It's easy to have empathy for people like you or that you agree with, but the real test is having empathy for those who aren't / you don't.
I'm neither Indian nor American, but just my impressions as an outside observer of both countries: in the US, the liberal-conservative divide on social issues and religion really latched on to the topic of abortion, in a way in which it did in few other countries (even most other countries with a traditionally Christian majority). The same divide absolutely exists in India, but it has tended to focus on other political issues instead – relations with religious minorities (especially Hindu-Muslim relations), the eating of beef, religious nationalism (Hindutva) vs secularism, citizenship and immigration (see the Citizenship Amendment Act controversy). Conservative Hindus and conservative Christians actually have rather similar views on the morality of abortion – the difference is not so much in the underlying ethics, rather what to prioritise in translating one's ethical views into public policy.
I think, it may be less that Indian society has "come to the conclusion" – more simply that religious conservatives have let the secular liberals have their way on that particular issue, because they've got other issues they'd rather spend their political capital on. Another big difference, is that in India criminal law is a federal not state responsibility, so the issue ends up being addressed once at the national level, instead of separately in each state in the US (especially in this new constitutional situation, but that was already happening to a lesser extent under the previous one.)
The reductionism is a necessary part of online forum based discourse. No one has the time to engage in hours long holistic discussions on a topic. A comment can at most aspire to capture 1 point well, and reductionism is the act of identifying the one act that has a disproportionate importance within the discussion.
Speaking abstractly about an unquantifiable rights allows you to pat your own back, but such discussions turn into ingroup signaling and adhominems instead of leading to productive discussion.
Most Indians come from a scarcity economy where bad decisions are catastrophic. This means that you must have skin in the game when championing an idea, because failure means starvation.(allow me some hyperbole). The society doesn't suffer delusion for too long.
Abortion rights are good. Yes, I believe that too. Republicans are actively interfering with women's control over their own bodies and that bad. Yes, I agree there too. Throw in specific anecdotes to appear nuanced.
Now what ? You still need to address the elephant in the room. Indians might point to it a little 'austistically', but it is an elephant, in your room. The nuance can wait.
I don't want to personally attack anyone but I know a number of first generation Indian immigrants. They're great people but all of them seem to reject the conservative view of American politics (the one held overwhelmingly by the people who lived here before) as "backwards." It might be because of their experiences in India, I don't know. It's really frustrating though to have people come into your country and try to change things like that while calling you stupid for protesting it. Tradition often exists for a reason and it can take a lot of work and empathy to unwind that. If you're going to come into a new country and participate in their politics you should work hard to make sure you understand their tradition (and I recognize that's hard, I don't blame immigrants for not doing since I would probably do the same, but it's really frustrating to see it over and over again and that's why I call it out here occasionally.)
EDIT: I can back up my personal experience with statistics [1] Although interestingly enough it says that later descendants tend to be even more left leaning.
This a million times. They also frequently suffer from "Engineer's Syndrome":
https://ask.metafilter.com/297591/Origin-of-the-term-Enginee...
That's unfairly dismissing the possibility that a pro-life position could be motivated by empathy for the unborn, who are completely powerless.
We can do better than demonizing people who disagree.
That’s it. There is no requirement to meet some perceived bar of empathy beyond that for this to be a good faith argument.
“I bet you think shooting innocent people in the head is wrong, but yet you don’t volunteer at the soup kitchen every weekend, so do you ACTUALLY care about innocent people or are you just trying to control others?” Do you see how that’s a ridiculous non-sequitur? That’s the argument you just made against pro life people.
"pro-life" really isn't as simple as you're making it sound. Only something like 15-18% of Americans support a total ban on abortion with no exceptions. So if we're limiting "pro-life" to only that position, then it's by definition a pretty extreme position, in fact most people would call it ridiculous: it's so extreme that it's very easy to ridicule.
If we widen a little to allow exceptions, well is that really "pro-life" anymore? Then you get into situations where you have to say, "well I think it's a life, therefore ending that life is killing, but the pregnant person will die if forced to carry the fetus to term, so... I guess killing is OK?". It's pretty weird.
Further, if the goal of pro-life Americans is to lower the number of abortions, here are policies we know work:
- sex education
- access to contraception
- support for parents and children (financial, educational, medical/mental health)
Oddly very very few pro-life Americans support any of this, which forces us to question their motives.
This Supreme Court has also just thrown out Miranda rights out the window and stomped on New York’s attempt to limit concealed weapon carries.
States rights my foot!
It’s unfair that Obama couldn’t even get Merrick Garland appointed with two terms in office, but Trump GOT THREE JUSTICES JAMMED THROUGH IN ONE TERM! Unprecedented and dangerous. They all lied to congress about their intentions during confirmation too. Immoral!
You will surely reap the whirlwind from what you sowed
You can have a deep respect for innocent life and not be willing or able to spend weekends in a soup kitchen. You can't have a deep respect for innocent life while working to keep innocent lives from being able to survive.
