SCOTUS removes Roe V Wade

[Ivanstone]

The GOP weakens us financially, weakens us internationally, and for all the funding they want to put into the military will weaken them as well as they bankrupt us and can't even afford to fund them while also leaving soldiers for dead when they are no longer useful to them.

They were doing that long before Putin came along. Russian influence could disappear and the GOP would still chug along because they'll still be the party of choice for the wealthy. Hell Russia dumping its support would be worse. They fund fucking idiots who incompetently evil and are incapable of subtlety.

[Rasulis]

The GOP voter suppression efforts continue.

The GOP Is Making It Harder for College Students to Vote

Republican lawmakers are making it harder for students to cast ballots where they attend school, after the GOP suffered stinging recent electoral losses largely due to a historic surge in turnout from younger voters backing Democrats.

A new law in Idaho specifically bars the use of student identification cards to vote, while a change in Ohio law means students will no longer be able to use tuition or college housing receipts as a form of voter ID, long a popular option for students without state driver’s licenses.

Similar legislation has been introduced in at least 11 other states this year, including the presidential battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Nevada, according to Voting Rights Lab. Other bills have also targeted student voters, such as one in Texas that would bar college campuses from serving as polling places.

Younger voter turnout surged in Wisconsin’s recent Supreme Court election — one that hinged on abortion rights — helping Democrats recapture the court majority. Former Republican Governor Scott Walker tweeted that “younger voters are the issue,” blaming “years of radical indoctrination” in schools and social media and calling for conservatives to come together to work harder to “counter liberal indoctrination to save America.”

Liz Azore, who has been tracking the bills for Voting Rights Lab, said that Republican lawmakers seem more interested in legislating on student voting than usual.

“There is a lot more energy on this issue than we’ve seen in the past,” she said.

The proposals from state Republicans come as young voters have become a key voting bloc for Democrats, who believe progressive stands on issues like climate change and student debt will keep those voters in their camp for years to come.

In Idaho, the number of 18- and 19-year-olds registered to vote jumped 81% from 2018 to 2022, the largest percentage increase in any state, according to CIRCLE.

And many of those new voters are choosing Democrats.

In November, voters between ages 18 and 29 backed Democratic House candidates by 28 percentage points, the second-largest margin in three decades and the strongest showing for Democrats among any age group, according to CIRCLE. Turnout among that age group is also at 30-year highs, hitting 27% in the 2022 election.

Danielle Deiseroth, interim executive director of the progressive think tank Data for Progress, said that polls show younger voters are focused on issues they believe affect them directly, like gun control and abortion rights.

“Young people are not voting because of ‘vibes,’” she said. “They are voting because they are paying attention to the issues.”

Polls show broad public support for voter ID laws, but lawmakers have long sparred over whether student IDs, which are not government-issued, should count. In addition to Idaho’s ban, five states bar their use for voting. And no student IDs currently meet the requirements to be used in Arizona. Iowa and Utah only allow them when paired with other documentation.

Idaho state Representative Tina Lambert, who introduced the new ban, said it was necessary to stop students from neighboring states from voting twice, although she did not cite any evidence of that happening.

“Some are going to say that this bill will prevent young people from voting,” she said in a speech on the state House floor. “That is certainly not the goal. The goal is simply to ensure that only qualified people are voting in Idaho elections.”

March for Our Lives Idaho, a student-led advocacy group in support of gun control, sued over the law in federal court, calling it a “surgical attack on Idaho’s young voters” in response to growing turnout. Co-director Amaia Clayton, a high school senior, said that the law is “hypocritical” because the state allows gun permits to be used as voter ID.

The Ohio law barred student IDs as well as a more common form of voter ID used by college students: tuition receipts, bank statements and utility bills which have a student’s campus address on them.

Rob Nichols, a spokesman for the Ohio secretary of state, said that college students are now able to get a free state identification card from the Department of Motor Vehicles to vote in person, or they can vote by mail, which does not require photo ID.

Mia Lewis, associate director of the voting rights organization Common Cause Ohio, questioned why the change was needed.

“Our secretary of state has said for years that Ohio runs model elections, setting a standard for the entire country, and yet suddenly there’s a desire to change them,” she said. “It’s perfectly legitimate to ask what’s driving these sudden changes.”

[Cthulhu 2020]

The Russians also donate and spread propaganda for left wing causes as well. Why? Because they want a less stable America. The GOP is very old and has had stable donors for decades. Any Russian help is recent but should be viewed as transient at best. Substantial amounts of American corporations donate heavily to the GOP because they're still the party of tax cuts and deregulation. Here's a question for you. Where is Disney money going in 2024? I can see them attempting to block a DeSantis primary but they'll likely still donate heavily to the GOP at all levels of government.

