… and well after she had experienced three serious miscarriages which, in her words, “made me realize that pregnancy can be dangerous”.
I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic. The series of miscarriages and the recent need for an abortion are certainly tragic events. But my point is, my reading of this is that she was strongly anti-abortion her whole life, right up until the time it started affecting her personally. Much like homophobes are fine with all the hate, and as politicians are happy to bask in the adulation of other right-wing bigots, right up until the time that homosexuality turns up in their own son or daughter.
Perhaps it’s just Democrats in general, with Biden being the easy scapegoat. I think another one from the RW outrage-o-sphere is the pandemic restrictions responsible politicians (mostly Democrats) put in place for public safety. So, they lost the freedom to roam around a grocery store, unmasked, to spread their COVID germs to others. And on top of that, many employers got on board with the vaccination program, so those who flatly refused without a medical reason, and were fired, lost the freedom to be an irresponsible member of their company (and civilization). Boo-effing-hoo!
And those Dem mayors of those Dem cities on the west coast are allowing the homeless and immigrants to live on the streets, depriving citizens of the freedom to avert their eyes and ignore a major urban problem.
I think the strongest case for actual restriction of freedoms under Biden would be his response to the pandemic and attempt to implement vaccine mandates. I think they were good policies but certainly fit what the OP is looking for.
While simultaneously having the Freedom for corporate investors to make record profits.
In America, you should have both!
No taxes and all the government services you want!
No regulations on businesses and good safe jobs with high wages!
Jobs for Americans and access to cheap foreign goods!
A strong police force that maintains law and order and nobody in the government telling you what to do!
The right to display confederate flags or swastikas and declaring yourself to be an American superpatriot!
You can have both, as long as Big Government gets out of the way with their taxes, regulations, and bullshit about clean air, clean water, health and safety, and the Hoax of Climate Change. That’s True Freedumb. Not to mention that toxins and rat shit in your food is good for you – promotes a robust immune system!
I think that’s a really uncharitable reading of the situation. She was immersed in bad information growing up, and when she got better first-hand information she changed her views. It was based on her own experience, but it was before she herself needed an abortion. And she was not hypocritical - she publicly promoted her views, no doubt a very unpopular thing to do in her community.
You can interpret it as you wish. My own view is that it’s reasonable and not at all “uncharitable” to understand (according to her own words, at least as reported in the article) that what changed her strident anti-abortion views was growing old enough to experience pregnancy herself, and to finally realize that the many medical and personal circumstances that can surround this alleged “God’s Sacred Gift of Life” are, in this real world of sin and woe, not always sunshine and roses.
I don’t think that it took three miscarriages for her to come to that position. The first was probably more than enough. There’s nothing in the article that indicates that it was only after her third that she changed her position, and more that implies that it was after or even during her first, not “well after” three.
I mean, I just can’t join you in condemning people for how they were raised. If they have changed their ways, even if it is due to a personal experience, then we should accept that and not hold the views they were indoctrinated with against them. If we ever want to win an election again, especially in a place like Texas, we should celebrate people like this, not mock them with derision.
Right, around when she was 21 or 22 or so. I don’t judge people based on their politics when they are that young.
Yeah, most people need some sort of personal experience to overcome their upbringing. We should celebrate when people do, rather than condemn them for how they were raised.
Do you think CNN is “condemning” her, too, by publishing that article?
I think the take-away from that article, and the relevance of my original comment (that wasn’t intended to become a major rabbit hole here) is that many irrational right-wing types maintain their viewpoints only until cold, hard reality hits them over the head and they come to their senses.
I’d have a lot more sympathy for someone like this if, on moving away from her ultra-conservative parents, she had an intellectual epiphany and started to change her views. But it doesn’t sound like she did that until, as I suggested, cold hard reality metaphorically hit her over the head – and from the sounds of it, almost killed her. Much like anti-maskers undergo a miraculous transformation to dedicated mask-wearers and vaccine-takers after a close brush with death due to COVID.
No, I don’t, and I don’t have any idea why you would think that would be the case. The CNN article is not misrepresenting and judging her as she is being misrepresented and judged here.
I’ll agree with that when people are in their 30’s or 40’s when they change their stances based on something or other, but I still accept it when they do so, rather than condemn them for having held other positions.
But when someone is in their early 20’s when they have that “epiphany”, I count that as a win.
Right, and unlike most of the MAGA crowd, she didn’t want others to have to go through what she went through without having choices.
I see absolutely no reason to condemn or mock this woman, and doing so, IMHO, undercuts our higher ethical ground substantially.
There is probably no point in getting bogged down on the exact details and timing of what happened with this woman based on that article. But I think we can at least differentiate her from the despicable hypocrites who oppose abortion rights for others when they are wealthy enough to send their own pregnant teenage daughter to another state; and continue to hide the fact that they have done this from their community to preserve their false piety.
This woman was indoctrinated by her parents and her entire community, but changed her views in light of new information. Sure, the information that she gained was from her own miscarriages. But she took a principled stand in a community where she risked ostracism for doing so, she publicly promoted abortion rights for everyone.
I think we can at least say that this is someone who
(a) changed their mind in light of new factual information;
(b) stood up for her principles in a conservative Texas community without hypocrisy.
It may not amount to entirely selfless heroism, but I certainly think that the world would be a better place if there were more people like her.
You’re reading far too much into my comment. I don’t think I’m being either more or less judgemental than the clear statement of the factual headline: “Once a ‘quintessential pro-life Texan,’ she had to flee her home state to get an abortion”.
I mean, there’s no way to read that comment that doesn’t call her a MAGA that only objected to the abortion law once it affected them personally.
I don’t see how she’s a MAGA (she may be, but the article doesn’t really give any reason to believe so), and she objected to the law before it was passed, and was pro-choice long before that.
The article’s headline certainly is click-bait, par for the course for CNN, but it doesn’t make any of the judgements that were made in your interpretation of it. But I’ll point out that the construction, “Once a… X” implies that the person is no longer X. Consider: “Once a poor man, John Smith is now a philanthropist who donates millions of dollars to children’s charities.”
And yet you originally called her out as an example of a MAGA who only complained when things affected them personally. Have you changed your mind in light of new factual information? If so, great, glad we are all on the same page now, the world is a better place.
So, anyway, what other freedoms? Let’s say, ones whose loss was aided by Biden?
The freedom to cheat on taxes was a good one. The freedom to storm the Capitol without consequences is right out now, with Biden appointed Garland at the head of the Justice Department. The freedom to invade Ukraine? Biden had been trying to crimp that.
The freedom to post the facts that Joe Biden does not want to you to hear concerning everything from election outcomes to medical treatments on the social media platforms run by private companies.