"Baby murder is wrong" unless it's murder by exposure because the child was homeless, "screw the homeless!" the pro-life say or by starvation because screw the hungry! or by cancer, because screw the sick if they can't afford obscene medical costs! Pro-life people generally, don't care at all about the life of babies. They don't even care about murder. If baby food companies are killing kids by poisoning them with heavy metals they'll still decry any government regulations that would prevent that or hold baby food companies accountable. The Free Market can murder babies all day long. School shootings? No, we can't have sensible gun control laws proven to work in basically every developed nation around the globe! The pro-life say we just have live with those murders, nothing can be done! So tragic!
They want to claim the moral high ground but they are buried deep under their own filth.
- WIC (https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic)
- Food Stamps (SNAP - https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program)
- Medicaid (Health care for poor people) https://www.medicaid.gov/
- Section 8 subsidized housing (https://www.benefits.gov/benefit/710)I believe this is what OP is referring to - the same people who supposedly believe in the sanctity of human life are also the first to cut any programs that support it. So it's difficult to take their "pro-life" arguments in good faith.
> That’s it. There is no requirement to meet some perceived bar of empathy beyond that for this to be a good faith argument.
You seem to be saying that because the argument is simple, it's in good faith, but this is not how good faith arguments work, nor is it aligned with the common understanding of "good faith".
Pregnancy is not simple. The circumstances surrounding conception are often not simple. The post-birth reality for many kids is anything but simple. Our medical/scientific understanding of the development of a fetus is anything but simple.
To simply ignore the 2nd and 3rd order effects that result from the "simple" position of a pro life person is to willfully ignore the complexity of this issue. This willful ignorance by definition renders the argument unqualified to be considered good faith.
The simplicity of an argument is not an excuse for ignoring the complexity of the issue. In general, a "good faith" argument is built from a foundation of common understanding between all involved parties. A good faith argument acknowledges complexities and offers its own solutions. A good faith argument isn't made by covering one's ears and pretending those complexities don't exist.
To claim that "X argument is good faith because it's simple" is in itself a bad faith argument, or at best, uninformed about what good faith is generally expected to mean in discourse.
Exactly when it stops being a bundle of cells that can be removed without thought or empathy and becomes a "baby about to be born" where it should not be treated so negligently is in my mind the real question here. And don't ask me to tell you where that line is, because I have no idea.
I just hate that there is no room for nuance on this topic, no matter which "side" you talk to.
I avoid that issue entirely by leaving it as a matter of viability. As I've said elsewhere: As long as the mother's body is needed to sustain the life of the child, that life is subject to her whims. Her house. Her rules. The moment it can be removed and sustained without her, she should no longer have the right to abort it, only to surrender it.
It doesn't matter if it's a baby or just a clump of cells, if it's literally living in and feeding off of another living person that person should have a right to decide to continue or to stop allowing that. The child's right to exist against the wishes of its mother start as soon as it can do so without her.
-- Bill Hicks, 1993
If it were possible to prevent deaths of old age or to resurrect the dead, would you be against it?
"Boy, I've never seen an issue so divisive. You ever see it, it's like a civil war, isn't it? Even amongst my friends, who are all very intelligent! They are totally divided on abortion! It's unbelievable! Some of my friends, for instance, think these pro-life people are annoying idiots. Other of my friends think these pro-life people are evil fucks. How are we going to come to a consensus? You ought to hear the arguments around my house; "they're annoying, they're idiots, they're evil, they're fucks!" Brothers, sisters, come together! Can't we once just join hands and think of them as evil annoying idiot fucks?" -- Bill Hicks, 1993
The parent didn't claim a lack of empathy for all
That's an extremely strong statement. It's the kind of thing someone firmly ensconced in a bubble would say. Is what you say true, or do you just lack the imagination or empathy to think of one?
All this says is: "What you are saying could or could not be true."
Why write so much to say so little?
If you think they're "ensconced in a bubble", say it. If you think they "lack ... imagination" or empathy", then say it.
Don't do this motte and bailey stuff of: "have you considered that you sounds like someone who's wrong?"
You didn't understand what I was attempting, and proceeded project some other intention onto me.
> Don't do this motte and bailey stuff of: "have you considered that you sounds like someone who's wrong?"
Your paraphrase is a misreading.
You shouldn't lecture people about how they should say things when you can only speculate without much basis about what they're actually trying to do.
>That's an extremely strong statement. It's the kind of thing someone firmly ensconced in a bubble would say. Is what you say true, or do you just lack the imagination or empathy to think of one?
was trying to do, and this comment hasn't really made it any clearer. Can you explain it explicitly?
You would have to be "firmly ensconced in a bubble" to think you have the right to force a women to carry their rapists baby. Or to even think you have the right to tell a women what to do with her body in the first place.