I never claimed that this current culture war is all the fault of Russian dark money, or even most of it, of course it requires a large gullible audience of rubes to be thoroughly convinced of some kind of silly culture war. But it's not exactly hard to draw a conclusion between a pre 2015 GOP that was heavily in favor of a western hegemony almost completely flipping towards isolationism in just under a year. A position that a certain Eastern power heavily favors. And while there was some push back about LGBTQ back then, it wasn't nearly so pronounced as it is today. Today's anti LGBTQ sentiment mirrors many of the same struggles LGBTQ people face in Russia.

And with figures like MTG, Matt Walsh, Boeburt, Trump, and the rest of the treason caucus, it's not hard to figure out where a lot of extremely pro Russian sentiment in this culture war come from.

[Edge-]

The GOP voter suppression efforts continue.

The GOP Is Making It Harder for College Students to Vote

It's sad that the Republican response to finding out they and their policies are deeply unpopular is to try to change the rules rather than change their policies.

I can only imagine this will simply result in many of the targeted demographic, "voting harder", as they say.

[Ivanstone]

I never claimed that this current culture war is all the fault of Russian dark money, or even most of it, of course it requires a large gullible audience of rubes to be thoroughly convinced of some kind of silly culture war. But it's not exactly hard to draw a conclusion between a pre 2015 GOP that was heavily in favor of a western hegemony almost completely flipping towards isolationism in just under a year. A position that a certain Eastern power heavily favors. And while there was some push back about LGBTQ back then, it wasn't nearly so pronounced as it is today. Today's anti LGBTQ sentiment mirrors many of the same struggles LGBTQ people face in Russia.

Pre-2008 GOP was heavily western hegemony. The Kochs weren't really interventionists because they felt that some of that military spending should be for tax cuts. The Tea Party didn't need Russia to start beating that isolationist drum.

The push towards anti-LGBQT laws was because 40 years ago those laws were effectively in place. Now they have rights and the GOP needs to a culture war to fight. It was the same with minority civil rights. Black people got the CRA and ten years later you start seeing Forced Busing in political ads. Its the same in most regressive shit holes. Russia LGBQT coveting other countries laws but they have less ability to get things done. Meanwhile, Russian conservatives need their own culture war to fight. Other countries are the same. You think Chinese have any rights? They don't. Its even worse in Africa nevermind most Muslim countries.

Russia will meddle because they can and they can do it cheeply in the case of the US since they have a receptive audience that wants to hate. They're still a sideshow and are very far from the real evil.

[Fugus]

Pre-2008 GOP was heavily western hegemony. The Kochs weren't really interventionists because they felt that some of that military spending should be for tax cuts. The Tea Party didn't need Russia to start beating that isolationist drum.

The push towards anti-LGBQT laws was because 40 years ago those laws were effectively in place. Now they have rights and the GOP needs to a culture war to fight. It was the same with minority civil rights. Black people got the CRA and ten years later you start seeing Forced Busing in political ads. Its the same in most regressive shit holes. Russia LGBQT coveting other countries laws but they have less ability to get things done. Meanwhile, Russian conservatives need their own culture war to fight. Other countries are the same. You think Chinese have any rights? They don't. Its even worse in Africa nevermind most Muslim countries.

Russia will meddle because they can and they can do it cheeply in the case of the US since they have a receptive audience that wants to hate. They're still a sideshow and are very far from the real evil.

I think we all understand that the GOP would push this stuff regardless of Russia but that doesn't change the fact that what the GOP wants is good for Russia across the board.

So, with that in mind, Russia would be beyond stupid not to help the GOP. As the saying goes, "When your enemy is making a mistake, don't correct them". And Russia doesn't want to correct that mistake, they want to reinforce it. And the GOP have already proven they won't turn that help down and will actually do them favors to get that help.

Russia will fund the GOP so long as they can to get those ends with the only funding they give to the opposition being token gestures to either their fringe to try and stoke division or to the mainstream with the intent of it getting known to further stoke that division.

But the fact remains that if the GOP wins, Russia wins in that regard. Russia is against America and the GOP damage America, are willing to accept Russia's help when they can get away with it, and many of them willing to give favors in return for it. Quite literally have people been talking about halting the aid to Ukraine since the start, been trying to have America give up influence on the global stage and doing stuff that is flat out damaging because it gives them power or allows them to "Own the libs".

