I attended a rally and march on Roe v Wade last night, and it was alarming to hear just how many other issues rally leaders tossed into the ring, to a large cheering crowd. Some of these were things have a legitimate intersection with reproductive rights -- minority access to equal healthcare, or the various kinds of service ghettos that spring up minority neighborhoods, or other issues SCOTUS has indicated it wants to weigh in on -- but several had nothing to do with reproductive rights: ACAB, or reparations, for example.

And then, to make it even worse, they went on to tell the crowd that you HAVE to care about these issues if you care about Roe v Wade. And if you don't, then "get the hell out of our way". So either you agree 100% with the hivemind and their dated BLM script, or fuck you. To say nothing of the fact that the person shouting this stuff seemed to cherish just how many different labels she could attach to herself to appear more credible.

I consider myself a staunch independent and this was downright insulting. The operatives instigating all of this do not want people making rational points with their minds, they want a mental hegemony to act as a bedrock for their political war machine.

Given that and how political discussions seem to be playing out everywhere, I don't think anyone should be supporting these kinds of discussions at work. Should companies willingly allow space for crowdsourced political brainwashing?

In general, when somebody is advising you against discerning, untangling and questioning, chances are, you are being manipulated.

... ironically this sugar-free watered-down self-defeating super-dumb twitter-compatible version of solidarity (dare I say intersectionality) is also the result of a loss of nuance and untangling.

it's critical to stand with others, but it's dumb to hold back good things for a minority group all groups can get what they want, and ostracizing and exiling others because they don't care enough about all the other things some cabal of the organizers of some particular movement/protest is the exact opposite of accepting others. and yes, there are issues where the tolerance of intolerance can become a serious problem, but to find those it's surprisingly not enough to apply mob justice on the spot. aaaaand yes, there are those things where even that's okay (let's say someone starts to unfurl a nazi flag)

(and excuse me for my own rudimentary dumbing down.)

If only this message was spread more widely!

The irony is that if it wasn’t for intersectionality, there’s a good chance Democrats could have held their traditional ambivalent stance on immigration, and Trump wouldn’t have gotten elected and wouldn’t have gotten those Supreme Court picks. Now, pro choice Democrats are in the tough spot of being totally dependent on the most socially conservative part of their coalition (Hispanics in the southwest, Black people in the south) to win elections.

Half of Black people in Georgia oppose abortion, but 90% vote Democrat. I wonder what it’s going to do to Democratic turnout in Georgia if donors in New York and California make the 2022 and 2024 elections all about abortion.

>Now, pro choice Democrats are in the tough spot of being totally dependent on the most socially conservative part of their coalition (Hispanics in the southwest

This faction's support for Democrats is rapidly disintegrating, based on the massive shift to Trump seen in the Texas border counties in 2020. Like, 30 points' worth of movement.

Notably, whether Republican Myra Flores holds onto the 85% Hispanic House district she recently won in the special election, it’s notable that the Democrat she defeated was also pro life. Vicente Gonzales, who will run against her in November, is also pro life.

Isn’t her district being redrawn and possibly affecting demographics? I might have misheard.

Redistricting made her district more favorable to Democrats and Democrats are expected to take back the seat next year. But the Democratic candidate, Vicente Gonzales, is also pro life: https://sbaprolife.org/representative/vicente-gonzalez

Pro-choice Democrats have painted themselves into a tough spot. After moving left on race and immigration, they lost significant support in the Midwest and Rust Belt. They assumed that pickups among Hispanics in the southwest and south would offset those losses. But Hispanics are more conservative than whites on abortion. (Polling shows that about the same percentage of both, 40%, oppose abortion: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opini.... But abortion views are strongly correlated with age, and the median Hispanic is 14 years younger than the median white. Which means that at any given age range—such as the age ranges that tend to vote—Hispanics are more conservative. Moreover, because Democrats win only a minority of the white vote, they need to win 70%+ of the Hispanic vote.)

Democrats have reframed figures like David Portnoy and Joe Rogan—folks who appeal to white working class folks in the Midwest and Rust Belt—as “right wing” and “racist, sexist, and homophobic.” But note that both strongly sided with liberals on Roe being overturned: https://www.foxnews.com/media/barstools-dave-portnoy-rips-ro.... This group is less religious than the GOP as a whole, and has long been willing to at least go along with keeping Roe even if they were personally pro life.

Democrats traded a less religious, more individualistic part of their coalition, for a more religious, more family oriented one.

Yes, the days of Democrats taking for granted minority voters and lumping them as a simplistic population of left-minded voters may end soon. However, it might be too late; the Republicans may hold these new converts for a long time, especially given the younger demographic of hispanics. Many of us tend to follow the party that we start with as new voters in our early twenties.

It seems to be the Republicans game to lose, which they have proven to be far better at avoiding than the Democrats. Abortion though is one issue that Republicans have bet the ranch on in the past with disastrous results. It is a land mine for them if they go too far with it.

I guess you haven’t been to many rallies or protests. People always show up with unrelated issues, and there’s not much you can do about it as an organizer. I helped to organize a protest asking Trump to release his taxes, and people showed up with signs to abolish ICE (immigration enforcement). I went to a rally to get out the vote, and the local congresswoman was drowned out by a woman who wanted her son freed from prison. Politicians will push whatever they think is advantageous to themselves (though the better ones will stay on topic).

Free speech is a wonderful thing, but there can be too much of a good thing. Learning when to shut up can be valuable too, one doesn’t offend people like the parent post.

You are right in that I don't do rallies. But anger at the situation led me to join this one, where I was promptly reminded why I find political types so repulsive.

Yep, and then you do an anti-vaccine-mandate rally in Canada, one idiot with a swastika shows up, and then media goes on for weeks how everyone opposing vaccine mandates is a Nazi.

I do feel for you, even being on the opposite side of the issue. The press is too driven to present outrage, so you lose the message 99% of the people were there to deliver.

It’s fascinating to me how being against a particular behavior being mandated is now considered being against the behavior.

Like this?

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/organizer-behind-anti-...

Or that might be a situation of no one wanting to enact vigilante justice against someone who's not actively doing anything violent? This isn't hard to imagine. In my experience, anti-social behavior on public transit is regularly met with apathy from all the other passengers, yet I doubt you'd lump all the passengers as being anti-social and/or condoning anti-social behavior themselves.

