SCOTUS removes Roe V Wade

[Surfd]

I can only imagine how frustrating it is for the spouse in those situations, to feel totally helpless watching their loved one suffer when there's a treatment path available but that the hospital can't pursue that treatment path until their loved one is literally dying.

Given that this is the USA, I am honestly surprised that we haven't seen an effort by anyone to sue the State for being directly responsible for causing the needless suffering, pain and emotional trauma most of the people in cases like these are experiencing. I mean, I'm no lawyer, but it would seem pretty open and shut to me that shit like this can be directly sourced to the actions of the State in signing these shitty, intentionally vaguely worded laws onto the books without regard to the wreckage they make of people's lives.

[The Stormbringer]

What happened to them was horrible. However, the lack of compassion shown by the states' GOP legislature is even more horrifying.

When have the GOP ever showed compassion to anyone. And I mean genuine compassion.

[SoulForge]

When have the GOP ever showed compassion to anyone. And I mean genuine compassion.

Not in a very long time. I remember seeing a quote that is still as accurate today as whenever it was originally created. No idea who to credit.

Republicans; Its not happening to me so I don't care.
Democrats; It shouldn't happen to anyone and that is why we care.

[tehdang]

There is no compromise. Anti-choice groups have lost every single ballot amendment since Dobbs. As many as 12 states will have abortion amendments on the ballots in 2024. All the polls showed that all of them have a good chance of passing. Even in Florida which requires 60% referendum. The last poll showed 62% supported the amendment.

GOP state legislatures did the only thing they could. Try to keep them off the ballots.

First rule of the anti-abortion playbook: Don’t let the public vote on abortion.

Now more and more voters have come to the realization, if they want women to keep their bodily autonomy, state constitutional amendments are not enough. They need to vote the anti-choice politicians out. In 2022 election, abortion was an important factor in voting, but it was secondary to the economy and cost of living. Multiple polls showed this year that abortion is now foremost in the mind of woman voters. Well ahead of the economy and cost of living.

Why? The article below needs no explanation.

Men impacted by abortion restrictions share their stories

You cite victories and future likely victories to say "there is no compromise?" Re-read my post and linked post. If you meant to say that the pro-choice side won't accept compromise, then sure. But from my standpoint, which is that the pro-life side should've developed consensus around restrictions later on in the pregnancy state-by-state, you're celebrating victories on the back of the failure of the other side to pursue compromise.

[unfilteredJW]

You cite victories and future likely victories to say "there is no compromise?" Re-read my post and linked post. If you meant to say that the pro-choice side won't accept compromise, then sure. But from my standpoint, which is that the pro-life side should've developed consensus around restrictions later on in the pregnancy state-by-state, you're celebrating victories on the back of the failure of the other side to pursue compromise.

We had a fucking compromise.

Complete clown shoes as always.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

The issue I run into a lot is people who do have deeply religious beliefs, or beliefs that are founded in religion, and so they'll just take one look at abortion and say, "That's killing a baby!" and ignore every argument or explanation that might say otherwise. I have no idea how to approach people like that, and don't know if I even should try to talk to them about it.

Tell them that there is a separation between Church and State.

[s_bushido]

If you meant to say that the pro-choice side won't accept compromise, then sure.

Allowing the state any say in a person's medical decisions was the compromise. Pro-"""life""" theocrats weren't happy with it. They wanted to remove a person's ability to make that medical decision in the first place.

[PosPosPos]

Allowing the state any say in a person's medical decisions was the compromise. Pro-"""life""" theocrats weren't happy with it. They wanted to remove a person's ability to make that medical decision in the first place.

Can people just call them forced-birthers or the most accurate pro-deathers already?

Because this is exactly what they want, more deaths, more suffering.

[Ivanstone]

Can people just call them forced-birthers or the most accurate pro-deathers already?

Pro-death.

I'd take the anti-abortion side's arguments more seriously if they didn't simultaneously pursue policies that make people not want to have children or make life as difficult as possible for those that do.

I'd at least expect them to provide incentives to people not to have an abortion but they can't even be bothered with that.

[Gestopft]

I'd take the anti-abortion side's arguments more seriously if they didn't simultaneously pursue policies that make people not want to have children or make life as difficult as possible for those that do.

I'd at least expect them to provide incentives to people not to have an abortion but they can't even be bothered with that.

That's because genuine care for the fetuses isn't actually the core value of the movement. After 50 years, I'm sure a lot of pro-life proponents think it is, but the heart of the movement is controlling sexual behavior, particularly women's.

Apropos of nothing:

Iowa won't participate in U.S. food assistance program for kids this summer

"Well you see now, if women just waited until marriage like they're supposed to, they'd have a proper breadwinner in the house and wouldn't need food assistance for their children."

[s_bushido]

Because this is exactly what they want, more deaths, more suffering.

Apropos of nothing:

Iowa won't participate in U.S. food assistance program for kids this summer

[Captain N]

Apropos of nothing:

Iowa won't participate in U.S. food assistance program for kids this summer

I particularly like this part of that article by the Iowa Governor....