You know, there are a lot of pro-life women. Do you think they have those beliefs because they hate themselves? Abortion is a complicated issue, it's only "really simple" if you ignore a bunch of stuff and/or fill your head with slogans.
You'd be on firmer ground if you said something along the lines of "there is no valid pro-life position [for me]."
Yes I do think they hate themselves, or at least hate their sex, their world or their (nonexistent) God. It is intrinsic to the rights of women to do what they want to do with their own body. I accept that a anti-abortion woman does not want to have an abortion herself. I accept that a pro-abortion woman does want an abortion.
Its a complicated issue only to the parties involved. Lets not make it more complicated by taking away autonomy.
I think there is a deep clash of worldviews here. Some people view individual autonomy, and especially bodily autonomy, as among the most cherished and sacred of values – an absolute which should never be compromised. Other people, while they don't view individual autonomy as worthless, they don't put it as high in their hierarchy of values, so they are open to the idea that sometimes it has to give way to other values, and can rightfully be limited if necessary to protect something else of great importance. There are both women and men on both sides of this worldview divide. And there is something to be said for trying to understand the viewpoint of people with very different values from your own – a message both sides of that divide would do well to heed.
* Oppress women * Don't oppress women
This is the paradox of tolerance. You cannot negotiate with a monster who wants to force their views on people, especially those around forced birthing, you know, against the Helsinki Agreement on Human Right among others. There is no benevolent religion or philosophy that requires forcing a person to do something with their body.
I don't have pro or anti views. I just have a single view that you can do whatever you fucking like with your own body, and nobody can tell you that you can or cant. Anything else is fucking monstrous and will not be tolerated.
So, is your position that 77% of American women – including the 42% who support limited abortion restrictions – "hate themselves, or at least hate their sex"? Maybe, rather than they hating themselves, it is you who hate them?
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/06/americas-abo...
Basically you are asking for a tyranny of a majority. It just doesn't matter what you, 1% or 40% or 99% of people believe -- they are free to believe and do whatever they want with their own bodies. They cannot dictate beliefs and behaviors for others. Its just a simple thing. Autonomy.
I think religion has poisoned many minds. Any belief structure that requires forcing a viewpoint onto others is unacceptable.
I do believe all access all the time to whomever wants it, yes. There only one view that matters: A women has the right to decide what happens to her body. Anything else has no place on this planet.
Go oppress someone else.
There is only one hateful position -- that you have the right to force your beliefs on others bodies. I do not share this position.
What is not granted is the ability to force another to take on those views. I am not forcing you have have a particular belief structure, but you are making an argument that because a group of people have some pretty crazy ideas we all must be beholden to it. When you want to force an ideology -- and my position is not an ideology, it is an anti-ideology at best.
I posit that forcing women to give birth to babies against their consent is a grave human rights violation and cannot be tolerated in a modern civilized society. It is the same logic of the paradox of tolerance that we cannot permit those to push a their hateful agenda against others, for they will push their ignorance and hate so loud that rights vanish quickly.
77% of American women support some degree of abortion restrictions – although a majority of them only support limited restrictions. What do you mean to say that all those women have "pretty crazy ideas"? How are they "forcing" an ideology on anyone by acting politically in accordance with their own beliefs–any more than anyone else doing the same thing is doing?
But of course the slave owning framers of the constitution didn't care about that, considering the whole slave thing, so the federalist society judges that have been placed on the supreme court won't either
The legal argument is simple:
- The Constitution enumerates federal powers.
- Abortion is not enumerated federally (Article 1 Section 8)
- 10th Ammendment states that anything not explicitly enumerated to the federal gov or explicitly denied to the States is the legal territory of the States
This reversal doesn't ban abortion across the US. It returns the decision to the states, where it should be legally.
If we want a federal solution, we need an ammendment. This is exactly the same as how prohibition required an ammendment to ban alcohol.
Emotions, morals, etc., while important for driving the end result, still must comply with the legal system.
Can't wait for SCOTUS to apply the same logic to drug prohibition, which is also not at all an enumerated federal power (assuming the same logic that alcohol regulation isn't one either).
Oh they won't, because they're activist judges with an agenda not some impartial arbiter of the constitution
Though the one point I will make is that the federal government is enumerated the power to regulate interstate commerce, so while they can't ban the substances, they could make it illegal to transport them over state lines. Such is the reason you still can't take mj from one legal state to the next.
We should still be able to have bodily autonomy and consume whatever substance we want. Just like women should have bodily autonomy and not be forced to carry pregnancies against their will
This is exactly backwards
I'm arguing that those things should drive policy and laws, but we can't implement contradictory laws, and we can't just ignore existing laws when making new ones.
Instead we need to revise, rescind, or modify laws in compliance with existing ones. Otherwise there is no point to having laws to begin with.
