Terminalcoffee discussion

Why are people increasingly seeing a woman's right to control her own body and her own reproduction as less important?

I didn't know this was a trend, but fuck'em if they want to take away that right. Who are these people to whom you refer?

The governor of North Dakota just signed a bill restricting abortion to before a fetal heartbeat can be heard, which is usually six weeks. Many women don't even know they're pregnant at that early stage. It's almost universally acknowledged that this bill wouldn't pass constitutional muster, but the question is, in the meantime, is it law? Are women and girls going to be prevented from getting abortions until it has wended its way to some court, if it does?

Recently Arkansas restricted abortions to prior to twelve weeks.

But my question still stands: why do a large majority of people now want to see gay marriage made legal, but we don't have the same large majority for reproductive rights? Why are they moving in opposite directions?

Are North Dakota and Arkansas in favor of gay rights?

ND and AR are most definitely NOT gay friendly, so their legislators are consistent on the two issues LG mentioned. Consistently WRONG, that is.

I believe abortion is morally wrong, but the state shouldn't have the power to preclude me from making that choice if I'm willing to live with the consequences.

I agree with Misha. Fanatics have organized to drive changes they want. We've let it happen by assuming that once a right was won, no one would take it away.

But Cox told the Washington Post that it could partly be due to public awareness and the increased visibility of LGBT people. “In our research, having a close friend that’s gay or lesbian can have a profound impact on support,” Cox explained. “We see this across Democrats, Republicans, and Evangelicals. It really cuts across a lot of demographics and, in a lot of ways, is more powerful than ideology.”

The same isn’t true for women who have abortions. Most Americans know someone who is gay or lesbian, but they often don’t have the same personal connections with women’s own abortion stories. That’s not because women who have abortions are rare — in fact, one in three U.S. women has had an abortion by the time she is 45 years old — but rather because of a lingering stigma surrounding this aspect of women’s reproductive care. That societal stigma ultimately dissuades women from being open about their experiences with abortion by reinforcing messages about how the procedure is morally depraved, something to be ashamed of, and something women always regret.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/...

When I was in my mid-20s I was in a relationship that was becoming increasingly serious. One evening, my girlfriend confided in me that she had, several years earlier, had an abortion. She did not regret the choice she made, but she certainly did not talk about it lightly.

Since that time, several other friends have confided in me that they, too, had terminated pregnancies. The latest "came out" just last month. We may not think we know women who have had an abortion, but odds are that each and every one of us has at least one such person in our lives.

When we spend hour after hour, day after day moralizing, we don't have enough time left to listen.

Nicely said.

I think the best moral of the story goes something like "until you walk in another person's shoes"...

I'll say up-front that I am not keen on abortion as retro-active birth-control. However I don't think that my opinion gives me the right to make that decision for other people.

The tail wagging the Republican dog these days is extremist, usually christian-extremist. These people have nothing to do with conservatism or conservative values.

The fact that they've lost on same-sex marriage doesn't mean that they are going to stop trying to push every aspect of their agenda. They may be trying all the harder on abortion because they have lost on same-sex marriage. This is a religious issue and as such does not belong under the government's mandate. The government's opinion should be based solely on the science and other than that they should stay the hell out of it.

In my (limited) experience, Michael, it has not been used as you describe. In many cases it was defective birth control that necessitated the abortion. In two cases the pregnancy was caused by a rape.

No, Mr. Politician, the female body does NOT have "ways of shutting that whole thing down."

Phil, I have seen it used in exactly that fashion, but I certainly don't think it's that way all the time. In any case my approval is or disapproval is irrelevant- It's NOT my place to decide for other people.

Kansas set to enact life-starts-"at fertilization" abortion law

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/0...

In addition to the provision specifying when life begins, the bill prevents employees of abortion clinics from providing sex education in schools, bans tax credits for abortion services and requires clinics to give details to women about fetal development and abortion health risks. It also bans abortions based solely on the gender of the fetus.

Ah, more enlightened legislation. These ass-hats want the government to stay out of their lives and business out not out of women's bodies. I've run out of curses...

To try and answer Lobestergirls question: But my question still stands: why do a large majority of people now want to see gay marriage made legal, but we don't have the same large majority for reproductive rights? Why are they moving in opposite directions?

