# Republicans and Abortions **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 24, 2018, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411 "2018-10-24T01:33:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/61 "2018-10-24T17:52:25Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Combat in war? Drone strikes? Stand your ground? You consider all of those to be murder? Then you shouldn’t really allow them either. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/62 "2018-10-24T18:04:39Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Combat in war? Drone strikes? Stand your ground? If I may, I think you’re describing various forms of what you consider “justifiable homicide”, which also includes abortion. Trying to also declare these as “murder” accomplishes nothing beyond weakening the term. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/63 "2018-10-24T18:15:05Z")
Welcome to Straw men & Non sequiturs! Can anyone in this thread make their without ridiculous hyperbole or tortured comparisons? Maybe attack the stuff the other one actually said? ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/64 "2018-10-24T18:20:08Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > If I may, I think you’re describing various forms of what you consider “justifiable homicide”, which also includes abortion. > > Trying to also declare these as “murder” accomplishes nothing beyond weakening the term. I believe that unless it is to save the life of the mother, no abortion is justifiable homicide. I also believe that abortion should remain legal. Yes, irreconcilable. But also true. Since I believe abortion should remain legal, I do not believe those who have abortions should be punished by law. But I reserve the right to think less of their standard of morality. That’s why I’m pro-choice. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/65 "2018-10-24T18:21:00Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I don’t see it as hypocritical – rather, I just can’t wrap my mind around it. I tend to agree. Although I do look at the complete lack of people going into downtown St. Louis or East St. Louis and trying to stop the murders that occur almost daily there. Passing reasonable gun control laws, offering to shelter people in poverty or victims of domestic violence to help get them out of their life threatening situations, and creating more drug treatment opportunities will reduce the murder rate, but very few people do much more than vote for people who may enact those laws to stop those murders. Requiring a “do everything to stop it” mentality in people before they can have an opinion on something bad seems a bit one-sided. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/66 "2018-10-24T18:23:59Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > Welcome to Straw men & Non sequiturs! > > Can anyone in this thread make their without ridiculous hyperbole or tortured comparisons? > Maybe attack the stuff the other one actually said? Don’t be silly. It’s an abortion “debate”. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/67 "2018-10-24T18:31:30Z")
> [@Hamlet](#): > > I tend to agree. Although I do look at the complete lack of people going into downtown St. Louis or East St. Louis and trying to stop the murders that occur almost daily there. Passing reasonable gun control laws, offering to shelter people in poverty or victims of domestic violence to help get them out of their life threatening situations, and creating more drug treatment opportunities will reduce the murder rate, but very few people do much more than vote for people who may enact those laws to stop those murders. > > Requiring a “do everything to stop it” mentality in people before they can have an opinion on something bad seems a bit one-sided. But those are already crimes. Maybe they could be minimized with different policy, but society already formally agrees those things are criminal. Not so with abortion. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/68 "2018-10-24T18:33:17Z")
> [@JB99](#): > > So to all Republicans and Conservatives out there: What the fuck is taking so long? > > You own all three branches of government. You can make whatever laws you want. You have just appointed two of your own conservative clowns to the Supreme Court. What is taking so long? When will Trump actually get around to banning abortion? Without wading into the moral arguments about abortion (I don’t think we’re gonna solve it here), this political analysis is pretty bad. How do you think the government works? Two of the three branches of government can’t do shit about abortion. There’s existing precedent from the Supreme Court that says it’s unconstitutional. To fix that, they either need to amend the Constitution or change the court. Amending the Constitution takes 3/4s of the states (and a bigger majority of the legislature than the Republicans have), which they don’t have. The other thing they can do is keep passing restrictions that make it harder and harder to legally perform abortions. They’ve been doing that at the state level for decades, and it’s been harder and harder to get an abortion. Trump’s gotten two justices on the court. So, the court now has a (plausibly) anti-Roe majority of Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts. Although lots of people think Roberts isn’t really going to overturn it, so maybe not even then. But they’ve had that majority for all of like two weeks. The Supreme Court can’t just issue a press release changing a former opinion. They have to wait for a specific case. But one is coming. One is always coming. The idea that they’re never going to outlaw abortion because they haven’t yet is dumb. They haven’t been able to yet. They still might not quite be able to because of Roberts, but if Trump gets one more justice, then it seems almost certain to me. Yes, it would likely be a very bad move politically. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. The argument that people must not really think that abortion is morally equivalent to murder because otherwise they’d be doing more seems really weak to me too. Even ignoring the people who _do_ take up arms against abortion providers. There are plenty of things that I believe are morally evil that are nonetheless legal. But I also believe that (1) they can’t actually be fixed with vigilantism and (2) the way to fix societal problems is to convince people to agree with me enough that they make them illegal. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/69 "2018-10-24T18:36:26Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > But those are already crimes. Maybe they could be minimized with different policy, but society already formally agrees those things are criminal. Not so with abortion. Yes, killing someone with a gun is already a crime, but manufacturing and selling guns isn’t. There are pro-gun-control people who claim to believe that creating guns makes one morally culpable in their use in murder. Yet very few of them are trying to bomb Smith and Wesson or murder the machinists at Ruger. Does that mean that they don’t really think that those manufacturers are morally culpable? Does that mean that they don’t _really_ think that gun control is a moral necessity? That argument seems bad to me. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/70 "2018-10-24T18:56:58Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Yes, killing someone with a gun is already a crime, but manufacturing and selling guns isn’t. > > There are pro-gun-control people who claim to believe that creating guns makes one morally culpable in their use in murder. Yet very few of them are trying to bomb Smith and Wesson or murder the machinists at Ruger. Does that mean that they don’t really think that those manufacturers are morally culpable? Does that mean that they don’t _really_ think that gun control is a moral necessity? > > That argument seems bad to me. I think it probably does mean that they don’t think that the manufacturers are morally culpable _on par with those who actually comitted the murders_. And I’m not sure if they’d claim otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/71 "2018-10-24T21:08:13Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I think it probably does mean that they don’t think that the manufacturers are morally culpable _on par with those who actually comitted the murders_. And I’m not sure if they’d claim otherwise. To be clear, you’re saying that if someone doesn’t personally break the law to take up arms against something, that means they don’t find that thing as bad as murder? That’s the argument that I think is bad. Because there are lots of reasons to believe that there are bad things in the world, for whatever level of bad you want to specify, but that the way to fix them is not to become a vigilante murderer. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/72 "2018-10-24T22:44:19Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > I believe that unless it is to save the life of the mother, no abortion is justifiable homicide. > > I also believe that abortion should remain legal. > > Yes, irreconcilable. But also true. > > Since I believe abortion should remain legal, I do not believe those who have abortions should be punished by law. > > But I reserve the right to think less of their standard of morality. > > That’s why I’m pro-choice. If you think that it should remain legal, then you think that it is justifiable. You can think less of their morality all you want, I think poorly of people’s morality who get dogs that they don’t know how to train and maintain, but I don’t think that owning a dog should be illegal. Out of curiosity, since you made the comparison, do think poorly of the morality of a soldier who kills an enemy combatant? Personally, I’m pro-choice because, while I personally do disapprove of abortion, I know that I am not qualified to make that decision for someone else. You aren’t either. The only person who is qualified to make that decision is the person who actually knows the circumstances, and is most impacted by it. If I were asked, I would encourage a woman to seek other options than terminating a pregnancy, but if they chose to go through with it, I would not consider them to be a murderer. (If I am not asked, I keep my “advice” to myself, and still don’t consider it to be murder. Maybe the word you are looking for is homicide? I can agree to that. The clump of cells is a human, and you are killing it. Murder has, by its very definition, the word “unlawful” in it. So, it is a contradiction in terms. You say it is murder, but you want it to be legal. Murder is by definition illegal. That is why you can’t hold both positions. It is not because of " liberals not tolerating dissension in their ranks.", it is literally because they are logically incompatible. So, using “murder” as the term for legally terminating a pregnancy is useful from an emotional standpoint, it is a stronger word that gets the point across that you really, really, don’t approve. But it’s not murder. Now, if the anti-choice people get their way, and make abortion illegal, then using the word murder for it would actually be appropriate. > [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > To be clear, you’re saying that if someone doesn’t personally break the law to take up arms against something, that means they don’t find that thing as bad as murder? > > That’s the argument that I think is bad. Because there are lots of reasons to believe that there are bad things in the world, for whatever level of bad you want to specify, but that the way to fix them is not to become a vigilante murderer. The things that are being talked about here are at most, hundreds of victims. If you think that abortion is murder, then you are talking about hundreds of thousands of victims. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/73 "2018-10-24T22:49:35Z")