But we do have some notes from judges such as the following:
As Justice Scalia observed, “the [ Ninth Amendment’s] refusal to ‘deny or disparage’ other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them, and even further removed from authorizing judges to identify what they might be, and to enforce the judges’ list against laws duly enacted by the people.” https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-9/n...
IMO, Congress should attack this from a Constitutional ammendment which makes its legality clear: abortions cannot be outlawed. Anything else is just another ticking time bomb, especially something contingent on a 9th ammendment interpretation.
Edit: after rereading the 1st ammendment, the wording of an ammendment should be consistent, so something like, "Congress shall make no law prohibiting the seeking or procedure of abortion."
Thinking more on the 9th, one would have to consider the right to destroy an unborn person, not just the right to bodily autonomy. This becomes a moral or philosophical exercise, perhaps. With the 14th ammendment, it now becomes a question of personhood, which I don't believe the Constitution defines. So I think I am content with my request for an ammendment and not 9th Ammendment guesswork.
Final edit: Turns out we have prior rulings that state that the 9th ammendment does not cover assisted suicide, which may be applicable to the case (potentially Person definition pending).
Washington v Glucksberg https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/521/702/
You are right though that more people overall - even those who skew conservative and pro-individual rights, should realize that if you take away rights from women, and then homosexuals, and then people who want to be married to someone of a different race... where does it end in terms of stripping away individual rights? I'd argue that if you view women's health care as a matter of individual freedom and rights, then is that not the same argument being made in interpreting the 2nd amendment as not about militias (IE: a standing army) but the rights of the individual? If I can tell women they can't have a set of health care services, what's stopping the government from telling men that they can't have a different set of health care services?
We can argue that it should be, but now we're talking about an ammendment, which is legally necessary and the real conversation the nation should be having.
*I don't think it could ever qualify as a right. Rights are negative, not positive. You could not guarantee the right to an abortion because now you're guaranteeing someone to the right to have someone else do work for them. Instead, it would need to be enumerated as a negative right, meaning that there would be federal protection against the outlawing of abortions.
Militia does not mean standing army. From the Supreme Court Heller decision https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf, page 2:
"The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved."
You can read pages 1 and 2 of that decision to see the summary of the Supreme Court's argument for why 2nd Amendment rights are individual rights.
"United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes."
As for the reproductive rights, as long as contraception is legal (and who knows what will happen next) isn’t the choice at conception? Contraceptives should be untaxed and widely available.
People talk about Roe v Wade as if women spontaneously get pregnant against their will and are forced to care for the baby.
That being said women who are raped should be able to get an abortion imo
As for me, I say no. If a woman can terminate the pregnancy. a man should be able to waive his part in it. That still leaves the issue of a man losing a child he wants if she doesn't, but that issue, as well as the issue of abortion, will be solved once we find a way to transplant the fetus to an artificial womb. Until then there are no perfect solutions.
> As for the reproductive rights, as long as contraception is legal (and who knows what will happen next) isn’t the choice at conception?
Contraceptives can and do fail. Even if you're doing everything right. Contraceptives help, and comprehensive sex ed promoting the correct use of contraceptives goes a long way to help prevent unwanted pregnancies (as evidenced by higher teen pregnancy rates where they only provide "abstinence only" ignorance) but it doesn't solve the problem.
> People talk about Roe v Wade as if women spontaneously get pregnant against their will and are forced to care for the baby.
"spontaneously" or not, women do in fact get pregnant against their will. They also can get medical complications that require them to terminate willful pregnancies in order to protect their health and their lives. The loss of Roe v Wade means that more women will die. needlessly. More women will cruelly suffer. More children will cruelly suffer as well.
Indeed, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not against abortion. The situations you’ve mentioned are good reasons to have it.
My point is that the choice that people want already exists other than rape. Abortion should be legal, but not because reasons, but for medical necessity and for situations in which the choice that a woman does have is made for her (rape).
At any point, prior to where the fetus could be viable without its mother, the mother should have every right to terminate that pregnancy for literally any reason at all. Anything less would deny women their right to have control of their own bodies and lives.
Again, plenty of people end up pregnant against their will. Others will have fully intended to have a child, but their circumstances suddenly changed. It needn't always be due to some medical necessity. As long as the mother's body is needed to sustain the life of the child, that life is subject to her whims. Her house. Her rules. The moment it can be removed and sustained without her, she should no longer have the right to abort it, only to surrender it.
They have never been forced to care for the baby, but will now be forced to birth the baby - that still doesnt mean they will care for it, even if it is in the same home.
To the other point, women get pregnant from male sperm, yet it is somehow the female who has been burdened with trying to police this - any male partner/husband can now force a pregnancy though subterfuge leaving the female with little no other option then to carry out his will. Women can have sex all day long, every day of the week with multiple people and they will never get pregnant so long as a male does not ejaculate his sperm inside of her. Yet males are not held accountable for irresponsible ejaculations - maybe they will be monetarily accountable 10+ months later
The burden of un/wanted pregnancy falls onto the female, males have a choice to provide comfort and support (emotional, monetary) if they chose, males can still choose to be absent deadbeat parents too - they are not forced to pay, they can chose not to and depending on their lawyer situation can do so and keep their money, or not do so and have to take steps to hide their money.