People tend to take views in trends and follow what we here. We very rarely vote or take an opinion opposite if our vocal leaders. Such as a person who watches Fox news will usually follow a conservative commentator such as O'Riley or Rush. A liberal person will do the same with MSNBCS Olberman.
A good example is Obama's 08 election. Hillary Clinton was leading Obama up until Oprah said on Larry King that she was supporting Obama. Over night the polls did a 180.
There is no reflection in polls that opinions change when they contradict each other. The best example I can think of for that is the class of thinking that says we should have ID to vote, some say people can't afford ID, and lose voting rights. However the same class is pushing to get free state ID cards so people who can't afford them have proper ID for employment.
This takes us back to issues being trendy, It goes back as far as America. When the founders wrote the Declaration, the trend was against king rule. In fact the Declaration was written not to tell King Richard we were declaring independence, it was meant to define to Americans why we wanted to do so.
Move forward to 1861 Lincoln. The dominant trend was slavery. Lincoln changed parties from Whig to Republican knowing that the pro slavery south was predominantly Democrat. He insured his election by taking a position on slavery as a republican. In fact Lincoln was more concerned with keeping the nation whole then he was with slavery but taking a position in the then trendy issue got him elected. If Lincoln had ran as a Whig, and or debated on keeping the nation as a whole, he would have lost the election to Buchanan.
Sorry this is so wordy but your simple question requires a complex answer

Sorry for typos, I'm on my phone.

Honestly, I think that it should be the woman's choice to choose if they want an abortion or not. What place does the government have, telling us what we can and can't do with our bodies? Rape is illegal, but it still happens, and I don't see the government making a big fuss over that!

Dew, I stopped reading when I got to "MSNBC'S Olberman."

Keith Olbermann hasn't been on MSNBC since January of 2011.

Just an example of a liberal commentator Phil, Rush isn't on Fox either.

Cam wrote: "Honestly, I think that it should be the woman's choice to choose if they want an abortion or not. What place does the government have, telling us what we can and can't do with our bodies? Rape is i..."

+1

Why, thank you, Phil. I try. xD

I never get plus-y ones.

::pouts::

Susan wrote: "Cam is totally awesome."

+1

Marriage equality is here; abortion rights are under assault by Catholics and right-wingers more than ever before. I find it difficult to come up with a strong argument in favor of abortion, even though I'm in favor of it. How do you put it into words that pro-lifers can listen to?

Scout wrote: "Marriage equality is here; abortion rights are under assault by Catholics and right-wingers more than ever before. I find it difficult to come up with a strong argument in favor of abortion, even t..."

[ The following is an excerpt from an email I wrote in November of 2012. It was part of a boisterous discussion with a group that ranged from radically left atheists to Roman Catholics. I don't know that pro-lifers have good listening skills. So do with this what you will. ]

. . .
Roe is a problematic decision. Brilliantly written. Flawed in it being about many topics not directly and then only narrowly connected to abortion. It overturned a position in law that was unconstitutional that was being used in the set of circumstances relating to the original case. It should be revisited to strengthen the protections it defined.

It is intriguing the number of men (myself included of course) who continue to think they've got a say or have real stake in this topic in the modern world. I'm not going to die as a result of abortion access/denial. My continuing ability to have children, or not, is not going to be affected in any way by the same access or denial. My real mental health from organic damage isn't going to be affected either. And perhaps most importantly in many cases, my ability to raise my already existing children won't be destroyed. Any questions or need of further examples Neanderthals?

. . .

I agree that men in general shouldn't have a say in this issue. In addition to your arguments, there's a real financial cost for a single woman who's coerced into having a child. If she's in college, her education is interrupted or possibly ended. It's biologically determined that the woman has inescapable physical, and therefore financial, responsibility for the child. Not so for the man. I know, as a divorced mother of a small child, that it's difficult to force a man to support a child, even when he's the legal parent. Even more difficult, I would think, to get support when you're not married and the child is the result of a casual encounter. The state is really not much help in this situation, so one must have the financial resources to hire an attorney. Many single women don't have those resources and find themselves with an infant, no affordable daycare, therefore no income. A bad situation for woman and child who, in the absence of a support system, must resort to welfare. But pro-lifers will say a woman should have the child and put it up for adoption. What's a good response to that?

Scout wrote: "But pro-lifers will say a woman should have the child and put it up for adoption. What's a good response to that?"