> You're blatantly ignoring the white supremacist views and actions of literal neonazis

>Sorry, but I don't care if they're being actively violent at that moment in time because their views are centered around oppressing others and committing violence against minorities and other "nonwhites"

Okay, let's compare apples to apples then. If there was a "literal neonazi" on a subway car and he was unmolested by fellow passengers, would you conclude that public transit users are nazis? This more or less follows the thought process of the parent comment, ie. "you do an anti-vaccine-mandate rally in Canada, one idiot with a swastika shows up, and then media goes on for weeks how everyone opposing vaccine mandates is a Nazi".

>So again, sorry if I don't have any sympathy for literal Nazis

You totally missed the point of my comment. I'm not defending "literal Nazis", I'm pointing out the fact that not enacting vigilante justice on "literal Nazis" is pretty common, so the fact that a "literal Nazi" was roaming around the protest unmolested isn't really indicative of anything. Outside of far-left groups, I suspect the amount of "punch a nazi" type of people is minuscule.

>If they were parading around swastikas yea, I'd expect at least a few people to stand up and say something

"say something" and then what? Convince them that being a nazi is bad so they leave? Let's be real here, the only realistic way of dealing with a nazi at a protest is through physical force.

>I also didn't call the anti vax protestors Nazis. I said they were okay with Nazism, while similar it is different

1. the wording is from the parent post, not you

2. Does this change much? Would you call that bus/subway full of people as being "okay with Nazism"?

>I definitely would not want to be associated with Nazis but maybe that's just me

Clearly the organizers doesn't want to be associated with nazis either, but as mentioned above, my suspicion is that unless you're with a group of left wing activists, the chance that there's someone willing to use violence to stop the nazi is fairly low.

Left wing group organizers just call the police when literal nazis show up, and offer to help control the crowd on their side. Unless you have a situation where relations with the police are seriously degraded, they generally want to prevent that conflict, just by being present. The goal is to never lose control of the narrative, and violence always does that.

Incidentally most leftist groups try to keep good relations with the police, even when doing civil disobedience. I’ve seen a large group block traffic, and only those union members who planned to get arrested did so, slowly and quietly.

This is how it played out in Austin, which may or may not be the protest you’re referring to.

IMO, the biggest issue here is that no one has any patience for anything anymore (outside of what they’re getting paid to be thoughtful about), so nuance has gone out the window.

Such rallies are a lot closer to gypsy dancing where a bunch of drugged participants create a whirlpool of emotions, turn off their minds and unleash their animal side. Speeches there serve as mantras of some sort: they must sound a certain rhythmic way, but their meaning is irrelevant.

“The issues” themselves aren’t even fully agreed upon, especially if they’re not believed to be core by everyone.

Everyone believes that the start of human life is a core issue. It’s the basis for the pro-life movement. It’s also a core component of the pro-choice movement (that it doesn’t start that early, thus not killing babies, etc).

There are other things some people believe are core which others don’t believe even exist:

* many people are happy with this ruling because they want to bring mens’ right to “paper abortion” to the front. The argument is if she can do whatever with her body and not be subject to something undesirable for nine months, than he should have the same right since his hardship can last 18 years. The supporting arguments include absolute control means absolute responsibility (if pregnancy was accidental and she decides to keep it, responsibility is hers) and others, along with the greater discussion of perceived bias in family court. Opposing arguments mostly center around the welfare of the child. * some people are of the opinion that “if you’re not a woman, shut up”. Others are using that phrase to support their opinion on trans recognition. Still others are using that phrase to highlight situations where women have gained influence in what many men might call “mens spaces”

The reality is pregnancy is a two-party result and so it’s impossible to expect one party to quietly step aside, more so when there is skin in the game. This involvement in fact helped win R v W in the first place!

I actually don’t believe the “start of life” is decisive or especially relevant. First and foremost I think the constitution and bill of rights give you a right to security of your person which extends to terminating an unwanted pregnancy. The state forcing you to carry to term is a violation of that right. I believe the right of the mother supersedes other rights here because there is only one way to exercise that right, and because self ownership is so core to our constitutional rights.

If you favor originalism, the the 9th amendment guarantees unenumerated rights which were deep rooted at the founding. Abortion before “quickening” was legal in all 13 states at the signing and had been part of common law for hundreds of years, so the 9th applies. The 14th amendment should apply that to the states, and the argument some originalists make about resetting the clock seems dumb to me.

So here are two very reasonable paths to the right that don’t involve the question about when laws start or some vague notion to the right to privacy. I think you need to have both an activist reading of constitutional law and a disregard for security of ones person to sidestep both arguments.

> It’s also a core component of the pro-choice movement (that it doesn’t start that early, thus not killing babies, etc).

That banning abortion leads to the deaths of thousands of young women.

Pretty sure we all agree that a girl's life starts before she can get pregnant.

Having been raised in the pro-life (anti choice) camp this kind of practical impact needs to be discussed, yet will fall on mostly deaf ears.

Many will consider a girl chosing a dangerous, illegal procedure as a criminal and therefore less worthy of consideration. More so than an innocent child who had no choice in its conception. My guess is they won't seriously consider the argument until they themselves, or their adult daughters, are literally in the situation of needing an illegal abortion themselves. (And possibly only in an extreme circumstance like molestation or rape, as some are taught self shame and hatred every week at church.)

1. where are you getting "deaths of thousands of young women" from? According to the CDC the mortality rate associated with live births is 23.8 per 100,000. In the US there are only 629,898 abortions per year. Multiply those numbers out, and you only get 150 deaths.

2. even if you accept that there would be "deaths of thousands of young women", I doubt those deaths would sway the opinion of someone who thinks each abortion is murder (ie. 629,898 "deaths" from abortion vs "thousands" of "deaths")

> 1. where are you getting "deaths of thousands of young women" from? According to the CDC the mortality rate associated with live births is 23.8 per 100,000. In the US there are only 629,898 abortions per year. Multiply those numbers out, and you only get 150 deaths.

backalley abortions.

i'm 100% anti-clotheshanger.

it is interesting that a lot of people on this site need to be intellectually spoonfed into understanding that this is the major issue that most pro-choice people focus on.

you can't magically turn all those abortions into unproblematic births without seeing deaths due to backalley abortions. it is like arguing that by banning drugs you can make drug use go away. you just discount the desperation those women are under and consider them criminals and are okay with the stochastic death penalty.

>backalley abortions.

thanks for clarifying, but I still need a source for the "deaths of thousands of young women" claim. The best I could find with a cursory search is:

"In Brazil, where abortion is also illegal, it’s estimated that 250,000 women are hospitalized from complications from abortions, and about 200 women a year die from the complications"

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/10/how-many-...