Also, contraceptives fail and males don't have to care because the full physical health burden falls on the female. Like this whole topic, wanting a yes or no on something like this or if males should have to support a child just doesnt do it justice, there are too many ways in which that happens - but if a female has the choice to easily get an abortion without all of the burden, then if a male does not want a child and a female does, he should be free from it - but before that can happen - the female must be able to have the choice to carry it or terminate it without burden.
Here’s a good indicator:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/24/politics/abortion-ruling-gay-...
Spoiler: it looks like contraceptives are likely next for SCOTUS.
> He emphasized a line the majority opinion that said "[n]othing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion." "We have also explained why that is so: rights regarding contraception and same-sex relationships are inherently different from the right to abortion because the latter (as we have stressed) uniquely involves what Roe and Casey termed 'potential life,'" Alito said.
75% of Americans want restrictions on abortion (beyond just Roe v wade’s shaky constitutional basis).
The vast vast majority of Americans are ok with contraceptives, same sex marriage has firm constitutional basis, etc these aren’t going away
Across-the-board bans on contraception aren't happening, because almost nobody wants such a ban.
But overturning Obergefell? I think it is likely. According to 2021 polling data [0], there is still majority opposition to marriage equality in Mississippi (55% oppose) and Arkansas (52% oppose). It looks like the state government trying to overturn it would be a vote-winner in those two states – especially considering that people who actually vote often skew older and more conservative than the population in general, so opposition to it in those states may be even stronger among voters. There are other states where support is still quite weak, such as Alabama (49% support, 47% opposition) and South Carolina (50% support), so the same might be true for them as well. It only takes one state to act to get a case before the Supreme Court.
Except the Catholic Church, and 6 mostly conservative members of SCOTUS happen to be Catholic.
Also, much of the success of the movement to restrict abortion has been because it has been a cross-faith alliance - Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, Orthodox Jews, among others. The same winning formula won’t work for a general ban on contraception, because Catholics are the only member of that coalition who believe that artificial contraception is inherently sinful-the others view its moral acceptability as more situation-dependent.
When Clarence Thomas says "here's the slope I think we should slide down next", we're not in fallacy land anymore.
> these aren’t going away
Don't worry! They won't go away. It'll just be up to the state governments currently passing laws forcing women to carry rapists' babies to term to decide if you can have sex outside of marriage or not. States rights!
The trigger laws that just went into effect in several cases would appear to ban some contraception, like IUDs (or, rather, criminalize it when they work), since they result in termination of pregnancy as the laws define it. (Because they use fertilization, not implantation, as the definition of the start of pregnancy.)
Of course, there's a proof issue for any actual prosecution for homicide, but that's a practical barrier to enforcement that doesn't affect what the law prohibits.
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/sta...
I think it is unlikely that Griswold will ever be overturned – simply because it is unlikely any state will enact a total contraception ban. To overturn a precedent, it is not enough that a majority of Supreme Court justices think it was wrongly decided, you also need a case – which requires a state to enact and seek to actively enforce a law violating the precedent. But almost nobody wants such a law now. 1965 (when Griswold was handed down), 1873 (when the law it overturned was enacted) was a very different world – when most Christians still believed that contraception was a sin. Nowadays, the vast majority of non-Catholic Christians (Protestants, Orthodox, etc) accept contraception as moral at least in some cases. And while the Catholic Church teaches artificial contraception is inherently sinful, it displays no signs of any interest in having the government make that sin illegal (unlike the situation with abortion). You might find some crazy Catholic integralist advocating it, but the Bishops and the Vatican aren't going to.
The bans on (allegedly) abortifacient contraceptive methods could be challenged, but I expect SCOTUS will uphold them – and the majority will probably just uphold them as state regulation of abortion, not overturning Griswold itself. However, I think a lot of groups are going to refuse to support challenges, on the grounds that they don't want to give this SCOTUS an opportunity to overturn any more precedents they support, rather save it for the day (whenever it may come) when there is a SCOTUS majority more amenable to their views.
You don't need a new law that seeks to ban all birth control to challenge and lead to a repeal of Griswold. Maybe a former court would have tried to limit scope, but Dobbs vs Jackson wasn't about a total abortion ban, it was a ban at 15 weeks, and yet here we are.
Griswold isn't a political symbol to anywhere near the same extent. And even people who think contraception is a sin, don't get anywhere near as emotive about it as they do on the abortion issue.
Contraception can and does fail.
>"..as if women spontaneously get pregnant against their will and are forced to care for the baby"
I would refrain from judgement at late stages of pregnancy but early on it is not your business what they do. Mind your own business and do not stick nose where it does not belong.
