If men had babies we’d have called them women and the women men, and the women men would have been in charge instead of the men women and we’d still be right where we are now, except the shoes would be on the other feet.
It’s the attitude. You want civil liberties for corporations (which they are not entitled to) yet feel comfortable stripping civil liberties from people because it doesn’t impact you. Abortion doesn’t impact me, either, but civil liberties writ large are an important issue, and that includes agency over ones own body regardless of biology.
I’m pretty much align with Timex on abortion. I’m pro-choice, but I’m not comfortable with late-term abortions, because at some point a fetus becomes a baby.
But honestly, when we look at practical impact state abortion laws on women needing abortion, I think it is really exaggerated.
By most accounts, having an abortion is a traumatic experience for most women. Fortunately, it is something most (3/4) women will never have and very few will have more than twice.
So what happens to the women in say Ohio who wants to have an abortion that’s now outlawed. She gets a friend to drive her 2-3 hours to Pennsylvania or Michigan and get the abortion done there. Now admittedly, this makes a bad day, longer and shittier but it’s not the end of the world.
So what if Roe gets over turned, and all the red states and even some purple states outlaw abortion. What if women too poor to own a car and so are her friends. Damn near worse case I could imagine is young black woman in the middle of Mississippi My answer is she gets on bus and 6-10 to hours later she is in Chicago where she gets the procedure. It cost $26 ($33 on weekends) to get from Jackson MI to Chicago, ILL. The nice folks at Planned Parenthood take care of her for the night and the next day or so she returns home.
I’m not saying this is a good thing, or that it turning a traumatic day into a nightmare weekend doesn’t have an impact. But when I compared the El Salvodoran mom trying to get into this country. Or the Grandma trying to get help for her junkie daughter and her infant child, it just much less important to me.
I think the return of the back alley abortion, is just not world we ever are going back to because too many state will keep abortion legal.
To be specific, the attitude that put me off was the dismissive attitude of “I don’t care that much about that issue b/c it doesn’t impact me much”, not the substantive issue as such. There’s room for different substantive views on things like the exact details of which late term procedures should be allowed, IMO.
What I didn’t like was twofold: the dismissive “I don’t care much b/c it doesn’t impact me” - that’s a problem in a lot of ways. And also, it smacks of “not getting it”, even though I find the left overuses that concept a lot. One thing I’ve managed to learn in my now 51 years of life is that it’s easy to just imagine that the assumptions and priorities I have apply to everyone, but the reality is very different for different people. For example, for a hell of a lot of women in this country, abortion is not a minor issue, a health issue, a reproductive issue, etc. It’s an issue of fundamental self-determination. Without the legal right to make her own choices about abortion, a woman just doesn’t have the full freedoms that men enjoy without even thinking about it. And it goes beyond principle: for women, abortion is an economic issue, it’s a career-affecting issue, it’s a massive health-affecting issue, etc.
That’s half the reason why even small scale state level anti-choice laws are so threatening. The other half is that in our F’ed up political system, even a tiny little law is just part of near-infinite culture war on abortion, an ongoing campaign that is either going to end with woman having substantial rights to make their own choices, or not, period. You could argue that the abortion battle is the cultural/political Cold Civil War equivalent of a historical Cold War proxy war like Afghanistan or Vietnam, and we all know how vicious and attritional those wars were.
We can have substantive disagreements about abortion, and we can have debates about the fine details of certain things like late term procedures, but to just dismiss abortion as unimportant b/c “it doesn’t affect me much”, that’s weak IMO.
That’s what I was reacting to.
Well, Timex is more than capable of defending himself, but that’s really not how I read what he wrote.
For example, for a hell of a lot of women in this country, abortion is not a minor issue, a health issue, a reproductive issue, etc. It’s an issue of fundamental self-determination. Without the legal right to make her own choices about abortion, a woman just doesn’t have the full freedoms that men enjoy without even thinking about it. And it goes beyond principle: for women, abortion is an economic issue, it’s a career-affecting issue, it’s a massive health-affecting issue, etc.
