I agree, that was a serious mistake. Party discipline has long been a major strength of the Republicans, and that seems to be breaking apart.
Nowhere, because it isn’t a “child”, it’s a thing. Children have rights because they are thinking, feeling beings; an embryo isn’t. You might as well block a kidney donation with the excuse of “what about the rights of the kidney?!”
It’s a good wedge issue for them, certainly better than marriage equality which was Rove’s big wedge issue in 2004. They just need to allow some reasonable exceptions and cut back on the invasive testing requirements.
I think the problem is that there’s really three sides to the abortion issue.
Now some religious conservatives want to act like everyone is either in the first or second group - and all Democrats are in the second. But I think the reality is that most people are in the third group - they don’t like abortions but they don’t want them to be illegal. Call them reluctantly pro-choice. And this is the position I think most Democrats and a lot of Republicans actually hold.
I think you’re right.
As do I. Most sane people are in camp #3. (I consider myself sane)
Not even - Mitt didn’t try to avoid the subject, exactly - he was “up front” about it. Look, it’s right here on his campaign website:
Of course, it’s not “up front” in the sense that anyone can read it - you had to pretend that it’s something you probably already want to hear, by subscribing to his campaign first.
I love that that pledge of his (defunding “abortion advocates” like Planned Parenthood) would have inevitably, 100%, axiomatically, and without any other possibility caused a dramatic increase in abortions. “Let Detroit go bankrupt! Let the poor get pregnant! Fuck it, just let entropy run roughshod over everything!”
I personally have a modest amount of contempt for people in camp #3.
That kind of waffling only serves to undermine your point and enable people who actually oppose your position. And frankly the line between ‘pro-life except for abortion/incest’ and ‘ugggghhhh abortions are SO ICKY but I guess they’re okay if it’s really that serious’ is a lot more fine than you think.
My biggest problem with the anti-abortion camp (I refuse to call them pro-life because they’re not) is that there’s an enormous overlap with the anti-BC camp. If you are anti-abortion AND anti-birth control, you’re not trying to reduce abortions, you’re just trying to reduce SEX. And doing that by punishing women for having it.
If the anti-abortion folks were REALLY pro-life, they’d be all for sex ed, free/cheap birth control, free/cheap pre-natal care, streamlined adoption, better foster care oversight, and better care for women with new children. But those aren’t laws they’re interested in.
Lago-I have a congenital disability, and I will go to my grave beliving that I would’ve been aborted had that fact been known ahead of time. (I’m a 34 y/o American)
So, you have contempt for people whose actual position is “you mind your business, I’ll mind mine.” Really?
Because the people who are really opposed to my position are the people who think they need to be involved in the decisions of others when it has nothing to do with them.
I don’t like abortions, I don’t want one, I might have one, you can have one if you want. That’s my position. I fail to see the angle where that deserves contempt.
But which side do you take on this issue? Do you think the majority has the right to tell an individual she can’t have an abortion or do you think the majority has the right to tell an individual she must have an abortion? But policies are in effect in some countries.
“Abortions for everyone!”
[boos]
“Very well, no abortions for anyone!”
[boos]
“Hmm, abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!”
Maybe people in position 3 are humble enough not to think they know the answer well enough to enforce it on other people? That is why position 1 is so tied to religion - something which claims to have the ultimate answer.
As for me, I don’t thin abortion is icky, just inefficient and overly expensive, and would much prefer prevention. That many or most of the people in position 1 oppose sex education and easy access to birth control speaks volumes,
Personally, I have absolutely no concerns about the wellbeing of the mother. If I did, why would I care whether the foetus was the product of a rape or performance errors in using birth control? In either scenario, the mother is distraught, considers herself incapable of raising the child and would far rather abort than bring the child to term and give it up for adoption. The reason why I support rape exceptions is that there’s likely a genetic predisposition towards criminality. Other restrictions on abortions are just useful tools to hamper the emancipation of women. Granting further freedoms to women would likely result in a political system like Icelands or Norways.
Beyond setting out a basic medical framework, I have no idea why this is the business of Government, or anyone else for that matter.
Get on with your own lives. Thanks.
They’re not trying to *reduce *sex; they’re trying to control sex, and by extension, women.
You are right about one thing though. They’re not pro-life.
Interesting article in today’s NY Times about the waning political influence of evangelicals:
“Reluctantly pro-choice”? Why reluctantly? You’ve pretty much laid things out well, but you have to then qualify the primary motivations of pretty much every pro-choice person?
It’s kind of why the debate is framed that way. There’s little reluctance in it, and very few who are blithely indifferent or otherwise pro-abortion.
Once they do that, what’s left? The only way to outlaw a procedure that has Constitutional protection is to change the Constitution or get the SCOTUS to overrule itself. The former is difficult (and given this issue’s contentiousness, probably impossible - see attempts at Personhood Amendments for an example) and the latter is one reason why who is in the white House is very important, especially since the court’s makeup now is as conservative as it has ever been, arguably.
So what’s a young pro-life rep at the state level to do? Dodge Roe v. Wade by banning late term abortions, creating TRAP Laws - regulations that are only for abortion clinics to contend with which lawmakers admit are there only to make things impossible for abortion clinics to exist - force unnecessary and sometimes invasive medical procedures to all women seeking abortions, long waiting periods… By any means necessary.
Well, any means except for the things which actually do lower abortion rates: Comprehensive age-appropriate sex education, readily available birth control, healthcare for poor pregnant women and other support. Those things are almost as bad as an abortion in the eyes of a huge chunk of the anti-abortion crowd.
In a world where abortion is readily available and prenatal testing is comprehensive, I would be a little happier knowing that my mother kept me in spite of her ability to have an abortion rather than someone else told her that once she was pregnant, she had to keep it no matter what. In one case, I am truly, truly wanted. In another, who knows?
In reality, it means little to me. I cannot mourn the loss of a person who never existed and if I am that person, then I cannot mourn anything since I never existed. The fact that I am doesn’t change that.