Not saying the GOP would stop without Russia paying them, saying that the GOP welcomes the help and Russia likes what GOP policies does to the US and does for Russia.

[enigma77]

It only seems extreme to you because your position is based on ignorance and malice.

It's a fantasy predicated on the false narrative that women get abortions frivolously and as such after some arbitrary point in time they should simply be forced to carry to term with no regard for any of the lives involved. Restrictions based on gestational age are a TERRIBLE idea because the people they really harm are those who actually wanted a child but due to unforeseen circumstances are in desperate need of the procedure.

Since the only people really getting late term abortions are those who discover that medical anomalies will put either the mother's or the baby's lives in jeopardy, what you're telling us with your hard-line "there must be SOME restrictions" position is that you WANT to torture people and devastate families, and you truly DON'T care about children's lives. All you care about is finding some way to punish people.

Sorry but that's ridiculous. In Europe 12 or 15 weeks is the limit, which is reasonable. The American left's stance is extreme.

[Muzjhath]

Sorry but that's ridiculous. In Europe 12 or 15 weeks is the limit, which is reasonable. The American left's stance is extreme.

Which is fairly dishonest a statement.
That's for Elective Abortion.

After that there are lots of cases where it's longer. Fetal impairment, health of the mother, age of the mother, circumstances of conception (rape/incest), etc

Unlike how most of these laws made in the states being made. Where there are no exceptions for anything. Most of the European laws explicitly states that medical abortions are exceptions, same as some situational abortions.

Take Germany, which is one of those 12 week countries.

Risk to life of pregnant woman
Risk of grave impairment to physical or mental health of pregnant woman
Pregnancy as a result of criminal offence (up to 12 weeks)
Exceptional distress (at discretion of court)
All abortions must be performed by a physician.

Take Lichtenstine, where it's electively prohibited (aka only the below are relevant cases)! (fucking conservative microstates)

Immediate danger to life of pregnant woman
Serious danger to life or health of pregnant woman
Pregnancy as a result of a sexual offence (or pregnant woman was under-age at the time of conception)

Then we get most of these laws in the US.
Where nothing is allowed, and travelling for abortion several states attempt to make illegal.

[Elegiac]

Sorry but that's ridiculous. In Europe 12 or 15 weeks is the limit, which is reasonable. The American left's stance is extreme.

"The American left's stance" is, generally speaking, predicated on the reality that access to reproductive healthcare is far from universal. Second trimester abortions that happen for elective reasons are almost always the result of low availability of reproductive health services, meaning that an abortion has to be deferred longer - so imposing limits that aren't related to fetal viability just ends up creating more problems than it solves.

[Endus]

Sorry but that's ridiculous. In Europe 12 or 15 weeks is the limit, which is reasonable. The American left's stance is extreme.

Why is that "reasonable"? Why is the "reasonable" argument an entirely arbitrary stance that denies women their right to self-ownership in the same sense that men have it?

Be objective and detailed, because it sure looks like it's actually an arbitrary religious extremist bit of misogyny, and it's upheld mostly due to misogynist appeals to emotion and centuries of traditional misogyny that have still not yet been overcome.

The only way gestational limits are "reasonable" is if you lack the political heft to actually protect women's rights proper, and have to give those who treat them as brood mares something to get the law passed. And that's not actually "reasonable", once you look any deeper than the shallowest surface take.

[Ivanstone]

Sorry but that's ridiculous. In Europe 12 or 15 weeks is the limit, which is reasonable. The American left's stance is extreme.

I'll use two countries with no limits as an example:
Russia. Russia has a very high abortion rate for reasons that should be obvious.
Canada. Canada has a lower abortion rate than the US. Canada actually tries to take care of its citizens and you don't need to go into debt just to have a baby. Or worry about a whole bunch of other things that shouldn't happen in a developed country. The American "left"'s stance isn't so extreme because if you take their policies as a whole, you'll end up with a lower abortion rate.

[Nymrohd]

Which is fairly dishonest a statement.
That's for Elective Abortion.

After that there are lots of cases where it's longer. Fetal impairment, health of the mother, age of the mother, circumstances of conception (rape/incest), etc

Unlike how most of these laws made in the states being made. Where there are no exceptions for anything. Most of the European laws explicitly states that medical abortions are exceptions, same as some situational abortions.

Take Germany, which is one of those 12 week countries.


Take Lichtenstine, where it's electively prohibited (aka only the below are relevant cases)! (fucking conservative microstates)


Then we get most of these laws in the US.
Where nothing is allowed, and travelling for abortion several states attempt to make illegal.