>it is interesting that a lot of people on this site need to be intellectually spoonfed into understanding that this is the major issue that most pro-choice people focus on.

Or maybe you should clearly state what the basis of your numbers are the first time around, rather than asserting a number and letting your reader figure out what the basis is?

You're sea-lioning, or what the guidelines call cross-examining. No set time period was specified. Even the per-annum numbers already cited add up to thousands over a decade or two. Also, you seem to be demanding precision when you haven't even specified a threshold you would find acceptable. Is it OK for you that "merely" hundreds of women die needlessly? Instead of trying to make others chase your ever-receding goalposts, perhaps you should try making your own persuasive argument.

>You're sea-lioning, or what the guidelines call cross-examining. No set time period was specified. Even the per-annum numbers already cited add up to thousands over a decade or two.

Claiming that no time period was specified makes the statement true, but also makes the statement so weak that it doesn't really mean anything.

>Also, you seem to be demanding precision when you haven't even specified a threshold you would find acceptable. Is it OK for you that "merely" hundreds of women die needlessly? Instead of trying to make others chase your ever-receding goalposts, perhaps you should try making your own persuasive argument.

I already have, in my previous comment.

>2. even if you accept that there would be "deaths of thousands of young women", I doubt those deaths would sway the opinion of someone who thinks each abortion is murder (ie. 629,898 "deaths" from abortion vs "thousands" of "deaths")

> also makes the statement so weak that it doesn't really mean anything.

That might be a good-faith argument if we were allowing eons, but we're actually talking about years to (at most) decades.

> I already have, in my previous comment.

No, not really. You've regurgitated a number, but only as an appeal to emotion. You haven't connected it to the subject of this thread, which is the idea that even a fully formed human has no right to require physical sacrifice of another. Persuasion means connecting things in a way that might sway an interlocutor, not merely bashing them over the head with claims that you find compelling.

>No, not really. You've regurgitated a number, but only as an appeal to emotion.

uhh what? I'm not advocating for one side or another. I'm only pointing out that if you think that aborted fetuses are "deaths", then a few extra thousand deaths pales in comparison to the number of "deaths" from abortions.

>You haven't connected it to the subject of this thread, which is the idea that even a fully formed human has no right to require physical sacrifice of another.

1. That's an nice argument and all, but it certainly wasn't in "the subject of this thread". I traversed through all the parent comments and couldn't find any comment that made an argument to that effect.

2. since we're already bringing this topic up, the obvious response I can think of would be: really? no "physical sacrifice" whatsoever? What about mask/vaccine mandates, which require some token/small amount of sacrifice? Obviously wearing something over your face/getting jabbed isn't equivalent to carrying a baby to term, but the argument (at least as you presented it) seems to take an absolutist position rather than some sort of cost-benefit analysis one.

>Persuasion means connecting things in a way that might sway an interlocutor, not merely bashing them over the head with claims that you find compelling.

Again, you seem to think I'm trying to convince people that abortions are bad. However, if you read my original comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31883521) more carefully, see that I'm only trying to point out that the "deaths of thousands of young women" argument isn't persuasive.

> the mortality rate associated with live births is 23.8 per 100,000

You can't just take the number for live births and apply it to abortions. The actual number from people who making direct observations instead of committing statistical malpractice seem to be around 0.7 deaths per 100K abortions. The authors say it might be even lower; there's certainly no rational reason to believe it has gotten worse since the last numbers were made available. (BTW I do wonder why they're no longer available, and suspect political pressure was involved much as with tracking gun deaths.)

https://scdhec.gov/risks-abortion

Besides considering the difference between safe vs. unsafe abortions, a real comparison of abortion vs. live-birth death rates would also have to consider pregnancies that end in miscarriage, and the fact that the availability of safe abortion in high-risk cases improves prognoses for live birth. A particularly instructive example is Romania, which saw abortion death rate go from 20/100K to 148/100K when abortion was restricted in 1966, and then back down to 9/100K after the restrictions were removed in 1989.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2709326/

BTW note that the abortion death rate in 1965 Romania was lower than the live-birth death rate in modern US. It's currently a safer option for the mother in a great many cases, but would become much worse if it had to go underground, and some of us think that matters.

If abortions are illegal it may lead to reckless attempts more dangerous than giving birth. The exact rate may be difficult to quantify as reporting may be unreliable.

I agree it'll be nearly impossible to convince people who already see abortion as murder.

The first is a result of sample and survivor bias, given that pregnancies with complications were aborted. Also, 1 in 50 pregnancies are ectopic.

> Everyone believes that the start of human life is a core issue.

"Core" does not have a clear meaning here, so let's be more precise: everyone agrees it's an important issue, but not everyone agrees it's a decisive issue. Many pro-choice people believe that no person has a right to demand part of someone else's body for themselves, so even if a fetus is a person the mother still has the right to remove it. Comparisons to the illegality of forced organ donation are often made here.

Note that I'm not taking a position here. I'm just explaining a position many hold. To the extent that you ascribe a different reasoning/motivation to pro-choice folks, I think your "everyone believes" is not a valid axiom. Whether intentionally or not, it comes across more as an appeal to (questionable) popularity, and pretty much make Mezzie's point about how impossible it is to talk about this.

> Everyone believes that the start of human life is a core issue.

Yes, the core issue is here. Though no-one seriously argues that a foetus is not human, nor alive: the issue is "is it a person (yet)?". Is it something, or someone? Answering that question - not an easy one - makes one swing one way or another of the issue.

The core issue is 'Is a human obligated to use their body to keep another human alive'

A thought experiment.

You get too drunk and pass out in a bar.

I take you home a f hook you up to a person with failing kidneys so that you filter their blood.

If you unhook yourself they will die.

Should you go to prison for unhooking yourself?

That really doesn't seem like the core issue to me. Once child is born parents have tons of obligations towards them, and severe neglect can cause a prison sentence.

I'm not American, so forgive me for barging in, but it seems to me you have two core issues:

First there is the debate over when a Fetus should be considered a person and receive the rights that come with it.

Secondly there is a debate over states rights and what topics the federal government should get a say in.

I don't believe it matters if the fetus is a person or not.

Should any random person A be forced to lose their bodily autonomy to keep random person B alive?

I think no. I shouldn't have to give you my kidney. Even if I can have it back in 9 months.

I understand your point and it's a valid one, but you're not actually engaging with (part of) parent's argument.

