(a) fewer abortions, and (b) better health care and social support for actual children” than just being laissez faire.
But let’s say it somehow did work that way. You would be making a case based on utilitarian ethics for society at large, disregarding individual ethically problematic cases based on an appeal to the “greater good”. But if this is our logic, then any time we have a group of patients who are going to die for the lack of various different urgently needed organ transplants, we should just sacrifice one of them at random, take that unlucky person’s organs, and save the rest of the patients. Or maybe organs from people who are dying aren’t very good, in which case we should just take someone who came in for a minor procedure but is otherwise hale and hearty, and harvest *their *organs to save ten others’ lives. The math says it’s the right thing to do!
One could just as easily add the Generally available: 44% with the Available under stricter limits : 34% and get more than 50% (not all limits are draconian, so not mutually exclusive) of people who are the ones that will be disproportionately likely to be decisive in battleground elections against the 20% that are for the unpopular position of not permitting abortion in any way.
But GIGO, that response was not “Abortion should be available, but with limits”. That could be argued to be a vote for the status quo. The wording was actually “Abortion should be available, but under stricter limits than it is now.” (emphasis mine) As I noted when first posting it, this was a very recent poll, conducted even after the recent abortion “heartbeat laws” were passed. Given that fact, it is not supportable to act like the “under stricter limits than it is now” 34% should somehow obviously go with the “generally available” 44%. The 34% have *just *witnessed draconian abortion laws get passed, and are still saying “Make them stricter!” Combined with the 20% saying abortion “should not be permitted”, that’s a majority of the public whose reaction to the “heartbeat laws” was apparently “Okay, that’s progress, but let’s ramp up these restrictions even a little more.” :eek:
Personally, I would have definitely chosen the “stricter limits” answer a couple months ago. But a couple *weeks *ago, after these red state laws were passed? I don’t know–I might have felt compelled to shift to “generally available”, to express opposition to what I saw happening. Which suggests to me the 54% I’m talking about is a floor, and the number would have been higher in January or February.
And that is precisely, exactly wrong – a completely backwards view of the issue. It’s precisely the theocratic Bible-thumping do-gooders who want to impose their will on the rest of society, preventing women from having abortions, intruding egregiously on their reproductive rights, and they don’t give a damn what reasons these women might have for their highly personal and private decisions. The pro-choice side just wants people to be left the hell alone to their own private issues that affect no one else, because it’s their absolute right to make that call for themselves. And that’s really the key distinction between the two sides.
Not what I see, again: most people do reject the new restrictions, so again I have to insist that most of the “restrictions” people are talking about are less draconian, and in the end less supported anyhow.
And that was my point. That trip to add the fringe numbers (from the ones against all abortion) to numbers from the ones that talk about not defined restrictions that are likely not as onerous as the new laws was not necessary.
“That affect no one else”. If that were really uncontroversially accepted as true, it would be an open and shut case. No one but a few radical religious zealots would have any issue with abortion at any stage of pregnancy.
And that was my point. “That trip to add the fringe numbers (from the ones against all abortion) to numbers from the ones that talk about not defined restrictions that are likely not as onerous as the new laws was not necessary.”
I can say that enough will shift to the “generally available” column to make a difference.
But the poll result I cited was from AFTER the new laws were passed. I have explained this to you several times now.
ETA: Now, if you are just trying to argue that the red state/religious right overreach has massively undercut the traction the antiabortion camp was getting by reacting to, and sometimes strawmanning, newly permissive laws in blue states, then yes: that’s true. But we can’t count on their continuing to be so self-destructive forever. It’s quite likely they will go back to seeming like the “reasonable ones” from the middle.
Your virtuous pro-life stance precludes rooting for a dumpster baby solution. So then you have to pay for the services the mother and the kid you (indirectly) brought into the world will need. The alternative is “I’m OK with a broken, uneducated, starving angry kid.”, which for one thing makes you several shades of an asshole, and also will mean you added one kid who’ll beat up your kid for his lunch money to the equation. Does that help ?
People aren’t asking abortion opponents to take the babies into their own homes, they’re asked to support policies that help ensure those babies are well cared for once they are born.