And more importantly, doctors and hospitals in Europe are not afraid to make those calls because they don't have to fear pro-forced birth domestic terrorists and an extremely litigious culture.

[s_bushido]

Sorry but that's ridiculous. In Europe 12 or 15 weeks is the limit, which is reasonable. The American left's stance is extreme.

It's only ""reasonable"" in the sense that ~93% of abortions take place in the first 13 weeks anyway. But the American right doesn't give a shit about reality, and want to either ban the practice entirely, or make the arbitrary cutoff point too early to even be practical. Combine that with a ridiculous healthcare system and it's nothing but a recipe for disaster. As the GOP is quickly finding out, after having fucked around and made it something that Democrats could campaign on for the past year.

[Nymrohd]

It's only ""reasonable"" in the sense that ~93% of abortions take place in the first 13 weeks anyway. But the American right doesn't give a shit about reality, and want to either ban the practice entirely, or make the arbitrary cutoff point too early to even be practical. Combine that with a ridiculous healthcare system and it's nothing but a recipe for disaster. As the GOP is quickly finding out, after having fucked around and made it something that Democrats could campaign on for the past year.

They don't really need to take it below 12 weeks. They can chase away centers that provide abortion services with multiple forms of harassment. They intimidate doctors who perform abortions with death threats. They could copy the laws of a European country and the inherent ambiguity of certain terms would be enough to stop those exceptions from being used.

[tehdang]

By appeal to authority you mean you are too woefully unqualified and ignorant to decide the facts of the matter but your conservative hubris, ego and narratives prevent you from accepting the consensus decided upon by those who are, in fact, qualified to give their judgement on the matter.

I don't give 50.1% of Doctors the moral authority to decide what's murder and what isn't. If you think they're your moral betters, a kind of enlightened class of humans, then I'll gladly wait for them to come here instead of their less equipped inferiors, in your view.

That's why I mentioned consensus, because the tiny minority of irresponsible and ignorant medical professionals do not a consensus make.

If you have problems understanding what an educated, informed consensus means, you should try looking up a dictionary.

Same response as before. I'll add that history shows tragedies and reprehensible acts occurred with the majority approval of the "experts" guiding them, from the sterilization of the mentally ill, to their lobotomy, to geocentrism and the "solved" physics of the 19th century. It's asking about the reasons why it's morally permissible to kill the baby, and morally righteous to put the decision only in the hands of mother and doctor, and saying, "Well, I took a poll of the class of people that perform them, and they say we're good!"

Or, bear with me. We leave it up to the Woman, the Doctor, and in cases when relevant her family.
No 11 year old child should ever carry a pregnancy to term, it's likely to kill the child.

It's easier to not have to create clear and easy exceptions by just leaving it to people. If someone feels abortion is immoral they can choose to not practice it.

This has all the effective weight of saying if you're against murder, then just don't commit it yourself. You don't like slavery, just don't buy slaves! I'm not a slaveowner, it should just be left up to the farmer and the seller.

The entire justification for crafting and enforcing laws isn't that it's easier than not having them. It's for protections for the powerless, and effective deterrence of crimes against the person and property etc. If the unborn child can be so easily killed and forgotten from day 1 until the moment after birth, then you are entirely justified and self-consistent with crafting no protections with exceptions for that life. The magical rights-bestowing transition of the birth canal goes from 0% consideration to 100% consideration. Never mind that act sometimes happens at 22weeks. That sucker's already dead in the eyes of the law, if it can be made so for any reason or no reason from the mother.

Do I want the choice to be there for everyone? Yes! But not because I want everyone to abort. In my ideal case there would be no non-medical abortions. However the world isn't ideal! So there will be! Women cannot choose not to get pregnant at times when it's bad and they cannot take care of a child.

I consent to the early abortions because of the failure of contraception, living situation or sudden changes in it with severe poverty, support, illness, and the like. That's behind my support for elective abortions prior to the 12-15week area.

But if you choose to continue beyond there, the most humane option is to carry to close to term, as possible, and delivery the baby without killing it first. That's the way to reconcile that a woman's choice destroys another body that isn't hers. If that other body wasn't a human in an early stage of development, like a tumor, then no rights ought to be considered and it's just health care.

Bear with me here, if the unborn baby deserves a little more consideration than just 1-2 voting to kill it, you craft and enforce restrictions like life of the mother, viability outside womb, terminal fetal anomaly. There really is no comfort in saying you consent to death by volition, but most of the time you'd agree to the reasoning. You support it in all cases, so you're better off owning your revealed opinion.