If I'm a parent of a small child, and I decide to completely stop feeding it, and they die, did I do something morally and/or legally wrong? I think most would answer yes on both fronts. So the question is, is there an inherent difference between these two situation?

How does a 39 week old fetus differ from a newborn? I think the point of contention for most people is on why a mother should be able to end the life of one and not the other.

The majority of Americans do not support elective abortion at 39 weeks, so that means by definition they support some regulations. In other words, there has to be a line drawn somewhere. The question is, where?

In the US humans have rights on a sliding scale, a child does not have the same rights as an 18 year old

I don't think its unreasonable that a fetus, being a clump of cells that cannot survive and is not independently living, has less rights to life than a minor child

The mother is the fully independently living human in this case with full rights, those should not be overridden by a clump of cells with potential

If we judge everything by it's "potential" then we need to start charging men for masturbating and not saving their ejaculate and charging women for having menstrual cycles

Is a 39 week old fetus a "clump of cells that cannot survive" (any different than a newborn)? I think the real issue is that abortion support isn't as binary as some people make it out to be. I've met very few pro-choice people who support elective abortions at 39 weeks, which means even the pro-choice crowd thinks there needs to be regulations.

At 39 weeks the woman has known she has been pregnant for some time and intends to keep the baby. If an abortion happens at this point, it's an incredibly traumatic experience because something with the pregnancy has gone extremely wrong. You present a useless hypothetical that does nothing to advance the conversation. You're repeating a useless point that does nothing besides distract from the issues of the bodily autonomy of women, its disingenuous

Well, where would you draw the line? You can't just pretend it never happens since we know it does. And even if you want to pretend it would never happen, then there is no reason not to draw the line.

So at what point should abortions be regulated? 39 weeks? 24 weeks? 16 weeks? Something else?

> Well, where would you draw the line?

See this is the trick, the sleight-of hand - is draws you into accepting a simplistic falsehood: that a specific line has to be, should be or can be drawn.

Medicine is not law, and law is not code. Or at least, when done well they behave differently.

there is no sense in a code `if (fetus_weeks <= 16) return true else return false;` being law and then being medicine. That's 2 category errors right there.

A decision between doctor and patient based on specific circumstances is what's called for.

Pete Buttigieg said it quite well in this case:

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/pete-buttigieg-shut-down-t...

Draw the line at 41 weeks. I don't care about your nonsense hypothetical. Bring me a real scenario. One singular example of an abortion at 39 weeks where the mother didn't want the baby. I guarantee you can't actually find one even though you claim it exists

Hypotheticals are a waste of time, bring an actual example or stop wasting my time

The mother takes priority up until that baby is breathing on its own. Always

>Draw the line at 41 weeks.

And then we wonder why the pro-life crowd insists the pro-choice crowd are baby killers.

And we wonder why the anti choice crowd is seen as mother killers

I don't care about hypotheticals that have no basis in reality just like I don't give a shit about what the founding fathers thought, who were rapist-racist-sexist-slave owners who didn't want blacks, women, or poor people to have any say. Yea the document written by them is flawless lol sure. The constitution is out dated but the clowns in government make too much money off it and keep us peasants fighting about pointless shit like abortion while they loot the country

I love how you just ignored the rest of my statement and can't bring up that example that you just know exists. Get off that clown shit and show me a real example

So where is it? These examples of abortions where the mother didn't want it at 39 weeks

Quit lying

>I love how you just ignored the rest of my statement

You're making an argument for infanticide (abortions at 41 weeks <---your words) and wondering why I didn't follow the rest of your arguments?

Very convenient for you! Just ignore things when you see what you don't like!

Still waiting for that one singular example. Where are your citations for your evidence?

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/pete-buttigieg-shut-down-t...

Dr Kermit Gosnell performed a number of elective abortions that late in term, and we only know about those because he was dumb enough to get caught killing a few after delivery.

Your example is a literal serial killer? Oh come on. He was inducing birth in order to kill babies outside of the uterus

>owned and operated the Women's Medical Society Clinic, a non-compliant abortion clinic

>Gosnell was convicted of the murders of three infants who were born alive after using drugs to induce birth, was convicted of manslaughter in connection with the death of one woman during an abortion procedure, and was convicted of several other medically related crimes.[3][4][5][6][7]

This dude should never have been a doctor in the first place and this is your shining example? Brilliant

>2011, Gosnell, his wife Pearl, and eight employees were charged with a total of 32 felonies and 227 misdemeanors in connection with deaths, illegal medical services, and regulatory violations.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Gosnell

I can't tell if you're a bad faith actor yourself or you just believe the nonsense put forth by the nationalist extremist party

He didn't go to prison for the 39 week abortions, he went to prison for the 41 week abortions, you know - the ones you were in favor of.

You said it never happens, but it does. Most doctors that offer the late term abortions don't get in trouble because they're not as sloppy as him.

So the question remains, the one you refuse to answer - why would we not restrict ELECTIVE abortions after a certain point in a pregnancy? What is the argument against that? Nobody is arguing against it if they're medically necessary, I'm asking specifically about elective abortions beyond the point of viability. That's it. That's where the breakdown occurs for most people.

>211 counts of violating Pennsylvania's 24-hour informed consent law

Sounds to me like he patients were not aware of what he was doing

And he was doing a hell of a lot more than just abortions

>The DEA, The FBI, and the Office of the Inspector General also sought a 23-count indictment charging Gosnell and seven members of his former staff with drug conspiracy relating to the practice's illegally prescribing highly-addictive painkillers and sedatives outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose.

So again, you pick out one guy who should not have been a physician who did not inform his patient of what he was doing

And this detail is pretty important, these were not abortions but murders after birth

>They arise because of the "born alive rule", a principle of common law which stipulates that by default, for legal purposes, personhood arises – and therefore unlawful killing constituting murder becomes possible – immediately upon the victim's being born alive

Pointing this guy out is like pointing out that old veteran who's like 110 years old and smokes and drinks every day and claiming nobody gets cancer from smoking and drinking

You are aware that murder, killing people who are already born, is already illegal? These examples were not abortions, plain and simple

>You are aware that murder, killing people who are already born, is already illegal? These examples were not abortions, plain and simple

Only the "41 week old abortions" were treated as murder, the 39 week old ones weren't. My question is - what's the difference? In your mind, how do you justify a 39 week old elective abortion?

He induced birth then killed the baby

That's not an abortion

And now you're playing the fools game by engaging with the Gosnell nonsense, giving angry debate about "shocking" things that they have changed the topic too.