"Federal COVID-era cash benefit programs are not sustainable and don't provide long-term solutions for the issues impacting children and families. An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic," Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said in the news release.

She added, "If the Biden Administration and Congress want to make a real commitment to family well-being, they should invest in already existing programs and infrastructure at the state level and give us the flexibility to tailor them to our state's needs."

Let's blame an obesity issue as the reason we can't feed poor children, and then expect Big Government to fix the problem so we can blame them when we alter their recommendations at the state level.

[Endus]

If you meant to say that the pro-choice side won't accept compromise, then sure.

The pro-choice side accepted the Roe v. Wade compromise for decades. Pro-lifers decided that compromise was unacceptable, demonstrating they cannot be compromised with. That's why there can be no compromise with their malice in the future.

Heck, you're doing it here, trying to argue that pro-choicers need to accept a "compromise" somewhere between the prior compromise (Roe v. Wade) and the pro-lifer stance. That's not an appeal to compromise. It's trying to edge your way dishonestly to eventual victory.

Again, "compromise" does not have inherent moral value over the alternatives it lies between. You're arguing for the equivalent of a "compromise" between slavery and freedom.

[tehdang]

Allowing the state any say in a person's medical decisions was the compromise. Pro-"""life""" theocrats weren't happy with it. They wanted to remove a person's ability to make that medical decision in the first place.

If it was just that person's medical decisions, then yeah. But there's another person there, or a body in a stage of development that will become another person. That's the troublesome part about simply classifying this as an ordinary medical decision. I can think of only physician-assisted suicide and abortion that truly transcend the bulk classification, unless you want to include the "informed" part of "informed consent" for procedures.

I've seen enough of this debate to classify the faith people put in doctors always making the right decision in late-term abortion to be amenable to calling that position a theocratic position, and acting like doctors are a holy priesthood. It takes a lot of faith.

Pro-death.

I'll need to bookmark this the next time someone gives me guff about relabeling the other side.

[Dontrike]

I'll need to bookmark this the next time someone gives me guff about relabeling the other side.

Is that "relabeling" wrong? Right now we have a woman that had a miscarry being sued, one had to flee her home in order to get medical care and face serious injury or death, and dozens upon dozens of this where a woman would face extreme pain, likely death, and more if they didn't get the literal dead or dying "person" out of them.

Also, they tend to love not helping people so much that more pain/death is caused, from removing children from various programs that would feed/house them, they have also taken away their insurance more and more. Republicans absolutely love children dying.

[Edge-]

I've seen enough of this debate to classify the faith people put in doctors always making the right decision in late-term abortion to be amenable to calling that position a theocratic position, and acting like doctors are a holy priesthood. It takes a lot of faith.

Damn, I guess I have a lot more religious-esque faith than I ever thunk!

I just believe that the pilot is like some holy priest and is going to pilot my aircraft from tarmac to tarmac without nosediving into the ground or deciding to become wallart on some cliff somewhere.

I just have "faith" that the guy I called to come replace the springs on my garage door could and would actually properly replace them.

I had "faith" that the surgeon who operated on my knee wouldn't just hack away and leave me a bloody mess.

Nobody is pretending that doctors are infallible or will always make the perfect decision, I'm unsure where you'd even come up with such a notion. What doctors are though, usually, is decent, pretty caring human beings who try to provide the best/appropriate care for their patients. Some are shit, totally. Some are just clocking in and out, totally. But most are in the profession for a bit more than the fast cars and hot chicks (though hey, that can help!).

At the end of the day, people trust their doctors. Unfortunately this seems to be a newly political issue with Republicans losing confidence in doctors over the past decade or so - https://news.gallup.com/poll/357821/...vice-past.aspx

But ultimately, majorities still trust that their doctor is going to provide them the best possible medical advice they can and that's pretty reasonable to believe them given their decade+ of training and experience etc.

You seem to mistake trust with faith, and those are two similar but very different ideas in this context.

[Gestopft]

I've seen enough of this debate to classify the faith people put in doctors always making the right decision in late-term abortion to be amenable to calling that position a theocratic position, and acting like doctors are a holy priesthood. It takes a lot of faith.

Except nobody has said that doctors always make the right decisions. The position is that because of their medical expertise and their proximity to the patients in question, doctors are in a better position to make the decisions than legislators, and thus should be the ones making them.

[tehdang]

Damn, I guess I have a lot more religious-esque faith than I ever thunk!

I just believe that the pilot is like some holy priest and is going to pilot my aircraft from tarmac to tarmac without nosediving into the ground or deciding to become wallart on some cliff somewhere.

I just have "faith" that the guy I called to come replace the springs on my garage door could and would actually properly replace them.

I had "faith" that the surgeon who operated on my knee wouldn't just hack away and leave me a bloody mess.

Nobody is pretending that doctors are infallible or will always make the perfect decision, I'm unsure where you'd even come up with such a notion. What doctors are though, usually, is decent, pretty caring human beings who try to provide the best/appropriate care for their patients. Some are shit, totally. Some are just clocking in and out, totally. But most are in the profession for a bit more than the fast cars and hot chicks (though hey, that can help!).