This is all very eloquent and everything, but with respect, I don’t buy that’s it close to a “hell of a lot of women.” Most of the women, I’ve met in my life are pro-choice, some have abortions, and some have even gone to pro-choice rallies, but I can’t think of single one woman, I’ve known who would say it “fundamental self-determination.” Now women and men who work for Planned Parenthood or NARAL would almost certainly agree with you, but that’s tiny fraction of the population.
It’s not just abortion, it is pretty much everything we argue about on P&R. Most people are too busy worry about getting through Xmas with screaming at Uncle Joe, or wonder if there SO is cheating on them, or getting excited about Alabama football. It is Saturday night/Sunday morning a couple days before Christmas, most regular folks have better things to do than this. I love the passion on P&R, but I know most people don’t care this much about the issues. The reality is government (especially Federal) doesn’t really have that much impact on most people lives.
So when Timex says “but rather it just isn’t the most important issue to me.” he isn’t being dismissive. He’s just being a normal person.
Merry Christmas
Although the abortion rate has fallen a fair amount in recent years, about one women in four will have an abortion by age 45.
That’s simply not an issue of minor impact.
And there’s just the issue of being able to decide what to do with your own body. It’s a fundamental issue.
I’m married to a woman who not only would say that, but does say it frequently. Pretty much everyone we see as friends would say it as well. My opinion may not be the norm, but it’s the norm for me and my friends. If you can’t legally control what happens with your own body, well, that’s seriously F’ed up. And fundamental.
You do grasp that this is almost certainly a function of who you’re surrounded by than an actual meaningful piece of data, right? I mean, I spent most of my life surrounded by people who thought that the most important thing in the world was to reduce top marginal income and capital gains tax rates — because of the nature of my work — but that never made me believe that theirs was the majority opinion.
You should probably do your best to alienate me because I’m not suitably liberal and don’t agree with you on every issue. Especially ones like this, where I don’t even disagree with you, but rather it just isn’t the most important issue to me.
Don’t worry Timex, this is just the hallowed tradition of the 94% pure berating the 93% pure. It seems bad now, but the hazing will pay off for you in time when you get your chance to harangue the next wave of people leaving the republican party. :D
This is false:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/nada-logan-stotland-md-mph/abortion-trauma-syndrome-_b_776342.html
The scientific evidence from studies of large populations of women indicates that having an abortion neither alleviates nor causes psychiatric disorders. Women have a variety of normal emotional reactions after abortion, including sadness as well as relief, and those reactions vary over days, weeks and years. As with any life decision, some women regret having had abortions, although, when they recall the circumstances that led them to the decision at the time, they often say that, faced with the same circumstances, they would make the same decision. Braving a crowd of screaming agitators at an abortion clinic increases the emotional stress of abortion. So does misinformation about the procedure. But regret and emotional reactions are not disorders.
Studies and policies aimed at preventing abortions often fail to take into account the fact that the outcomes of abortion must be compared with those of carrying a pregnancy to term; that is the only alternative for a pregnant woman. Pregnancy and childbirth are associated with clinical depression in at least 10 percent of women, and with more tragic outcomes in a small fraction. (emphasis added)
Ah, the fallacy of relative privation rears its head. There are innumerable issues less dire than these. Should we wave them all away?
This is facile. I can think of many worse cases than this, and even this case is more difficult than you suggest. (And would her situation necessarily be better if she were white?) What if this woman is already a mother? (29% of women cite “need to focus on her other children” as the primary reason they chose abortion.) Now she has to deal with childcare. She has to deal with lost wages. Will her health insurance cover the cost of the abortion ($400-1000 for a first trimester abortion.) How much easier it would have been to walk down to the pharmacy and pick up some Plan B.
Wow, I mean, people saying this doesn’t affect many women…you do realize that women have been shit on in this country for most of its existence, right? And curtailing or rolling back ANY rights that they have is pretty much continuing that shit fest? So when you say that taking away some of their rights isn’t really big deal or doesn’t affect many women, that’s kind of not getting the point. You might laugh it off and say Oh, they’d never take away any REAL rights, just remember that this current administration has zero regard for the rights of non-white males.