Not only is it derailing of a serious issue, it is deliberately visceral, disturbing, which makes it harder to debate logically about. Standard tactic: wind them up so they don't notice the inconsistencies.

Thank you for being a voice of reason. You're right, I shouldn't engage that nonsense but I got sucked in. I don't know what we can do about people spreading such FUD

Sadly that account has a track record of repeating their inflammatory talking points. Even after they are debunked, they just move an and try it on someone else again.

It's called Intact Dilation & Extraction, and is absolutely a type of abortion.

And you still haven't answered - what is your logic for not having a problem with a 36, 37, 38 week etc elective abortion? What is the argument for allowing them?

> You're making an argument for infanticide

You're asking trick questions. Proof above; "aha! that's infanticide!!" So clever.

Which is exactly why I responded the way that I did. Dude is spouting nonsense saying examples exist. They are making claims and when I ask for citations they shout about infanticide. It's disingenuous bullshit designed to distract

That's also why the poster didn't respond to the person who commented about Beto. They have no real response, position, or evidence. Their only position is fake outrage at something that doesn't exist in reality

So this opinion is not based on science then.

I agree with you? What's your point?

I'm contrasting between your example, which uses a fully grown human, against pregnancy which is significantly different. The law already views minors and 18+ as distinctly different due to developed cognitive abilities so I'm making a similar point here for those reading the comment thread.

Totally agree! I feel helpless and afraid of the Supreme court ruling. At the same time, I have seen firsthand how ridiculous such internal discussions have become at Twitter, and they silently take away so much of my work time and put me on the path of depression!

> At the same time, I have seen firsthand how ridiculous such internal discussions have become at Twitter, and they silently take away so much of my work time and put me on the path of depression

To be frank, this is Twitter in a nutshell to an outsider like me: a major personal time-waster that typically ends in anger and depression.

I guess it's not surprising that internal conversations for the platform that owns a significant share of the public discourse can't figure out how to discuss topics like this, but that sure makes me sad. Is it even possible to have effective conversations about these topics online at all? If Twitter can't figure out how to do it, then who can?

> Is it even possible to have effective conversations about these topics online at all?

Yes. Just not at scale, and not in a way that prioritizes ad revenue via "engagement" at all cost.

Prioritizing longer form, in depth content, and discouraging "rapid reaction hot takes" helps a lot. The social media companies could optimize for this, and you see it on HN with the "Sorry, this particular thread is getting short, snippy, and too rapid, you can't reply to it for a while" mechanism.

But short, snippy, and angry is good for engagement. So it remains.

This makes sense. Unfortunately, the cynic in me thinks that even if this is technically feasible (i.e. the software could be designed to facilitate healthier discourse), the reality is that the money would never allow it to happen as you rightly point out. So given that, is it actually possible? I don't think so.

I have a ton of blogs in my rss feeds. Occasionally one will have a response to something a different one published a couple days or weeks previously, and sometimes they'll even go back and forth a few times.

Sometimes some of the ones with guest writers will host a similar kind of exchange all in one place.

> Yes. Just not at scale, and not in a way that prioritizes ad revenue via "engagement" at all cost.

Only if there is some prior trust, if only by virtue of getting along for some time.

If you generally like the other person, and they come up with some incredibly stupid take you're more inclined to listen and ask for clarification than if the other person is unknown to you and says something that seems mildly wrong.

Political discussion is possible if there is a pre-existing and lasting relationship.

> Whichever view you support, move to a State where you will be comfortable.

This really doesn't scale. Firstly, you can't be upping sticks and moving every time a law you don't like is created (or a law you like is repealed). And secondly, you don't need to care about a lot of issues before you find that nowhere on Earth is satisfactory. Then what?

The problem with one king ruling all the lands is what you wrote - if you don't like it, too bad. I would like to learn your thoughts on what is better than the messy system of local control.

I don't have a suggestion, but it seems to me that "just move if you don't like it" is not obviously a better option than "just try to get it changed if you don't like it".

It's worth pointing out that states like Texas passed a law that allows Texas residents to sue anyone that aids a Texas resident with receiving an abortion.[0]

So if I live in California and my friend from Texas comes out to stay with me while they undergo the procedure, I could be sued under Texas law even though I'm not a Texas resident. It's not as simple as just picking which state you want to live in. Also, picking a new state to live in isn't an option for millions of people.

0: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/09/us/abortion-law-regulatio...

Read the article, they're very explicit about this. Lawsuits are a civil matter, not criminal. Texas is just giving their residents permission to sue anyone that helps a Texas resident get an abortion.

If you can't understand the basic concept that you can be sued in another state, there's nothing I can do to help you.

Except there are already some House Republicans publicly discussing a nationwide ban on abortion - guaranteed it's going to be on the agenda if Republicans take back Congress (which is highly likely). Also, it's not exactly easy to move to another state.

Rs such as Mitt Romney are reliable friends of Democrat issues.

Social conservatives spent virtually all of their political capital on Roe and it still took them 50 years to get rid of a precedent that was not only completely lacking in foundation, but forced Georgia to allow elective abortions two months further into a pregnancy than France. And you think that banning abortion nationwide is “guaranteed” to “be on the agenda” the next go around?

Conservatives didn't spend anything close to all of their political capital, rather they have more now than they ever had, and getting rid of Roe has always been a pretext to banning abortions entirely. This isn't merely a political issue for them, it's religious and existential. Conservatives aren't just going to stop at Roe on principle, even though they have a lock on the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas suggested they consider rolling back contraceptive rights and gay marriage as well. Of course he conveniently forgot about Loving v. Virginia but realistically that's on the table now too, because he seems to have forgotten the true nature of American politics and the ideology now in control of the Court. This isn't over by a long shot.

> Clarence Thomas suggested they consider rolling back contraceptive rights and gay marriage as well.

No, he flat out stated that all substantive due process precedent, including but not limited to the cases establishing the right to same sex marriage, marital contraception, and freedom against sodomy laws, are “demonstrably erroneous” and that it is obligatory for the Court to “correct the error” that they represent.

Substantive due process, though, effects far more than the examples he pointed to, and he is very clear that he means the entire body needs to be reversed, not just those examples.

You’re leaving out that Thomas also said that some of those and other implied rights might be found in the privileges and immunities clause. Thomas doesn’t deny that there are unenumerated rights that were recognized at the time of the founding.

Also, I’d be curious to know if any other advanced democracy has a doctrine similar to Griswold. It’s Constitutionally infirm, and if they don’t need it, why do we?

