Schockierendentsetztnichtüberrascht
Gesundheit.
You made that up didn’t you? Or not? Seems legit? German? Who knows?
Wild applause. 
Putting that into the German to English translation reveals,…
Shockinghorrifiednotsurprised
I just figured, German loves compound words. So I “helped”. Danke
Doubling down on the Schockierendentsetztnichtüberrascht
Nope, no genocide here.
You can’t even see Salzman’s Twitter posts without requesting privileged access, that feckless coward.
I went to MSN ‘news’ and got an opinion piece, where a repug hack parrots the ‘democrats are lying about abortion’ bullshit.
Simply put, most Republicans are moving toward where [the majority of Americans are,] wanting abortion to be legal but limited to the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.
But none of those repugs are in congress or running for President of running various States.
This is gonna go in several, because it pisses me off. I had to change this post a little bit. Because ARRRGGGHHHH!!!
I have the God Given Right to defy the Will of the voters, because I am better than them.
Fuck these guys. If you are an Ohioan, you need no other reason to vote against the repugs than this. They will ignore the will of the people.
Here’s the thing. Someone who will screw over one group is not at all unlikely to screw over you at some point. They have already shown themselves to be without principles or ethics.
You realize, of course, that their screwing over one group in an election is, in fact, screwing over every group, everyone?
And that, dear audience, is the essence of the “it’s a Republic, not a Democracy” platitude.
I guess the message to voters here is:
“You will need to eliminate the Republican Party in Ohio if you want to have your voices actually heard.”
I hope the voters do just that.
If one genuinely believes that the clump of cells that is a developing fetus is a person, then the 15 week thing is a stupid belief. But if your reason for wanting to keep abortion illegal is to keep women in their place, then I guess that kind of compromise makes sense.
There are some people who believe that personhood begins at a point before birth, but after conception (though of course, when precisely that point is is subject to debate).
It’s my understanding that there used to be a fairly widespread religious belief that the fetus was ensouled (and therefore became a person) at quickening - which is generally around 16-20 weeks. I do not know how widespread this belief is currently.
While a 15 week law might seem consistent with this belief, the pro-life movement seems to universally believe that life begins at conception. I just skimmed a whole bunch of pro-life conservative pieces on the 15 week ban, and there was not one mention of the idea that life begins at quickening - the biggest reasons given were political and strategic, the 15 week ban being something that they thought they could pass NOW, with the intention of eventually passing more restrictive laws. There were also some pseudo-medical arguments against abortion after 15 weeks.
And I don’t think any pro-life faction would ever adopt the idea that life begins at quickening, because then they would have no justification for opposing abortions before 15 weeks or so, and their ultimate goal is a complete ban.
Now there may be individuals who believe that “life” begins at some intermediate point between conception and viability, and a 15 week ban might be an acceptable compromise to those folks, but I don’t think their numbers a large enough to move the needle.
I’m not a religious person, and since the ideas of “souls” and “the sanctity of life” are essentially religious ones, it’s not relevant to me. Pregnancy and fetal development are biological processes, nothing more, as far as I’m concerned.
I honestly think that the fundamental belief in play is that the Creator of the Universe has always intended for sexual pleasure to be a gift meant for the exclusive enjoyment of married couples, and then exclusively for the purpose of procreation.
Only certain flavors of Christian married couples. The rest can go fuck right off. So to speak.
“Souls” and “sanctity” are religious concepts, but “personhood” isn’t. At some point, a clump of cells becomes a person, and has rights. Any civilized nation must have some notion of when that happens, legally speaking at least.
When? Well, of course that’s a matter of debate. Birth is one possible standard, but standards both before or after birth are also possible.
“Personhood” is a very strong counter to “Choice”. Those terms stack the argument for abortion as fighting for “the right to commit murder”. That is a difficult framing to fight.
The counter-framing has to move past “choice” and find a catchier way to say “personal autonomy” and “bodily integrity”. “My body, my choice” is a move in the right direction, but I don’t think it goes far enough. I’m just not savvy enough to come up with a better slogan.
It’s not about whether a woman has the right to kill a baby inside her or not, it is whether a woman can be forced to carry a baby to term, to use her body against her will.
Viability is one possible line, but even that requires the woman to go through a difficult surgery she may not want to endure.
The line of “independent existence”, i.e. birth, is much more clear.
Again, this situation is only a problem because it only applies to women. I can’t think of any equivalent scenario putting men in an equivalent position. It would have to be some totally contrived scenario like taking some men and forcibly hooking them up to people with kidney failure to act as human dialysis machines until the patient can get a transplant.
If men were subject to the possibility of being pregnant, abortion would be an unassailable right. “My body, my right.”