What if men weren’t allowed to use Viagra? Or if men suddenly weren’t allowed to, I don’t know, have a gun on their person at all times to fulfill their vigilante hero wet dream?
No dude, that’s not what i said at all. Go check the quote again.
It’s good that i didn’t say that then, right?
You misread my post.
Actually, I did misread the post, so I will publicly apologize. Timex was being dismissive about Kasich’s vote for an abortion restriction not the concept of abortion entirely.
Therefore, I was wrong and I apologize.
Now, the question of whether abortion is a topic of major impact is a separate issue. I do think that for a lot of women, it is an is of fundamental self-determination.
Thank you, yes, my statement was not that abortion doesn’t impact me and thus i don’t care. I said that abortion was not a primary driver of my vote, and thus this aspect of Kasich’s policy making doesn’t have as much of an impact on me.
And, to be clear, i specifically stated that I would oppose something like the heartbeat bill, because it would impact the liberty of many more people, with no real rational basis.
I appreciate you going back and rereading it. I didn’t want to simply restate myself immediately, for fear that some would simply suggest i was changing what I said.
My actual views on abortion are pragmatic. I support abortions early on with no hesitation. It’s a cluster of cells. Very late term abortions, i do not support, except in cases where the child isn’t viable anyway. But this tends not to be an issue, since such abortions are virtually never performed because they are dangerous and ethical doctors won’t do them… And they are generally illegal as a result anyway.
And if abortion is the single driving issue for you, that’s fine. I said that, explicitly. But it’s not for me. There are bigger issues that impact far more people. If someone agrees with me on those bigger issues, then i will support them over someone who doesn’t, regardless of their position on abortion. And a big party of this is that i think the current precedent in the supreme Court effectively protects some large portion of the status quo. I don’t believe that either of the new justices are going to overturn RvW.
Actually, thanks for making my case for me. If abortion isn’t as traumatic as thought, then her trip isn’t as miserable as I suggested. It is really a function of cost and inconvenience. No the color of her skin shouldn’t make much difference, I’m just stipulating she is your stereotypical dirt poor women (who are predominately African American in MI) living in the poorest state in the land, surrounded by red state in post-Roe world. She lacks health insurance, and yes she’d probably need to leave her kids with her family. Planned Parenthood would provide the abortion free of charge, because she is poor. All of this is pain in the ass yes, but these are not anywhere close to insurmountable hurdles. The primary reason, I’m pro-choice is I so no point in making it harder for women to get an abortion.
Even in post-Roe world, Amazon is still going deliver Generic Plan B for $9.99 and I don’t believe there will be anything the states can do to prevent it, so again changing the abortion laws will not have a major practical on the difficulty of obtaining an abortion, you can use Plan B or you can travel to another state.
As for the importance of abortion.
According to the Fox News Voter Analysis, only 2 percent of voters in Tuesday’s midterm elections said abortion was the most important issue facing the country. Among those voters, 77 percent supported Republicans and 18 percent voted for Democrats.
Another poll (for 2016 election) abortion was the 3rd least important among women and 2nd least important issue among men So Timex and I hardly alone in not viewing abortion as our most important issue.
Both sides use abortions primarily for fund-raising and to energize their base. But when you really analyze it, nothing short of a nationwide ban on abortion, and banning of after-morning bills will dramatically impact the number of abortions in this country, which like crime, teen pregnancy, have been trending down this century.
You really are desperately out of touch. I mean, is there anything more arrogant than a rich man telling poor women what they can afford, and doing it while explaining to them that it’s really not a problem for them?
It’s not about abortion; it’s about curtailing women’s rights. The same party wants to ban abortion AND ban easy access to birth control.
Let’s keep women barefoot and pregnant. Like god intended.
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez responds to critics of dancing with more battle dancing.
Man, for the life of me I couldn’t remember the name of Hillary’s running mate today. And when I shamefully looked it up, the first thing I said to myself was: Who the hell is that?
It’s been a long two years.