Also if you are so pro life why not to go and right away imprison every official whose action (like sending people to war when not directly attacked) cause death.
Pro choice is doesn’t literally mean “pro choice in all situations”, it’s shorthand for “abortion is a an individual choice and should be protected as such”.
Likewise pro life doesn’t mean “save all lives in all situations at all costs”. It’s short hand for “abortion is murdering babies, that’s wrong and should be outlawed like any other murder”.
This is exact my point of view, not sure what your overall post suppose to mean.
It's not so simple, when it comes to contraception, because various forms are controversial as well (even IUDs) and can also possibly become illegal.
In a submission that was posted and flagged for unclear reasons, it refers to an article that discusses some of the complexities and gray areas involved, like abortion pills or women being accused of murder because they had a stillbirth under "suspicious circumstances" (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/07/04/we-are-not-goi...). It might be worth a read, to see how various women can be looking at this issue, from a practical standpoint.
> ...women who are raped should be able to get an abortion imo
That's another part of the problem, when extremism gets involved, it can dissolve the issue into a total ban.
> ...do you believe that a man who gets a woman pregnant should have to support the child?
That's a good point, as various "Men's rights" have arguably been buried in the U.S. In various countries, an abortion can only happen if the father agrees or can't be found. To include other countries, where if a woman has a child against the will of the father, they allow or are proposing to allow men to renounce or give up their paternity rights or parental responsibility. Which is also kind of like how women are allowed to abandon (safe surrender) or give up a child for adoption, even against the will of the father, in various states and countries.
I actually find abortion a much trickier subject because there's an eviction involved, and it becomes a trickier subject because some physical force is typically needed to remove the entity.
Anything else is absolute horror of biological control and loss of bodily autonomy, and should be rightfully ignored, and anyone that thinks differently needs to think about minding their own business and not making a difficult thing more difficult. Those that use the legal system to enforce their hatred of women? Get off the planet please.
Personally I see no moral difference between abandoning life before or after birth. Neither wrong, but abandoning before birth requires a forceful eviction.
>The only person it is tricky for is the mother, who is the only person in the universe whos opinion matters on abortion, and we must abide by the decisions of the individual.
I mean to frame it as only involved life as the mother I think is disingenuous. Perhaps the fetus is not viable but it has to be at least considered in this equation, even if only to decide offspring has no rights to compel their parent to keep them alive.
That is, if you play by the rules of finding nations and constitutions to be legitimate :)
Is there ever a time between conception and birth where you’d call it baby murder?
anything else is none of your business.
I'm a woman and extremely poor. I've been a member for nearly thirteen years.
It's possible but challenging to present a female point of view here. Reproductive issues and what I generally think of as human sexual morality are always hard to talk about anywhere.
I think for a lot of women, this is a very threatening turn of events. That's going to make it challenging to discuss it in the rational style required by HN guidelines even before accounting for the gender ratio here.
I'm quite fond of HN and have come to see a lot of the practices here as not male per se but as best practices for public discourse and I have come to believe that women tend to be raised to engage in a fashion more appropriate for private discourse.
So I think there's a somewhat steep learning curve involved for most women that gets conflated with sexism and complicates attempts by women to give voice to a female point of view here.
If you can express yourself in accordance with best practices for public discourse, you can be heard here. Trying to figure out how to do that while not spazzing about sexism ...well, it's challenging and I think most women lack sufficient reason to keep at it, so they tend not to.
Today a woman can be compelled to use an organ in her body to keep another person alive.
What’s to stop the court from ruling that if you have 2 kidneys you can be compelled to donate one to keep someone else alive?
What happens when a deadbeat dad is the only match for a child with organ failure? Why shouldn’t they be compelled to give up an organ to keep their offspring alive?
Libertarians should be in the streets protesting the loss of bodily autonomy. And all of us should be afraid.
The fetus is welcome to continue living. It simply can’t live in this particular womb.
If ‘pro-life’ people genuinely cared about the unborn (rather than controlling women) they would have invested in researching artificial wombs and pregnancy transfers. But they don’t.
Here's an analogy: if you're flying people somewhere in your helicopter, are you allowed to push them out, or are you required to "sacrifice" your own helicopter to keep them alive until you land safely?
> The fetus is welcome to continue living. It simply can’t live in this particular womb.
Your passengers are welcome to stay in the air. They simply can't in that particular helicopter.
> If ‘pro-life’ people genuinely cared about the unborn (rather than controlling women) they would have invested in researching artificial wombs and pregnancy transfers. But they don’t.
If people genuinely cared about helicopter passengers (rather than controlling pilots), they would have invested in jet packs and antigravity devices. But they don't.
I agree, but I also tend to think this battle was lost when the SCOTUS refused to reject the "individual mandate". When you've reduced the notion of individual agency to the level that the State can dictate what items you must purchase, this is an entirely logical consequence.