> You’re leaving out that Thomas also said that some of those and other implied rights might be found in the privileges and immunities clause.

Yes, and I also leave out (as, hiwever, does Thomas as well) that many of the substantive due process cases, including the line of marriage cases including Loving and Obergefell, were, in their own decisions, were found to be mandated independently by each due process and equal protection clauses, such that the Privileges and Immunities clause analysis Thomas suggests would be entirely superfluous unless the Court not only through our the substantive due process theory but also just read the Equal Protection Clause into a nullity.

Thomas also leaves out that the Court has (long before coming up with the Substantive Due Process theory he calls on it to reject), actually already done the P&I analysis he calls for and rejected the idea that that clause covers anything other than explicitly enumerated rights, and only (as it expressly states, so it would take a rather tendentious reading to remove this limitation) those of citizens (note that this problem would not exist with the Ninth Amendment which is fairly explicitly about unenumerated rights and, along with the EPC, is a more commonly cited alternative basis for the same rights that have been found on substantive due process grounds raises in legal scholarship, concurrences, and even, IIRC, expressly in some substantive due process decisions as an express concurrent ground for the decision the way the EPC is in the marriage cases and some others.

> Also, I’d be curious to know if any other advanced democracy has a doctrine similar to Griswold

The US doesn't even have a doctrine similar to Griswold; the right in Griswold was upheld by later cases on a substantive due process basis (closer to Byron and Harlan’s concurrence), but Griswold itself wasn't actually a substantive due process case.

> Privileges and Immunities clause analysis Thomas suggests would be entirely superfluous unless the Court not only through our the substantive due process theory but also just read the Equal Protection Clause into a nullity.

Have you read Thomas’s thoughts on these issues? He’s not hiding the ball here, he’s been addressing them for years. He does not think the Equal Protection Clause is a “nullity” lol.

> Thomas also leaves out that the Court has (long before coming up with the Substantive Due Process theory he calls on it to reject), actually already done the P&I analysis he calls for and rejected the idea that that clause covers anything other than explicitly enumerated rights,

Which Thomas thinks is incorrect and he’s got a good argument for why. Again, Thomas acknowledges there are unenumerated rights. He disagrees with liberals about the source of those rights and their scope, but he doesn’t deny they exist.

> (note that this problem would not exist with the Ninth Amendment which is fairly explicitly about unenumerated rights

The Ninth Amendment is a savings clause. It isn’t a source of rights. It’s not a vehicle for 20th century judges to create new rights.

> The US doesn't even have a doctrine similar to Griswold; the right in Griswold was upheld by later cases on a substantive due process basis (closer to Byron and Harlan’s concurrence), but Griswold itself wasn't actually a substantive due process case.

I’m asking whether it matters that there is a Constitutional protection for contraception or not. To my knowledge, other developed countries get along fine without one.

It’s P or I, but you both knew that

I’m curious: have you informed yourself about the actual legal doctrine Thomas is talking about, or is it just about the social policy to you?

I find it plausible that getting people who vote for the wrong team to move to different states is one of the primary goals of this.

And what about the people that can’t afford to or can’t move due to family obligations?

That’s what really annoys me about this — as a reasonably well off tech guy none of this affects me as I have access to ways around them (travel out of state for example). But that’s not true for a vast majority of people that are now living under the tyranny of a minority of zealots.

Yeah, don't like Jim Crow? Just move to a State where you'll be comfortable forehead. Maybe you are already there!

The biggest mistake Lincoln made was leaving the Supreme Court intact after Dred Scott. Should have razed that shit to the ground when he had the chance.

Yeah, just abandon all your friends and family (and don't worry about them, they're on their own), whatever life you've got set up and just move! it's easy!

When the issue is controlled at the federal level, those disagreeing would need to move to a different country. Moving to a different State is easier.

A person who "disagrees" with a federally protected right can simply not exercise that right (don't get an abortion.)

I do not think that each get is ignoring the important parts of the other. I think they think that these important things are simply wrong.

A foetus is "alive" since the conception. "Wrong" says the other side, it is alive when (something).

Contraception and sex ed are key. "Wrong" says the other side, you can just be abstinent and learn as you go because this is natural.

Ignoring would be simpler, because you could realize that what you are ignoring actually makes sense. We are in a case where each side has well defined views on the important things of the adversary.

I was mostly referring to conversation within a certain camp, not between the two sides.

For example, I'm pro-choice and my own side would be ready to flay me alive for agreeing with the legal theory behind the overturning + thinking the economy is likely to be more important politically than abortion. I'm on their side; my opinions matter because they determine which strategies I think would be best to pursue. (In this case, that we need to legislate what we want + that people can't organize to do so unless they have stable housing/food/basic needs so we'll have to help people with that if we want their time and brainpower for social change.)

On the pro-life side, there's a lot of bickering about whether or not the women should be punished (versus the abortion providers) and there is a decent contingent that actually wants their fellows to put their money where their mouths are and financially support pregnant women and their kids.

Talking with enemies is always fraught. This is a dumpster fire because we can't talk to our ALLIES except in thought-terminating cliches.

Why should people be forced into abstinence? Why are republicans trying to make contraceptives illegal?

I have no idea (I am French and we thankfully do not have this problem).

My point is that the adversaries do not ignore the important points of the other side. These are usually the important point for them as well, they are just exactly at the other side of the spectrum.

This is why there is no way for them to come to consensus as the differences of opinion are about these points.

It is not like someone, when hearing the arguments of the other side, would say "oh, I did not think about this because i thought it was important"

I do not know to which point you have separation of church and state, taken that the oath is done on the Bible (at least traditionally), with a formal "So help me God" at the end (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_office_of_the_presiden...). It sure can be omitted and you could swear on something else than the Bible but this sends a message.

We French do not have a clear cut separation of the two either, but this is more a cultural thing because a minimal percentage of the population is religious, at least with the religion our culture was raised with (Christianity, roughly speaking).

Also, when we passed in 1975 the abortion law (Loi Veil), the opposition was not for religious reasons but, sadly, a pure masculine view on the role of the woman and her rights.

Oaths taken on the bible are done by choice. Someone being sworn in can choose any book they want.

The god stuff was added during the cold war due to the red scare and its definitely unconstitutional to force people to recite those words.

Murder is okay as long as my religion says it is.

It's honestly bizarre that the same people in the US who were screaming about Sharia law are now pulling this dumb crap

It's not politics, it's religion trying to force their own beliefs onto an entire country.

Except that's not the kind of country USA is supposed to be like some middle-eastern countries for example.