When it's your pregnancy, you have every right to make that choice. When it is not, you do not.

A new law in Utah will compel doctors to administer anesthesia to patients getting abortions at and beyond 20 weeks of gestation.

The law was written by an accountant.

The purpose of the anesthesia (administered to the woman) is supposedly because the embryo/fetus feels pain. However, the medical consensus is that the fetus does not feel pain before 20 weeks; connections between the thalamus and the cortex are not made until between week 23 and week 30 of gestational age, and these connections are a precursor to pain perception.

Anesthesia is never without risk; this is why doctors limit its use to absolute necessity. This law compels doctors to administer anesthesia for an unnecessary purpose, which is dangerous and medically unethical.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/...

"One day after the Food and Drug Administration relaxed its guidelines for use of an abortion-inducing drug, Arizona’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey, signed a bill on Thursday requiring abortion clinics to follow the earlier protocol, which medical experts have described as outdated, overly restrictive and less healthy for women."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/02/us/...

People seem to lose their brains when it comes to uteri (utersuses? uterii?)

Oklahoma advances measure to revoke licenses of doctors who perform abortions

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/...

Yeah...this is not constitutional, so if the law passes, probably what will happen is Planned Parenthood/the ACLU will file for an injunction against the law, and it will be stayed until a court can rule on it. Basically Oklahoma is just wasting their taxpayers' money on a fruitless effort.

This is what Planned Parenthood has done against Indiana's law (which would go into effect July 1) which prohibits abortion in the early stages of a pregnancy based on genetic abnormalities and mandates a fetus be buried or cremated.

I think one reason the abortion issue is so tricky is that it involves babies (at least in the minds of some). It packs a serious emotional punch to hold up a photo of a 20 week 3D ultrasound and say, "Abortion will kill this baby." You don't have anything equivalent to that with gay marriage. Hence the resistance you see to legal abortion has far more staying power. A lot of anti-abortion people I've encountered truly believe it is murder.* And many of the pro-choice people I know feel it does mean killing a baby, and they would never choose to do it themselves, but they've decided that it's not something you should legislate. I don't know what the numbers come out to, but it would seem, at least from my anecdotal experience, that quite a lot of people see abortion as killing babies. In that light, it's hard to accept that it should be a legal, common medical procedure. To some extent I fall into the second category, where I would feel like I was ending the potential for a life (though I wouldn't call that life a baby and I wouldn't use the word murder). I can't imagine a scenario where I'd choose abortion other than one where the fetus had a severe, ultimately deadly problem such as trisomy 13 or 18. However, long ago I realized it wasn't up to me to make that choice for anyone else.

So here's why I'm staunchly pro-choice, despite my personal feelings on the issue. Maybe this will help you address the issue with those who are "pro-life."

Making abortion illegal doesn't make it go away. It will still happen, but it will be unregulated, and it will happen in bad conditions. It will be performed by people who are not doctors, or who are not ethical doctors. Women will die, but also, it condemns these "babies" to death in terrible conditions. You are exchanging death by precise surgical instruments for death by coat hanger or the equivalent.

By making abortion harder to access, you are making it more probable that a desperate woman will wait longer to get the abortion she has decided she will have no matter what. So instead of ending a life early on when it has hardly developed beyond the embryonic stage, you will see far more abortions happen to fetuses that do begin to resemble babies.

If you are truly against abortion, the only thing that has been shown to consistently reduce the number of abortions is clear, straight-forward sex education that does not emphasize abstinence, and easy access to birth control. That's it. You want to bring the number of abortions down? Lobby for sex ed starting in elementary school and continuing on through the end of high school, with condom demonstrations and frank talk about what's what. And have birth control in various forms, particularly condoms and the morning after pill, available for free in multiple locations, so anyone who needs it can get it.

*People who claim to believe abortion is murder, but who make an exception for rape or incest, are not actually being honest (possibly even with themselves). A fetus is either an innocent life or it isn't--how that life came to be, whether the sex was consensual, has no bearing on the value of that life. People who make that exception are, in fact, trying to control women, and want to "punish" women who choose to have sex with carrying a baby to term. Otherwise, why make an exception for women who didn't choose to have sex? If the issue is the life of a baby, how the baby was conceived is irrelevant.