This is why I'm a Libertarian who largely opposes abortion on a purely personal level, but is 100% pro-choice on a political level. But at the same time, I can respect those who hold the other position based on the NAP. I'd just argue that with no objective way to resolve the dispute, it's best to not bring the State into it.
That's a separate question from whether that loss of bodily autonomy is justified.
> Women choose to have sex consensually, no?
Well, yes, sometimes. Maybe you could be more explicit about how you think that justifies the loss of bodily autonomy?
For example, maybe you have a principle like "If you played a necessary role in the creation of a person, then you can be compelled to use your body to support their life." Do you think fathers should be compelled to donate blood or organs to their offspring?
No more or less than eating certain foods or consuming certain beverages.
I'm still curious what principles you think justify the enforcement of the latter, and especially why they don't cover things like the OP's forced organ donation scenario.
Edit: Just to expand on the first point, I think there's some circular reasoning going on here.
If the claim is "people should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term," you can't support that with "because people should endure the consequences of their actions" if "consequences of their actions" means "being forced to carry a pregnancy to term."
Because then you're just saying "people should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term because people should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term."
Being forced by the State (ie at the point of a gun) to carry a pregnancy to term is not an inevitable "consequence". It's a choice.
Women have a long history of using abortifacients to terminate pregnancy, so there's nothing "natural" or inevitable about forced birth.
Induced abortion has, from documentary evidence, been a thing for at least ~3500 years, and even without induced abortion very many pregnancies historically ended in miscarriage (still the case) and/or maternal death (much less the case, now, but still a concern.)
We do have still work to do in making the end of the pregnancy the desired one (healthy baby), yes.
I think you mean something other than “inevitable” here, since “inevitable” means “cannot be avoided”, such that if A and B is the inevitable consequence, than B must happen with 100% certainty.
But childbirth isn't even approximately an inevitable consequence of pregnancy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion
In Roman times, Silphium was such a popular abortifacient that the plant was over-harvested to extinction.
Your argument is effectively that people should be able to reneg on the consequences of actions if those consequences are not desirable.
Well, yes.
Why did you say "other than rape (in which abortion should be allowed imo)"? Either you think the foetus has value and needs to be brought to term, or you don't. That makes it seem that you aren't deciding based on the value of the foetus or the importance of all life, but rather want to assert superiority and punish women for having sex. What difference does it make to the importance of the foetus if the pregnancy was rape or not? Why does that make more difference than whether the pregnancy is wanted or not?
You can eat meat from murdered animals every day, you can pierce or tattoo your body or kill brain cells with alcohol, you have the right to return a $5 plastic toy for a refund, but if your birth control fails you can't kill 10 cells. Has it any more soul or value at that stage than the hair or fingernails you cut off without a thought, or the dead skin you shed, or the spit you spit? Why does it have more value than the woman?
I think you've gone a little too broad with that principle. If I ask a taxi to take me somewhere, I can get out if I notice the driver is drunk. If I accidentally spill a glass of water, I can clean it up. And so on.
That's literally the entire basis of modern medical intervention, yes.
Is your opinion that anyone can reneg on known consequences of their actions?
Don’t misunderstand, women should have a choice in what their bodies are used for. My assertion is, other than rape, they already have it with respect to having a kid or not.
> sex leading to kids is hardly some unknown fact
Oh, I'd wish. There are people who still - in the 21st century - do not have like basic knowledge about sexual wellness and have very weird (and sometimes very dangerous) ideas about contraception, safety and risks of pregnancy. I mean, it's hard for any educated person to believe in this shit, but I've met or read some pretty insane opinions. Like people who genuinely believe really weird nonsense such as that virgins cannot get pregnant their first time. And they aren't malicious folks (well, maybe some are, of course) - just awfully misinformed.
Humanity is in a very weird place. On the one hand we've walked on the Moon and about to conquer nuclear fusion power, but on the other hand we've just climbed down from the trees and learned how to make a fire.
That's ridiculous. Many people engage in sex using contraceptives design to prevent pregnancy, but we all know that contraceptives aren't 100% reliable. So the possibility of any given sex act leading to kids is absolutely an "unknown".
And that's before getting into the point about how, in many places in the world, knowledge of (or access to) contraceptives is withheld from portions of the population to begin with. For that matter, there are some (mostly very young, I expect) who don't understand the whole "sex leads to kids" thing.
That's usually how medical treatment works, yes. We don't tell people who fall off a ladder, slice their finger chopping vegetables, or break a bone playing sports "You knew the risk, you're just gonna have to live with the consequences of your choices"
For example birth control pills are 99% effective. From the NHS:
> When taken correctly, the pill is over 99% effective at preventing pregnancy. This means that fewer than 1 in 100 who use the combined pill as contraception will get pregnant in 1 year.