If someone opposes capital punishment, they damn well should also be supporting policies that ensure those prisoners are appropriately housed post-conviction. Yes, that means shouldering the costs of those policies.
I can respect a nuanced anti-abortion position because it acknowledges that this debate involves the rights of two organisms, not just a fetus. But when someone proposes that a fetus has the unfettered right to use the body of a raped mother to sustain itself, I stop listening. There’s a lot more to the sanctity of life than cell reproduction.
Nope. No one except the two people who created the baby are in any way responsible for supporting said baby, regardless of what Millennials and liberals think.
Did you attend public school? Drive on public streets? Use publicly supported infrastructure and services? Or did your mommy & daddy raise you on your very own planet?
There are reasons why that analogy doesn’t really work as is, but lets change it up a bit. Suppose our prisons are over crowded (okay, not exactly a hypothetical there), and that in order to alleviate that overcrowding, we have decided that we are going to start executing thousands of prisoners a year to keep the population down.
Now, I’d be against this. I’d vote for and advocate for politicians that would fight against this. However, is someone the asked me if I supported funding the prisons better so that there was not the overcrowding issue, then I wouldn’t necessarily be a hypocrite if I refused, but it would be pretty obvious that my concerns were not for the welfare of the prisoners.
(Well, or let some of the non-violent offenders out too, but that’s a different discussion for a different thread.)
You keep saying that that is a topic for another thread, but it is the exact topic of this thread. This thread is specifically asking if pro-lifers should be also advocating for a social programs to support babies and mothers after birth. It’s right in the title. Not sure why you keep trying to deflect by trying to equate it to individual responsibility, as that is not in any way related to this thread.
Well, as a pro-choicer, the word choice is in the name, and I support the mother in whatever she chooses. If she wasnt to keep the baby, I want to support her in that decision. If she wants to have but give up the baby, I support her in that decision. If she doesn’t want to carry the baby, I support her in that decision. Yes, the pro-choice is only choice in relation to abortion rights.
This is opposed to pro-life, which has nothing to do with promoting life. There is nothing that is actually pro-life about the policies that they push. It can only be, at most, narrowly defined as “Pro-Life in regards to birth”.
So, yeah, unlike the term “choice”, which you are correct is limited to reproductive rights, but in regards to those reproductive rights is pretty comprehensive, the term “life” has absolutely nothing to do with the pro-lifer’s position.
That is where you mess yourself up. We are not pro-choice for the choice to have legal abortions and nothing more. We are pro-choice in that if she wants to keep the baby, she can make that choice.
I will agree that “how can you say that you are pro-life if you support the death penalty?” arguments are a bit out of line, but “how can you say that you are pro-life when you stop giving a shit about the baby once it is born?” is very relevant.
Nah, we just want everyone else to be willfully responsible.
I would think that pressuring society to be more careful with their reproductive responsibilities would bleed into other parts of society as well. Part of the conservative thought process is to hold ourselves and others to higher standards.
People have unwanted and unplanned babies all the time without dropping them off at the front steps of the fire department. I’ve had a couple myself. You suck it up and do the right thing. It CAN be done…
There should be more local level community support for those who need help, however. I’m a supporter of community and local charities. Keep the Feds out.
One of us is clearly confused. You’re saying Democrats should change their position on one issue in order to attract a group of voters. Wouldn’t those people by definition be one issue voters?
The only people who are going to change the way they vote based on a change in a single issue are one issue voters. They are voters who are saying they will not vote for a candidate unless that candidate holds a specific position on their important issue. And when the issue is abortion, there are one issue voters on both sides. Some people will not vote for a candidate unless they stand for outlawing abortions and some people will not vote for a candidate unless they stand for no restrictions on abortions.
But I don’t believe there are any people who will vote for a candidate solely on the basis that the candidate favors some middle position where abortions are allowed sometimes but have restrictions that prohibit them sometimes. If somebody prefers that kind of middle ground position it usually means they don’t consider abortion to be a significant issue in how they decide who to vote for.
So a candidate who such a position will lose the pro-life or pro-choice voters who will only support candidates who stand on more extreme positions. And they won’t gain any moderate voters because while those moderate voters might agree with their position on abortion, a candidate’s position on abortion isn’t the basis for how they decide who to vote for.