In the USA you are allowed to believe/practice whatever crazy religion you want.

But your rights stop at another person's autonomy.

But also unjustly in the USA the corporation has way more rights than the individual, every time and that's perpetuated by every "side" of political power.

There is no need to understand anything past the law for why Roe vs Wade was a terrible decision when it was made. The legal theory it was based on has only gotten shakier since then.

Here's Ginsberg explaining why it was on life support 10 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pVnvBCzTyI

In short: we do not have a right to privacy any more. That a majority of rights we took for granted rested on that implied right will come as a shock to a large number of people who supported vaccine passports and mandates and vice versa. You will be forced to show proof of covid vaccination at the court house while having your interracial marriage dissolved.

Welcome to America.

The “majority of implied rights” do not rest on the right to privacy. For example, interracial marriage (*Loving v. Virginia) was decided on Equal Protection grounds, although privacy was a secondary basis.

Even Thomas doesn’t disagree that there are implied rights. His view is that they originate from the “privileges and immunities” clause, not the “due process clause.” But nobody disagrees, for example, that marriage is a right protected by the Constitution (although they disagree on what counts as marriage).

>The “majority of implied rights” do not rest on the right to privacy. For example, interracial marriage (*Loving v. Virginia) was decided on Equal Protection grounds, although privacy was a secondary basis.

That's enough for the court to hear a case on it again. Along with cases on gay marriage, anal sex and contraceptives.

A year ago I made the case that if we can force people to divulge their vaccination status then we can force people to divulge their sexual history. If a new disease showed up we could well ask if they had anal sex and lock them up in quarantine if they had.

With the current outbreak of monkeypox and the current court that isn't a thought experiment any more.

Liberals have spent the last decade hacking away at the right to privacy as hard as they could, the vaccine mandates being only the latest and greatest attack on personal freedoms from the party which supposedly stood for individual rights. This is not rocket science. Anyone could have seen this coming, but we were too busy owning the conservitards to notice that we were destroying the bedrock of the last 50 years of social progress.

Well here we are.

> That's enough for the court to hear a case on it again.

No it’s not. The existence of an independent, unchallenged basis invariably kills the possibility of Supreme Court review.

Thomas is on solid legal footing to argue that the “Due Process” clause doesn’t protect anything other than the right to receive legal process before being deprived of a legal right.

Extrapolating from that to interracial marriage, which rests on a different and vastly firmer legal ground, is a dirty smear tactic against a man who is himself in an interracial marriage.

>Extrapolating from that to interracial marriage, which rests on a different and vastly firmer legal ground, is a dirty smear tactic against a man who is himself in an interracial marriage.

You're calling him so morally bankrupt that he would only vote impartially on laws that don't impact him personally, while he would vote with his self interest in all other cases.

You stated upthread: “while having your interracial marriage dissolved.”

That suggests that Thomas would vote to overturn Loving, not that he would avoid it out of his own self interest.

Yes, I'm well aware I am not you.

People have been required to disclose vaccine status for decades in many situations.

Your right to privacy is not absolute; the state (and society in general) frequently need to know things about you to function well, including protecting public health and reducing senseless death.

This is a necessary evil for us to have a civilization in the first place and is not "destroying the bedrock of the last 50 years of social progress." Vaccine "mandates" are not unduly invasive, because the vaccine is free and shown beyond all reasonable doubt to be safe.

In any case, Loving v. Virginia was not decided on the basis of privacy at all - it was decided under the Equal Protection clause and the Due Process clause. If Thomas gets his way and decides to revisit the conclusion in this case, it will be because he does not think that marriage is a protected under the Privileges and Immunities clause.

It will have nothing to do with the right to privacy, because that case had nothing to do with it.

It doesn’t matter if the vaccine gives you wings and free beer for life. The government should NOT be able to mandate an injection (tested for not very long) into a person’s sovereign body. (I am vaccinated btw, not that it matters)

Privacy violations are NOT a necessary evil. They are the slipperiest of slopes. Look to china to see where this road ends. The government is not our parents, it’s a naughty power hungry child.

A government HAS to mandate behavior to create a functioning society. The idea of democracy is that everyone should participate in where the boundaries lie.

The tendency now it seems is for people to absolve themselves from maintaining a democratic discourse by taking a selfish absolutist position.

There will always exceptions.

Vaccinations are a public health concern. One of the few areas (in my personal philosophy) where the state can argue a legitimate interest in what would otherwise be a violation of personal privacy and autonomy.

The main problem is that most governments have historically shown themselves to use every possible angle they can come up with when they want to go after someone, no matter the legal stretch. Thus, collecting data that could be vital to a legitimate concern could also be later misused for other nefarious purposes. If governments would be the "bigger person" so to speak, and not stoop to dastardly levels, more people would have faith that the government would not infringe on their inherent rights without a damn good reason.

If the government cannot mandate it, then many states will. And said states will refuse to let you travel to them if you cannot provide proof of vaccination.

The reality is that vaccination has been a requirement to participate in society for decades. You have to be vaccinated to go to college, your children must be vaccinated to go to school. And if you want to travel countries will demand you provide proof of vaccination so that you're not a walking bag of diseases.

I could certainly imagine a larger pro-life contingent at Facebook than other tech companies.

Business Insider posted an article in 2019 on Facebook data showing that its "best-performing content is almost entirely from right- and far-right-wing publications and personalities" [1]

It's not entirely unlikely that in the intervening years, left-leaning employees have been more likely to leave, and right-leaning employees more likely to join.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-right-wing-echo-cha...

I'd expect FB to have more of a pro-life contingent than say, Twitter, but still small to my perspective. (I live in a purple district in a purple state, so it's not uncommon for half and half workplaces to exist).

I'd also expect that the majority of FB's right-leaning employees are of a SV libertarianish bent, and most of them are pro-choice or apathetic.

FB strikes me as a company with a very mercenary, self-interested workforce more than a partisan one.

There's way too much emotion in politics these days. I would like to see a return of rational discourse. I've had my fill of both the screaming liberals and the dusty conservatives. Most of the complex issues deal with morality so it's probably all for naught. The tip of the morality pyramid is God for most people. No point using empirical evidence when you don't believe in it to begin with.

> The tip of the morality pyramid is God for most people

I don't believe this is true in western societies anymore. Even in the US, people who describe themselves as "very religious" or belong to a church are the minority.