You are the last person who wants to be talking about what's "rare" in the context of abortions.

I'd be a little more willing to focus on the non-rare issues if your side of the debate didn't keep bringing up rare issues that apparently thwart laws. If incest and rape don't count as being rare, why should things even more rare justify legal elective abortions up until birth? I'm seeing an awful lot of arbitrary choices being made here that only seem to benefit one side of the argument. You can be dismissive all you want, just state your justifications that don't rely on the identify of the person speaking.

Crisis pregnancy centers are inserting themselves into paid advertisement google searches related to women looking for abortions. When women ask about abortive procedures and how much it will cost or how to get them, the clinics claim that they can't discuss such things over the phone and that the person needs to come in and be seen in person, and avoid telling the women that they don't offer such services even when it's clear the woman is looking for such services. When they have the woman in their "clinic" they then conveniently avoid answering any questions they have about abortion, and are instructed to use guilt trip tactics.

When all else fails, since these clinics are not actual medical treatment centers, they take the information the woman used to make an appointment (her name, address, phone number, etc) to bombard mail, emails, phone calls, etc. upon her by giving her personal information to pro-birth organizations. Because you know, the privacy of medical records only applies if you're an actual medical facility.

You don't see any of this as an issue because you agree with it, but again, anyone with two firing brain cells can identify how manipulative it is. People don't make appointments at pregnancy crisis centers because they've already made up their mind to keep the kid, considering how little is actually offered to women who've already made up their minds. If you really need help, I can do a youtube search for you and find all of the videos that demonstrate all of this as well as testimonials of former employees who describe how manipulative it is.

But every time I provide actual evidence to anything I say you disappear and never respond, meanwhile you demand everyone else provide evidence for your claims without ever actually providing any yourself.

If the state really, really wants to educate women on their options with regards to abortion, they can do so on as many billboards they wish to buy, and as many state-run facilities as they wish to operate. They have their own internal biases as well, which the pro-life side will state quite clearly minimize the downsides of abortion, sell it as a victimless operation, and all the rest.

I would point California as an example, when they wrote a law targeting crisis pregnancy centers. They couldn't point to anything "suggesting that pregnant women do not already know that the covered facilities are staffed by unlicensed medical professionals." They "already [made] it a crime for individuals without a medical license to practice medicine. They exempted other "family planning" and "contraception or contraceptive methods" facilities from their government-scripted mandatory speech, quite a strange thing if they have concerns about women being uninformed about what the state offers. That's a real rules-for-thee-but-not-for-me example. I'd say the evidence lies on the side of the centers promoting keeping the baby and providing for it after, and California really wishing they would only issue government-approved messages by force of law. Your stated cause of concern is they get speech rights, and your unspoken solution is you have to shut them up and bring the government in to burden their speech or else injustice happens. I'm not buying it. Look to NIFLA vs Becerra if you're actually interested in the evidence, and I can link it if you need that assistance. All these claims you're making were surprisingly absent from California ... so maybe they should've hired you and people you quoted instead of their own lawyers.

But yes, the Republicans have a huge young voter problem on their hands. Gen Z is entering the economy with dire job prospects because the last 50 years of trickle down economics has led to extremely poor wages that means they can't afford basic life necessities. They recognize which party is supportive of worker rights and which is not. They go through active shooter drills anywhere from once a month to once per week, and are always hearing about school shootings on the news and are sick of Republicans doing nothing to protect them while sending useless thoughts and vapid prayers. Anti-abortion laws are wildly unpopular, and even a majority of Republicans are against outright banning abortion. That number becomes even higher among independents, the voters that Republicans desperately need to win over. They were expecting big gains in 2022 and barely got anything, and only because so many congressional seats ran unopposed. Many congressional Republicans only won their seats by triple digit votes And it's only going to get worse for them.

I'm a little more optimistic about Gen Z looking at the politicians at a party's national level never supporting restrictions up to the moment of birth, and deciding that's just plain crazy. Whatever setbacks the 6-week abortion bans generate, the next pendulum swing will land back away from the extreme pro-abort position. If not immediately, then when Gen Z has their first baby and considers it was up to them to abort it at any moment up to the seconds after delivery, according to one political ideology. The Republicans, provided they get their act together, can make their arguments against denying gun ownership in rising crime, and promoting economic growth and job creation instead of job and wage-killing regulation and taxation alongside all the culture war issues.

Identity politics is a the biggest loser of the past 2 elections.

That's one big buoy for future Republican voting wins. Tell the next generation they're the wrong race, sex, sexual identity, or sexual relationship to speak on the most debated cultural issues in the country. That's always going to be grating, even if the opposition party is weakly able to capitalize on it.

