The funny thing about that poll is that only 38% of people identify as pro-life but 53% of people want to restrict abortion to at most rape, incest or danger to the mother. That number, to me at least, conflicts with the 54% that identify as pro-choice.
In many cases, yes.
In your view, what would be the outcome of Roe being overturned on strict constructionist view and the gutting of Substantive Due Process? Would we lose the right to use contraception, the right to marry, the right to choose how to raise our children, or any of the rights not specifically enshrined in words in the Constitution? Could we go back to segregation, illegalizing sexual conduct, and perhaps have a China one child rule?
Before 1967, abortions that were not medically necessary were illegal in all states in the U.S. Likewise, I don’t remember hospitals refusing to treat pregnant women “for fear of being accused of murder.”
Where do you get this stuff from? States will arrest women who have gone to another state to get an abortion? Those women will be executed for having an abortion? I mean…come on. You aren’t serious…are you? 
(Hoping this is a whoosh…)
-XT
I’ve wondered about the constitutionality of a state or the federal government making a law against crossing state lines for the purposes of procuring an abortion.
So the United States in December 1972 was very brutal towards children?
Dick Nixon was one mean summbitch.
Personally clubbed children and old ladies over the head, he did.
Der Trihs, abortion laws in the United States have never prosecuted the pregnant woman who obtains an abortion. They have always been directed against abortion providers. Nor is there any such current pending legislation, state or federal. Nor do any of the major anti-abortion groups advocate such laws. Nor has one member of Congress advocated such a law.
Such laws do exist in the same imagination where pro-lifers “cheerfully torture every last one of their political opponents to death” and Republicans “cheerfully see every poor child in America starve to death.”
The hypocritical “in the case of rape, incest, or maternal health/life” exception seems a common hedge of people who can bring themselves to be fully pro-life, and face the ugly truth that means. I’ve often wondered if there would be a sudden surge in the reported rape rate. “A man grabbed me off the sidewalk/in the bar/in the parking lot and raped me. Didn’t see his face, was too scared to report it right away. Now I’m pregnant.”
How would they prove that? Or disprove it? Would it have to wait for a court conviction before allowing the abortion? (Which would basically void the clause- the kid would be a toddler)
It’s unlikely any state would be able to get away with making abortion a capital crime again. But suppose the federal government used the interstate commerce clause to make it illegal to cross state lines to circumvent a states abortion laws. Or (as with the drinking age) the federal government passed a law denying states funding for roads, education, welfare, etc, if they didn’t restrict abortion. Or if the federal government tries what they’re doing with Oregon and bans the use of federally controlled substances to facilitate an abortion. Even if the states have authority to regulate it there’s alot the federal government can do.
Require that the rape be reported within 72 hours of its occurrence for it to be used as a reason for an abortion.
:dubious: I’m not sure I’d believe anything National Right to Life has to say about Planned Parenthood, or vice versa for that matter.
“Again”? There was a state law that made abortion a capital crime? Where? When?
Planned Parenthood has had decades to dispute that claim. In all that time, I have yet to find a single reference in which Planned Parenthood stated, “No, we never said such a thing!”
And if you’re going to disregard what the NRLC says, then we may as well discard all of Planned Parenthood’s own pro-choice claims. The NRLC, at least, has no vested interest in its cause, whereas Planned Parenthood derives tremendous amounts of revenue from promoting abortion.
Planned Parenthood has a few other things to do than to refute everything an organization opposed to them says.
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Planned Parenthood is a non-profit organization. They also do things other than abortions.
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National Right to Life certainly does have an interest in making abortion illegal (that’s the whole point), and therefore has an interest in convincing people that not many women would die from back-alley abortions if abortion were illegal.
So real rape victims are doubly victimised then. 72 hours after such a traumatic event, that is in what, 5 out of 6 cases, done by someone you know? Nice.
A rich woman can afford to travel across state lines, or even across the country, to get an abortion. So can a middle class woman, though it would be a financial burden. A poor woman cannot… It’s in the definition of being poor that she won’t have the means to pay for a round trip plane ticket plus the abortion itself plus at least two days stay in the state where the abortion is performed.
I wonder whether someone would set up a service that tried to provide low-cost transportation and housing for women who needed to reach states where abortion was legal. Buy an old school bus and drive fifty women at a time from Mississippi to Illinois and back. If so, we would likely see right-wing terrorists targeting such organizations.
But if abortion were illegal across large swaths of the country, it would certainly prevent a large number of abortions from occuring, up to several hundred thousand a year. Then the question becomes, who raises those children?
Adoption? States are already facing a shortage of good homes to place children in. Dumping more newborn babies into the system makes the problem that much. Churches and charities are likewise overburdened already. So in short there are two options. The government could take charge of all these children, or society could simply abandon them.
Not to mention that what the Planned Parenthood people said was contingent upon the time, and may not hold true in future. What they said was that illegal abortions, on the whole, weren’t dangerous because most were performed by physicians acting illegally, not shmoes on the street.
But what if the new state laws made it harder for physicians to do it (which, in theory, they would)?
I’m puzzled by those thinking the overturning of Roe or the signing of a federal anti-abortion bill would create a backlash. I see this a lot so I’m going to have to ask: a backlash from who? The U.S. is extremely conservative and appears to be growing more so every day. Half the populace doesn’t vote and a member of the GOP isn’t going to vote Democrat in the day and age where the word liberal is a curse word.
I hope you’re right, though.