So, if you're in a relationship for 5 years, that's 1 in 20. For my group of people I know, this matches up pretty well.
For example birth control pills are 99% effective. From the NHS:
> When taken correctly, the pill is over 99% effective at preventing pregnancy. This means that fewer than 1 in 100 who use the combined pill as contraception will get pregnant in 1 year.
So, if you're in a relationship for 5 years, that's 1 in 20. For my group of people I know, this matches up pretty well. I have one friend who has three children. They were all conceived while on birth control.
How about the realization that the law is an ass, and we need to stand up for human rights?
My thoughts on the prison system are not relevant to supporting that a women can do whatever she wants with her body.
And if you’re talking about bodily autonomy of course prison is relevant.
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/acres-sk...
Your position is horrendously misogynistic, and if you do not understand why, you should talk to some women. Probably don't lead with your sentence as you are likely to get hit in the face.
I feel sorry for the anti-abortion women. I would say they are trapped in a broken world, confused by weird cults (xianity is actually pro-abortion, and the xian bible includes recipes), manipulated by controlling people.
If you can come up with a way to loan someone an organ for 9 months and then get it back when you're done with it, then this argument would be coherent. As is, I'd re-evaluate it if you have any intention of persuading someone on the opposite side of this issue.
Banning abortion only makes access to safe abortions harder - if the right wing want to reduce abortions, making contraceptives freely available has been proven to dramatically reduce the abortion rate as evidenced in Colorado[1].
[1] - https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2019/06/05/aborti...
To anyone who is convinced abortion is baby murder, this is what you just said. This argument only ever makes sense if you treat the fetus like a non entity and believe the opposition to abortion is purely hatred of female autonomy. The vast majority of Americans in favor of some abortion restrictions (which 75% of Americans are) have that opinion not because of the above but because they believe that fetus becomes a person at some point between conception and birth.
I (and the vast majority of people) agree that contraception is important and should be widely available. You’re argument against abortion restrictions is completely incorrect though and that’s the point I made
It is also about time that we abolish all laws that makes distinctions based on gender and sex. That way there won't be any 2nd-class citizens encoded in law that is based on gender.
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Societal issues are apparently high up in what good hackers find interesting along with technical things.
I think if you take this to heart, you might interpret what they're saying as a defense of HN readers; that they are more inclined to talk about the technicalities of this decision rather than the effect it may have on women because that is something they can comment on.
Tact may also play a role in why people hesitate to make comments of empathy, especially since simply expressing your disdain for the decision isn't particularly substantive. I'm certain many of the people that are choosing to talk about other aspects of the decision are wholly empathetic to the people this affects.
The result: reading about how yet another person is so mad about the ruling and “so tired of this country” and what a blow this is for women’s rights has gotten repetitive and uninteresting. After a certain point, reading such comments over and over again is just giving in to outrage porn.
Most members of HN recognize this and prefer the intellectual stimulation that comes from discussing more nuanced technical details.
If you're serious, could you explain your claims?
Human males obviously can't get pregnant, only human females.
But after spending nine months in woman's body the child becomes the part of her life for twenty next years. Should it rather be "my life - my choice"?
[0] https://www.americanadoptions.com/pregnant/waiting_adoptive_...
There are lots of people raising children against their will with no mechanism to relieve them of that duty, even if they revoke consent to raise the child in any form.
I see this frequently repeated, but it's clearly sophistry, similar to the language trick in a comment below where "It's not a baby, it's a fetus" is used to subvert reality.
Women can very well govern their own bodies, but a 6 month old baby is definitely not "their own body" and one can very well understand why large portions of society would want to see it protected against abuse.
This isn't a gendered issue, it's a worldview one. There's a very small skew towards males preferring it be illegal, but it's not enough to write off all opposition as male:
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opini...
Women favor legality by +28 percentage points
Men favor legality by +17 percentage points
That's...not a particularly small gender skew.
63 percent of women say abortion should be legal in all/most cases.
58 percent of men say abortion should be legal in all/most cases.
That's an ~5 percentage point gender gap, not a 10 percentage point gap.
I was thinking of it this way: Hallucinaut assumed that armitron was male, because a female would never make that argument. However, 46% of people who believe that abortion should be illegal in almost all cases are female, which makes Hallucinaut's assumption very bad.
Your approach is valid in other contexts, but I don't think it's the most relevant to the question I was addressing.
A fetus in the first or second trimester isn't capable of life outside the mother's womb. A vanishingly small percentage of people are even considering late-term abortions, but that's what you seem to be fixated on in all these threads.
The vast majority of threads are either regarding the interpretation of legal frameworks and their implications, or asserting a-priori values on start of life and following the rational implications thereof.
No-where do I see any discussions, or even caring about, how this affects women directly: the ability to govern their own bodies, their reproductive (and civil) rights. Or just the fact that they are de-jure 2nd-class citizens.