Moderating:
As this is more Great Debates material than IMHO, I am moving the thread to that forum.
(Better late than never.)
I really like what you wrote about ProChoice as not being the same as Pro Abortion. I’m a Christian who believes life begins at conception, but that’s a religious belief, not a legal one. I also believe that we, as a free people, should have the say over how we deal with our bodies. That includes women’s reproductiove rights. I don’t like abortion, but I can’t tell another person what to do in that situation.
What you said in your post sounds like the way I feel on this issue.
Definitely not that. Courts are supposed to decide the legality of something, not policy.
I think part of the reason why it’s have it all or nothing when it comes to aborition is because the pro-choice folks don’t trust the pro-life folks. With good reason I should add. Texas pushed for bills requiring clinics to have doorways of a certain width and other requirements similar to that of a hospital. Ostensibly this was to protect women, but in reality it was an attempt to shut down abortion clinics. And even though some of those laws were struck down, it worked. Texas went from having 40 clinics in 2013 to just 7 in 2016.
So the pro-choice folks look at any bill support by pro-lifers as an attempt to curtain access to abortions.
I am not remotely surprised that it’s polarizing. We’re not talking big endian versus little endian on Lilliput here. This is real stuff. This is patriarchy versus feminism. It’s the core of all relevant politics right here.
Legal in no way means Constitutional.
We’re probably not being cynical enough.
Here’s the real Republican plan:
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Enact a law requiring any pregnant woman to see a government therapist before she is given permission to have an abortion.
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Refuse to provide funds for setting up or operating the government therapist program.
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Without the funds, no therapists are hired. Without the therapists, no woman can be seen for her mandatory interview. Without the interview, no woman can be approved to have an abortion.
I am offended at being told that I can’t have contraception because ‘my husband might object’ - either the pill or a tubal ligation. My OB had to ditch one hospital [a Catholic hospital] from his practice because they refused absolutely to let him give me a tubal ligation after 2 disasterous to me pregnancies [ruined my kidneys, the second one almost killed me, a third one would kill me] despite me NOT being catholic and not being desirous of dropping dead from being pregnant. I got pregnant twice on birth control being used properly [well the second time the added condom broke] In neither case was I on antibiotics and was in the practice of taking the pill at the exact time every morning and did not miss any pills. The third time [which I have mentioned here before] was 10 years after the loop and band style ligation failed so I thought it was safe to have unprotected sex with my husband. Oops.
If they take away the right to control ones reproductive systems, what is to stop them from at some point in time mandating every single woman reaching the age of 18 line up and get pregnant, and start popping out a kid every third year to the glory of god [quiverfull anybody?] Personally, if that law came into effect, I would personally run an underground van service up to Canada for girls to get IUDs installed covertly.
I sometimes think things would be better if we were like rabbits and could just reabsorb the unborn at will.
Step 0. Enact a law requiring any woman to see a government therapist before she becomes pregnant. Permits will be awarded on a ‘may issue’ basis. If a permit is not received before the date of conception, the penalty shall be not more than $5000 or 60 months in prison and the child must be carried to full term, regardless of the circumstances. Attempting to obtain, planning to obtain or obtaining termination of an unpermitted, unborn child, as well as assisting in the same, shall be subject to a penalty of not more than $10,000 or 120 months in prison.
That should fix the problem, right?
Oh this topic is so infuriating. We already won this damn battle.
You know, most women who seek out an abortion, have thought about it deeply and many, if not most, have had conversations with the people in their lives who they talk to about just this sort of thing, so the idea that they need to have more conversations with a “pro” is just deeply insulting.
I sat with someone considering an abortion. She cried as she considered her choices. Since she doesn’t live under a rock, she was certainly aware that adoption is an option. But being pregnant is not so easy. Spending a lifetime wondering what is happening to the child you gave up is not so easy. Considering how it will affect that promotion you just got. (Hint, it will cost you the job!)
Having an abortion is also not so easy. Sheesh.
Women are not stupid. We can make this difficult decision on our own, with or without consulting with the people we choose to consult with about it.
Damn it, this is causing me so much grief. We shouldn’t have to fight this war again.
You left out
- If a woman gets the funds to see a state approved pregnancy crisis therapist, she will be ruled as unfit to make her own reproductive decisions. (But fit to raise a child, of course.)
OTOH, if they decide that there are too many people, or too many of those people, what’s to stop them from lining them up and sterilizing them?
Privacy in reproductive rights goes both ways. People wishing for the state to step in and take control over other people’s bodies may not like when they get what they wish for.
Skinner v Oklahoma (1942)
Or maybe not
The only types of sterilization which the ruling immediately ended were punitive sterilization; it did not directly comment on compulsory sterilization of the mentally disabled or mentally ill and was not a strict overturning of the Court’s ruling in Buck v. Bell (1927).
Sign me up as an unpaid volunteer driver.
Have a convoy of trucks that actually does something useful.
As you pointed out, that only ends “punitive” sterilization. Would that preclude mandatory sterilization for anyone seeking financial assistance for food and housing? Or, “Sure, you can get an abortion, but we will sterilize you, then you don’t need to worry about it again in the future.”
And that’s assuming that SCOTUS doesn’t decide to overrule that decision as well.
That’s not how a democracy works. Everyone gets a voice in everything.
Anyways, to answer the OP, it’s hard to motivate people with precise or nuanced percentages.
Abortions are a brilliant invention! A very safe medical intervention that can keep someone from having to go through what could be a dangerous and life changing experience even if one desires the outcome? What’s not to like?
I have zero respect for people who argue for the personhood of fetuses, unless they mainly fight for more and better sex ed and increased societal benefits for pregnant people and children. Those are known and proven ways to actually decrease abortions and to keep fetuses alive and well even after birth and they don’t require you to make exceptions for rape or incest.
The Republicans are working to stop that too.