It only seems extreme to you because your position is based on ignorance and malice.

As before, this is your opinion on what's extreme or not. I have a different one: elective abortion up to the moment of birth is just as extreme if not more so than mostly banning them after 6 weeks. You don't get to both choose your political side and what you allow to count as extreme.

It's a fantasy predicated on the false narrative that women get abortions frivolously and as such after some arbitrary point in time they should simply be forced to carry to term with no regard for any of the lives involved. Restrictions based on gestational age are a TERRIBLE idea because the people they really harm are those who actually wanted a child but due to unforeseen circumstances are in desperate need of the procedure.

Arguments that ignore the harm done to a previously alive, now dead unborn baby, will never carry the day.

If you think frivolous can never happen (how about "weakly justified," because like in other laws, the crime stays despite weak claims of justification), but are unwilling to put it into law, then maybe you're actually more in favor of it happening than you pretend to be. It's a revealed preference versus stated preference kind of problem.

Since the only people really getting late term abortions are those who discover that medical anomalies will put either the mother's or the baby's lives in jeopardy, what you're telling us with your hard-line "there must be SOME restrictions" position is that you WANT to torture people and devastate families, and you truly DON'T care about children's lives. All you care about is finding some way to punish people.

If you say the only people "really getting" late term abortions are those with medical anomalies with threaten the mother's or baby's lives, then you just confessed that you couldn't possibly have any issue with banning them if that is not the case. Should I suggest some non-life-threatening conditions that you'd also admit to and condone abortion, or do you see no cases that should be illegal at all?

I'm not coming into this expecting a lot of pro-life posters agreeing with me, this forum definitely rating lower than the US's distribution. Gallup pegs the US with
~38% favoring bans after heartbeat
~50% legal only under certain circumstances
~55% generally illegal after the first trimester
~71% generally illegal after the second trimester
What we get among the small poll of the 6-12 reply notification posters is 0% instead of 38%, 0% instead of 50%, 0% instead of 55%, and 0% or refuse to state instead of 71%.

I don't expect people to care if they poll as extreme on the issue compared to a representative sample of the United States. You don't actually have to care what US citizens think about the issue, if you think their reasoning is wrong! But don't for a moment try to define the center to be what you wish it was, or try to dismiss pro-life sentiment as already being in the minority. Pro-lifers are perfectly able to focus efforts on persuading the persuadable, spending resources to help expecting mothers, recruiting politicians to fight for their interests, and more or less ignoring the left to far-left forums that trend towards calling them "deranged psychopaths." I'm here speaking my opinion to the best of my ability. The most passionate voices here might also be completely fine with making abortions generally illegal after 20 weeks, but are displaying reactionary fervor at 6-week bans. I prefer compromises on making abortions generally illegal with exceptions in the 12-15 week range.

[Endus]

I don't give 50.1% of Doctors the moral authority to decide what's murder and what isn't. If you think they're your moral betters, a kind of enlightened class of humans, then I'll gladly wait for them to come here instead of their less equipped inferiors, in your view.

If you're talking about "murders", you're not talking about abortions, you're pushing religious or pseudo-religious extremist propaganda and don't want to actually discuss the actual issues.

It really is that plain and simple.

I consent to the early abortions because of the failure of contraception, living situation or sudden changes in it with severe poverty, support, illness, and the like. That's behind my support for elective abortions prior to the 12-15week area.

Which, y'know, is a tacit admission that even you know abortions aren't "murder" and do not in any way involve the killing of an actual person.

Which is why we take such issue with you lying to our faces about that and pretending like you aren't.

But if you choose to continue beyond there, the most humane option is to carry to close to term, as possible, and delivery the baby without killing it first. That's the way to reconcile that a woman's choice destroys another body that isn't hers. If that other body wasn't a human in an early stage of development, like a tumor, then no rights ought to be considered and it's just health care.

Nope. This is misogyny; a denial that a woman has self-ownership rights.

And you already admitted, just up above, that even you know the fetus isn't a person. Which is why we know this argument here is intentionally dishonest manipulation.

And when all your arguments for limiting/banning abortion rest upon a base of this kind of dishonesty, you're never going to have a valid position.

[Nymrohd]

If you believe in fetal personhood then you cannot consent on ANY abortion.
If one abortion is murder, ALL abortions are murder.
You are only OK with some murders. The greatest hypocrisy of all is in case of rape. I am sorry but children of rape victims are utterly blameless and if you choose to extent the same rights to the fetus, then the fetus is blameless too. It is telling that at some point the vast majority of the people opposing the right of women to control their bodies get squeamish and are suddenly ok with terminating a fetus. Hypocrits the lot of them.