Part of the conclusion for allowing abortion up until birth is that doctors don't need a law for it because no doctor would perform them for less-than-medically-necessary reasons. The nastier part, and I'll invoke Chonogo's "you're not willing to enlighten yourself," is a de-facto tolerance of some number of late-term abortions for troubling reasons less than the life of the mother or the likely death of the unborn baby. I had hoped to find the "reasonable" pro-choice person that said, "These deaths are unfortunate, but necessary to keep the law off of doctor's hands" or "On the balance, this is the lesser evil," but instead I found dogma on none ever happening. I brought up the doctor that said every pregnancy was a health issue (side-note: a little dire for people that want health issue exemptions), and nothing changed whatsoever.

You can repeat medical issue or women's health care until you're blue in the face, but it won't erase the fact of a second human in there, and somewhere before birth that human deserves a little protection. If not, that birth canal is quite a magical personhood-bestowing thing.

Except nobody has said that doctors always make the right decisions. The position is that because of their medical expertise and their proximity to the patients in question, doctors are in a better position to make the decisions than legislators, and thus should be the ones making them.

Do you yield that doctors will sometimes err and give an elective abortion to some mother of a post-viability baby for reasons other than the mother's life and the unborn baby's life/severe fetal anomaly? Because I've heard from more than one person that this doesn't happen and won't happen. You can comb through this thread's archives to hear the defense to "We don't need laws protecting the unborn baby from post-viability up to the moment of birth, because no doctor would consent to do that procedure except for medically necessary reasons."

The second, related, question is whether you think laws are so coarse of a measure that no good-faith crafter could write a good one that institutionalizes agreed-upon reasons for a late-term abortion in ways that doctors can feel themselves free to save the life of the mother or abort when the baby is unlikely to survive. I've seen plenty of laws on informed consent, medically assisted dying, families making medical decisions on behalf of a relative. Is your position that abortion is such a unique medical procedure that none could ever be written? Or maybe that current laws on the books must be removed, because the legal intrusion in the work of doctors cannot be justified? I'm trying to outline the extent to which people both sui generis abortion and also call it just another medical procedure.

The problem with this argument is this - organ transplants. There are many other people who in deciding to not donate their body parts are participating in the medical decisions of others. The reason we don't force organ donations, even from corpses, relates to that pesky bodily autonomy issue that every anti-abortion person supports until it's on the topic of abortion. If they were truly "pro-life" as they claim then they would support forced non-lethal organ donation, blood donation, and harvesting every corpse for viable body parts.

But they don't. Because they are all hypocrites.

"You have to make pregnancy like organ transplants or you're a hypocrite." I only wish people who were awaiting organ transplants magically didn't need one if you gave them care and support for a few extra months.

[Lenonis]

But there's another person there

The problem with this argument is this - organ transplants. There are many other people who in deciding to not donate their body parts are participating in the medical decisions of others. The reason we don't force organ donations, even from corpses, relates to that pesky bodily autonomy issue that every anti-abortion person supports until it's on the topic of abortion. If they were truly "pro-life" as they claim then they would support forced non-lethal organ donation, blood donation, and harvesting every corpse for viable body parts.

But they don't. Because they are all hypocrites.

[Endus]

If it was just that person's medical decisions, then yeah. But there's another person there

That's a statement predicated on your personal religious dogma. It has no validity beyond yourself and your own choices for yourself. Trying to force that religious dogma onto others is religious fascism and bigotry, and is inherently malicious and abusive. Cut it out.

or a body in a stage of development that will become another person.

This is trivially true of gametes as well. And it's also entirely pointless (as is the above), because we're gonna get back around to pointing out that in no other instance does Person A's right to life supercede Person B's right to bodily autonomy. You'd have to make an argument for why pregnancy and abortion is a special case, and no one ever has without hypocritical religious pleading or emotional hand-wringing.

That's the troublesome part about simply classifying this as an ordinary medical decision. I can think of only physician-assisted suicide and abortion that truly transcend the bulk classification, unless you want to include the "informed" part of "informed consent" for procedures.

Organ harvesting from people who've passed, without their permission; those who those organs could save don't trump the deceased person's bodily autonomy.
Forced tissue and fluid harvesting from healthy donors for those who need them, regardless of that donor's will. Blood is the most obvious, but forced kidney donations are very plausible. Again, not something anyone actually considers.

I don't think you've actually invested much honest thought into this, or looked at contradictory opinions, because I'm not some genius bringing these issues up out of nowhere. If you're unaware of them, it's by choice.

I've seen enough of this debate to classify the faith people put in doctors always making the right decision in late-term abortion to be amenable to calling that position a theocratic position, and acting like doctors are a holy priesthood. It takes a lot of faith.

Horseshit.

Nobody thinks doctors are infallible. That's why we have ethics review boards and the like.

What you're calling "faith" is actually called "trust". Yes, we trust in professionals to do their jobs ethically and proficiently, and that there are professional review and licensing boards who police their own in those respects.