> [@JB99](#): > > My reading of it is that this is, in fact, Cheesesteak’s point. The anti-abortion crowd believes thousands of children are being murdered but they choose to do nothing about it (aside from voting R). Therefore, their actions do not match what they claim to be their motivations. This line of logic is bullshit. Because people are not willing to risk their lives to fight - literally fight - for a cause like this doesn’t mean they don’t actually believe in the cause. If you believe that drone strikes are wrong and we’re murdering people, why aren’t you out there running armed raids on drone facilities? If you’re a vegetarian who thinks slaughtering animals is murder, why aren’t you out there killing people who work in slaughterhouses? You could make that it’s cowardice and a lack of dedication to your principles, but it does not follow that anyone who isn’t willing to literally get up and start killing people over their beliefs does not sincerely hold those beliefs. Even in the face of great injustice almost everyone goes about their normal lives, only a tiny fraction of people become motivated to severe action. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/74 "2018-10-24T23:13:13Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > To be clear, you’re saying that if someone doesn’t personally break the law to take up arms against something, that means they don’t find that thing as bad as murder? > > That’s the argument that I think is bad. Because there are lots of reasons to believe that there are bad things in the world, for whatever level of bad you want to specify, but that the way to fix them is not to become a vigilante murderer. I’m saying that if someone is doing virtually nothing beyond voting and posting on message boards about an issue, then either they don’t see that issue as morally equivalent to the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent babies every year, or they don’t particular care (or are too lazy) to oppose the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent babies every year. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/75 "2018-10-24T23:32:44Z")
Out of curiosity, if the government randomly executed 100,000 citizens a year, an atrocity that everyone agreed was an atrocity, but it was still supported with all the legal enforcement powers the state has, what percentage of people do you think would actively go out and start shooting cops and soldiers? Whatever percentage does not do that must be complicit and not actually think murdering 100,000 random people is a bad thing, right? ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/76 "2018-10-24T23:37:30Z")
> [@EscAlaMike](#): > > Where is all of this coming from? When have Republicans advocated for outlawing contraceptives? It’s from last year, and is also from an anti-choice advocate instead of some top Republican, but there’s [this](https://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/anti-choice-advocate-admits-to-joy-reid-her-ultimate-goal-is-to-make-birth-control-illegal/). There are other reasons for concern too – the Hobby Lobby (a.k.a. “corporations have sincerely held religious beliefs”) decision, religious organizations refusing to follow the recognized process for obtaining an exemption to ACA-mandated contraceptive coverage, and proposals to eliminate Title X, as examples. ---
**Author:** ![JB99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@JB99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JB99)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2018, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/77 "2018-10-24T23:52:06Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Out of curiosity, if the government randomly executed 100,000 citizens a year, an atrocity that everyone agreed was an atrocity, but it was still supported with all the legal enforcement powers the state has, what percentage of people do you think would actively go out and start shooting cops and soldiers? Whatever percentage does not do that must be complicit and not actually think murdering 100,000 random people is a bad thing, right? At the beginning of your paragraph it is “an atrocity that everyone agreed was an atrocity.” By the end of your paragraph, you’re just talking about not thinking it’s “a bad thing.” Nice false dichotomy, with your inability to conceive of anything between “atrocity” and “not a bad thing.” There a great many “bad things” I oppose which do not rise to the threshold of “atrocity.” I should hope a government that randomly executed 100,000 citizens a year, in an atrocity everyone agrees was an atrocity, is a government that has lost all right to exist. Clearly anti-abortion activists think abortion is a “bad thing” that nonetheless does not rise to parity with actual “murder.” They are insincere in the same way drone strike opponents and vegetarians are insincere. They can say it is bad and evil and morally wrong, but I’d love to know where it actually falls on the scale of “bad things” because clearly it does not carry the weight they claim it does. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2018, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/78 "2018-10-25T00:04:40Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Out of curiosity, if the government randomly executed 100,000 citizens a year, an atrocity that everyone agreed was an atrocity, but it was still supported with all the legal enforcement powers the state has, what percentage of people do you think would actively go out and start shooting cops and soldiers? Whatever percentage does not do that must be complicit and not actually think murdering 100,000 random people is a bad thing, right? To some degree, those who are able but aren’t actively and strongly opposing such a massive atrocity are partially complicit. Those Germans who, during the Holocaust, were aware of terrible things being done to Jews (and others) en masse, but did nothing to stop it, were at least partially complicit. Those Americans who, during slavery and Jim Crow, were aware of terrible things being done to black people en masse, but did nothing to stop it, were at least partially complicit. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2018, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/79 "2018-10-25T00:07:30Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > The things that are being talked about here are at most, hundreds of victims. If you think that abortion is murder, then you are talking about hundreds of thousands of victims. I must not understand your comment here. I’m talking about guns as an analogy. Do you think there are only hundreds of people killed by guns a year? > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’m saying that if someone is doing virtually nothing beyond voting and posting on message boards about an issue, then either they don’t see that issue as morally equivalent to the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent babies every year, or they don’t particular care (or are too lazy) to oppose the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent babies every year. I’m still not sure that’s true. I think it might be because they don’t know how to fix it. Here’s another analogy: I really truly believe that there are regimes that murder thousands of innocents a year (I’m not talking about abortion here, I’m talking clear, unequivocal murder by dictatorships. North Korea, for example) and I don’t know how to fix it. I sometimes give a little money to groups that try to help, and I try to vote for politicians who I think will try to fix it, but I don’t march in the streets, and I don’t sign up to join opposing armies. To an outside observer I’d say I look a lot like most people who claim abortion is murder? Do you think my lack of action indicates that I think that North Koreans who are murdered by their dictatorship aren’t morally equivalent to other murder victims? Does every North Korean who doesn’t rise up and start shooting soldiers not think that they are? Or are there maybe other explanations for our lack of action? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2018, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411/80 "2018-10-25T00:26:11Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > I must not understand your comment here. I’m talking about guns as an analogy. Do you think there are only hundreds of people killed by guns a year? > > I’m still not sure that’s true. I think it might be because they don’t know how to fix it. > > Here’s another analogy: I really truly believe that there are regimes that murder thousands of innocents a year (I’m not talking about abortion here, I’m talking clear, unequivocal murder by dictatorships. North Korea, for example) and I don’t know how to fix it. I sometimes give a little money to groups that try to help, and I try to vote for politicians who I think will try to fix it, but I don’t march in the streets, and I don’t sign up to join opposing armies. To an outside observer I’d say I look a lot like most people who claim abortion is murder? > > Do you think my lack of action indicates that I think that North Koreans who are murdered by their dictatorship aren’t morally equivalent to other murder victims? > > Does every North Korean who doesn’t rise up and start shooting soldiers not think that they are? > > Or are there maybe other explanations for our lack of action? Okay, that’s a good point. But while NK is horrible, I don’t believe they’re killing hundreds of thousands per year. They are very bad, though – probably killing thousands and making hundreds of thousands, or millions, suffer. So I’m slightly revising my thinking. There’s nothing an American without political power can do about NK. There are things Americans can do about abortion, beyond just voting. Those (relatively very few) pro-life people who spend most of their free time protesting abortion clinics probably really do feel that abortion is equivalent to murdering babies, by their actions, at least, IMO – they are upending their lives and making sacrifices (while doing something terrible, IMO, but from their perspective a half-million babies are being murdered every year). Maybe some of the rest don’t know what to do. But in my experience, anti-abortion people are just as likely to be regular, happy Americans as pro-choice people. I don’t think that’s consistent with believing that hundreds of thousands of babies are being murdered around them every year. It just makes a lot more sense to me, on a human level, if they’re being a bit hyperbolic with their rhetoric. That fits the facts a lot more than living a happy life, occasionally voting and arguing but otherwise going about one’s life normally, while believing that millions of babies are being savagely murdered every decade by one’s neighbors. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-and-abortions/823411.md?page=5)