The only point when you could start formulating ethical arguments is when the fetus is past the point of viability which is past the 25th week. The percentage of abortions past the 25th week that are not for a health related reason, be it the mother or the child, are extremely small. And even then there is no deontological argument to be made since it is still a fetus and still doesn't have rights. You can make a utilitarian argument that if both are healthy and it is past the point of viability, it might be better for aggregate utility if it is born (to be given for adoption if the mother cannot or does not want to raise the baby) but even that is a complex call to make and affects such a tiny number of cases.

[Muzjhath]

This has all the effective weight of saying if you're against murder, then just don't commit it yourself. You don't like slavery, just don't buy slaves! I'm not a slaveowner, it should just be left up to the farmer and the seller.

The entire justification for crafting and enforcing laws isn't that it's easier than not having them. It's for protections for the powerless, and effective deterrence of crimes against the person and property etc. If the unborn child can be so easily killed and forgotten from day 1 until the moment after birth, then you are entirely justified and self-consistent with crafting no protections with exceptions for that life. The magical rights-bestowing transition of the birth canal goes from 0% consideration to 100% consideration. Never mind that act sometimes happens at 22weeks. That sucker's already dead in the eyes of the law, if it can be made so for any reason or no reason from the mother.

This is just an appeal to emotion. Do you think an 8th week misscariage is the womans body killing a child? This is an important question here. It isn't semantic, as your argument hangs on murder etc.
Thus appeal to emotion.

Do some people consider abortion murder? Yes. That's their problem. It shouldn't affect others.

I consent to the early abortions because of the failure of contraception, living situation or sudden changes in it with severe poverty, support, illness, and the like. That's behind my support for elective abortions prior to the 12-15week area.

But if you choose to continue beyond there, the most humane option is to carry to close to term, as possible, and delivery the baby without killing it first. That's the way to reconcile that a woman's choice destroys another body that isn't hers. If that other body wasn't a human in an early stage of development, like a tumor, then no rights ought to be considered and it's just health care.

Bear with me here, if the unborn baby deserves a little more consideration than just 1-2 voting to kill it, you craft and enforce restrictions like life of the mother, viability outside womb, terminal fetal anomaly. There really is no comfort in saying you consent to death by volition, but most of the time you'd agree to the reasoning. You support it in all cases, so you're better off owning your revealed opinion.

I'd be a little more willing to focus on the non-rare issues if your side of the debate didn't keep bringing up rare issues that apparently thwart laws. If incest and rape don't count as being rare, why should things even more rare justify legal elective abortions up until birth? I'm seeing an awful lot of arbitrary choices being made here that only seem to benefit one side of the argument. You can be dismissive all you want, just state your justifications that don't rely on the identify of the person speaking.

You seriously need to look at how fucking dangerous Child Bearing is for women. Just look at how common post-partum depression fucking is. Or how hormones go out of wack for a woman carrying a child.

That's an unwanted burden to someone who doesn't want a child. So it's more humane to abort. Especially with how adoption and fostercare systems often look and function.
It's more humane for both woman and potential child.

I could see it if anti-choice legislators and supporters came at the debate from the other way. "Elective Abortion Restrictions, all medical abortions greenlit". But no, every freaking time they set a week, and past that NOPE!

This discussion from the pro-choice side is always about the quality of life for all involved, including potential children. From the anti-choice side it's about supposed murder.

[Rasulis]

Sorry but that's ridiculous. In Europe 12 or 15 weeks is the limit, which is reasonable. The American left's stance is extreme.

Regardless, of the actual gestation cut-off period, the bottom line is that Democratic legislators are doing what their voters demanded from them (see CA and VT abortion rights constitutional amendments). GOP legislators on the other hand are on the opposite end of the political spectrum with their voters (see MI, KS, MT & KY constitutional amendments, and WI supreme court election)

Right now, abortion trumps all other issues – economy, crime, open border, etc. With good reason.

Economy is a mixed bag. Although still high, inflation is slowing down. Unemployment is low. Job creation is still higher than pre-pandemic. Wages are still going up. Despite the SVB debacle, the Fed was able to stop contagion, and surprisingly people's trust in small and medium banks remains high. If the US is going to experience an economic catastrophe, more likely it will be due to the GOP controlled house refusing to pass the budget.

Crime is also limited in scope. In the suburbs where GOP is rapidly losing support, it is not a big issue.