I looked it up and it's in decline but still three-quarters of America. Half of Americans said their religion is very important in their own life.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/358364/religious-americans.aspx

> people who describe themselves as "very religious" or belong to a church are the minority.

i’m not sure this is at all an accurate depiction of americans and religion. last i looked into it—which admittedly was like two years ago—an absolutely terrifying number of americans believed in angels and god. if i’m remembering correctly, it was a wild shocking number, like more than 70%.

i mean, if we’re limiting it to only self-described “very religious” maybe, but believing in god and angels is suspect enough in a persons rational judgement and that absolutely is not a minority of people.

There is no single depiction of "Americans and religion". The country is too large, physically, for that to be the case. I wouldn't even break it down to state level. I'd personally break it down closer to county level.

> There's way too much emotion in politics these days. I would like to see a return of rational discourse.

Politics affect people's daily lives. Suggesting that people should just ignore the inherent emotional component of these decisions and the impact that they have on our lives is both incredibly unrealistic and quite a privileged position to occupy.

Regardless, the actual policies should not be driven by emotion. The problem is, those in power weaponize the emotions of their constituents, and it makes very bad politics.

The people you speak of cannot learn and grow out of their false paradigms unless they are given the chance to fail.

Silencing them is a recipe for a chain reaction / cascade of failures. It is not a winning strategy.

> like we approach discussions around kubernetes

I've already deployed my CloudNative Political Belief System in a fault-tolerant EKS cluster with a fully implemented CI/CD pipeline.

> Yes i wish people would stop being so emotional about their rights being stripped from them

On a more serious note, I appreciate this sarcasm as my wife and I were devastated about this news because of how we feel it impacts us (we're done with having kids and the idea of getting pregnant again due to the rare chance of contraceptive failure is pretty scary for us). I feel like I am pretty sympathetic to the intention behind being both "pro-life" and "pro-choice" and this decision to overturn Roe vs Wade still made me feel very upset.

As this sarcastic comment eludes to, I am sure that others are far more devastated by this (imagine if you were a pregnant person planning on getting an abortion in Texas right now). I definitely have been re-evaluating my lack of sensitivity when I have asked or expected others to be level-headed when something infringes on what they feel is important. It has been a paradigm shift for me to feel so impacted by this -- and I'm not even a woman. My reaction to Roe vs Wade being overturned has definitely has highlighted my privilege in my life.

I'm not saying the parent comment of asking for less emotion in politics is being insensitive -- I just have always held a similar perspective of "less emotion in politics would be better for everyone" and for me I think it was often coming from a place of privilege.

An appeal to fewer emotions in politics can sometimes come from a place of privilege, but I'm coming to realize that it's still USEFUL.

I'm also in an odd, semi-orthogonal situation: I'm a homosexual female of child-bearing age, so while I may be impacted by this, it's far less likely than for other women and the situation would always be one of those tricky exceptions (plus, since most women are raped by men they know... if you know me and you rape me without murdering me, you're an idiot, and dead women don't get pregnant).

The issue with things being too emotional isn't that the emotions are bad or that people don't need support. They absolutely do. The issue is that if we ONLY focus on emotions and keep ourselves in panicked, fight-or-flight mode for all of our waking hours that we can't plan or strategize effectively. Deciding what to DO to make change requires a little emotional distance.

I think it's possible to both acknowledge the devastation people are feeling while also thinking it's counter-productive to ONLY have that conversation.

> I think it's possible to both acknowledge the devastation people are feeling while also thinking it's counter-productive to ONLY have that conversation.

Very good point -- I completely agree. From my place of privilege (again, not saying this about anyone else) I think I often considered emotion to be completely useless and to just set it aside. Thank you for the reminder that both emotion and logical thinking should be acknowledged.

> since most women are raped by men

One of the things that blows my mind about many pro-life arguments is how little responsibility is placed on men if they impregnate a woman. Women literally can't get pregnant without a man and yet the fixation surrounding abortion is on controlling the woman's body. And when this is acknowledged, it is accompanied by unreal ideas around stopping all rape completely. Idk, it seems to me like banning abortion is treating a symptom rather than the root of why unwanted pregnancies occur (i.e. lack of sex education, dysfunctional family/societal dynamics, etc.)

> Very good point -- I completely agree. From my place of privilege (again, not saying this about anyone else) I think I often considered emotion to be completely useless and to just set it aside. Thank you for the reminder that both emotion and logical thinking should be acknowledged.

Same hat, which is why I bring it up: If it can help somebody else figure this out before their 30s, it's good. In particular, emotions are great to help figure out priorities and set direction: If you don't feel anything, it's really hard to decide what you want to do with your life, for example.

> banning abortion is treating a symptom rather than the root of why unwanted pregnancies occur (i.e. lack of sex education, dysfunctional family/societal dynamics, etc.)

I mean, it is. Banning abortion is basically the only thing all pro-lifers agree on. To address the root of unwanted pregnancies, we'd all have to agree on the causes AND that unwanted pregnancies are the main concern. (For a certain percentage of pro-lifers it's more about discouraging non-reproductive sex than about preventing the death of the fetus).

As someone who had a surprise (but most welcome) pregnancy at 40, many years after an ectopic one, I’m coming to grips with the fact that my home state’s government, and possibly a large percentage of its residents including most of my close relatives, are ok with me dying if I have another ectopic and happen to be visiting when things get critical.

“But there are exceptions for the life of the mother, and an ectopic surely is that!”

How many women won’t seek medical help when the pain and bleeding start because they think it might be a “normal” miscarriage and are scared of being investigated for inducing an abortion?

I have the privilege of a German residence permit and a healthy bank account that would normally mean I could hop on a flight to my chosen home the next day to get medical assistance without fear, but in the age of Covid, that assumption has been overturned as well.

i think that will be the major test to strike down any ban law that does not have triage protected. it's a tough one cause both physical and mental conditions need to be considered and thus will have different medical opinions of which politicians opinions should play no part.

And in the meantime, women will die of causes we’ve been easily treating in developed countries for decades, because they’re scared of seeking assistance, or medical professionals are hesitant to get involved in something that could result in criminal charges.

I think the point is it's counterproductive when people run with their emotions. E.g. interrupting some local Catholic mass may feel like a good vent, but it hardens people against you even further and drives reactions at the polls which is the only thing that matters.

Emotions are feelings. You don't have control of them but you do have control over your actions and your speech. If we agree that policies should be rational, then we agree that emotions are non-productive here. The human rights you are talking about are not fundamental in any way, they are contrived. If the state does not protect human life, then nobody will. The issue is not as simple as you've made it out to be.