Open border issue is limited to TX, AZ, CA & NM. Not to mention that most people are aware than US agriculture depends on illegal immigrants for its workforce.

Ultimately, all of GOP wedge issues do not generate the emotional outrage that brings people to the voting polls.

It is in Democrats best interest to keep the abortion issue foremost on voters' mind for the next two years. Ironically, they don't have to do anything. GOP politicians are doing a great job by trying to pass and passing ever stricter bills and legislations. The Texas judge decision on Mifepristone is not helping the GOP cause either.

- - - Updated - - -

Top Republican donor sours on Florida governor’s stance on social issues

Thomas Peterffy, a top Republican donor who has been supporting DeSantis during recent months, told the Financial Times that he was no longer aligned with any candidate – or potential candidate – for the presidential nomination.

“I have put myself on hold,” the billionaire told the Financial Times. “Because of (DeSantis') stance on abortion and book banning ... myself, and a bunch of friends, are holding our powder dry.”

He told the newspaper he still supports DeSantis’ business decisions as governor of Florida, but his position on social issues has meant “the Republicans have a very big problem.”

[Taifuu]

I'm not coming into this expecting a lot of pro-life posters agreeing with me, this forum definitely rating lower than the US's distribution. Gallup pegs the US with
~38% favoring bans after heartbeat
~50% legal only under certain circumstances
~55% generally illegal after the first trimester
~71% generally illegal after the second trimester
What we get among the small poll of the 6-12 reply notification posters is 0% instead of 38%, 0% instead of 50%, 0% instead of 55%, and 0% or refuse to state instead of 71%.

The very first graph of the Gallup poll that you did not link (how convenient), actually shows 85% favor as being legal under certain circumstances. Did you know that most OS have a built-in calculator? You can use it next time to figure out that 35%+50%=85%. The second graph is where I assume you received your numbers and almost appears to line up with what you said, until you remember the first graph. The second graph shows 4 categories, but the last two categories match each other exactly. Here are the actual questions asked:

Americans' Views on Legality of Abortion, 2022
Do you think abortions should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances or illegal in all circumstances?

Americans' Views on Legality of Abortion With Middle Position Specified, 2022
Do you think abortions should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?
(If say "legal only under certain circumstances Do you think abortion should be legal in most circumstances or only in a few circumstances?

At no point do they specify anything regarding trimesters, nor do they explain the difference between legal in most and legal in only a few. The percentage of people stated that abortion should be legal in all or most cases and the percentage of people who stated abortion should be available in all, most, or certain cases are also exactly the same, so unless you know exactly what that person considers "a few circumstances", that makes the data unreliable. Maybe a few circumstances are the exceptions for rape, incest or if the birth would be a danger to the mother or child. Maybe they mean only during the first or second trimester. It's not nearly as cut and dry as you try to make it seem. In addition, the sample size is only 1,007. There are 260+ million adults in the US. The poll makes no distinction regarding voting eligibility, but there were more than 150 million voters in 2020, so it's still far from an accurate sample size. Any poll taken on MMO Champion would have the same limitations, btw. Those are just to show the views of the forum, not the country or world at large.

Of course, as has been pointed out to you before, even if the anti-abortion sentiment was at 100%, it still wouldn't be the right choice as it undermines the bodily autonomy of women for something that is not a public health risk.

Here are some links for the Gallup poll:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/321143/...-abortion.aspx
https://news.gallup.com/poll/244097/...ic-tables.aspx

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- More than eight in 10 Americans believe abortion should be legal to some degree, and a majority don't want Roe v. Wade overturned. At the same time, the country remains far from unified on the extent to which abortion should be legal.

The poll also suggests that as your education level rises, your support for anti-abortion policies decreases. Again, irrelevant since the sample size is so small, but amusing since it means that part of your defense is predicated upon the fact that a large number of the participants might not even actually understand the impact of the policies being discussed or are basing their decisions from misinformation.

In addition to the above, that poll was taken prior to the Roe v. Wade ruling and the subsequent policy changes enacted by Republicans. Support for pro-choice policies have been rising over the decades and there is no evidence to support the idea that the Roe v. Wade decision would reverse that trend. Given that Kansas voted against their anti-abortion law last voting cycle and that Republicans are on record as acknowledging that if they give their own voters a choice, they will continue to vote against anti-abortion policies, it is more likely that support for pro-choice policies rises at an increased rate. Especially when more Republicans understand just how much that can impact their lives when they can no longer access abortion. See the recent State Supreme Court special election in Wisconsin for further proof.